Darren White's Secret Debate

According to a post on Democracy for New Mexico and a report in the Las Cruces Sun-News

Darren White and Joe Carraro met for a debate Saturday.
A secret debate. Carraro spoke out on the record against the secret meeting.

It's a public meeting between two candidates for public office in a public place and it's closed to the media. What are you afraid of?" State Sen. Joe Carraro, who is seeking the GOP nomination in the 1st District, said after the meeting. "It needs to be transparent. We need to not go behind closed doors."

"Darren White said,

"I would have no problem with the media attending any of these events, but I didn't set the rules" .

Sounds like Beth Everitt saying

"I'd love to tell you the truth about the corruption in the police department, and in the finance department, and at the Uptown Administrative Complex, but the law won't let me."

Or District Attorney Kari Brandenburg saying

"I'd love to release public records of public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS and the BCSO, but the law won't let me."

According to the Sun;

"The man who set up the debate, Rory Ogle, said later that it was his decision, not the candidates' choice, to close the meeting to journalists.

He said there were "a lot of people in the audience running as delegates to the state preprimary convention and I wanted them to feel free to ask any questions from the candidates."

Those attending the forum do not normally deal with the press and they might hesitate to ask questions for fear of embarrassing the candidates or because they think they would sound stupid, he said.

Ogle said he talked personally with Carraro and White about the rules ahead of time.

Carraro denied that he agreed to closing the meeting ahead of time."

Any candidate who will not answer any legitimate question in public and on the record, for that reason alone, forfeits any reasonable expectation that voters would trust them.

Apparently, White later claimed that he did not stand up against secret debating, because he didn't want to embarrass the brainiac who decided to hold a secret debate in the first place.

Joe Carraro should not have participated in a secret debate, but give him credit at least for standing up for what he believes in publicly before allowing the doors to be closed.

Darren White on the other hand, never found the balls
to take a public stand on secret debates.

The worst thing that any public servant can do
is anything they have to do in secret.


Both of them are running against Martin Heinrich;
the Democrat candidate in the first congressional district.

"He's for transparency in government, not secrecy."

according to Democracy for New Mexico.


Not surprisingly, this story is not being covered by the Journal (I will bow to controverting fact).
(Mea culpa; I missed the story, Saturday morning. >link<)