Politics & Government

Warren Wants to Debate One Last Time; Brown Doesn't

The Democratic challenger and Republican incumbent in the much-watched race for the Senate are at odds on whether the reschedule their final debate.

Democratic Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren wants to hold a final debate with Scott Brown after all — but it's not clear the incumbent Republican Senator will agree to it.

On Monday, both camps in the down-to-the-wire election cancelled a debate that was to have been held Tuesday night. They cited safety concerns surrounding Hurricane Sandy.

"It is simply not appropriate to go forward with a political debate when a disaster strikes," a Brown press aide said in a statement on Monday. "The focus for all of us before, during and after the storm needs to be on emergency response and disaster relief, not campaigns and politics."

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Warren's camp followed suit shortly afterward on Monday with their own statement.

"Elizabeth believes the debate should not be held tomorrow," wrote Warren Campaign Manager Mindy Myers at the time.

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But, at least for the Warren camp, that calculus changed Tuesday. Myers said the next 48 hours should be devoted to storm recovery. But after that? Game on.

"Elizabeth believes that the final televised debate should occur," Myers wrote in a Tuesday statement, "and we have contacted the debate organizers and let them know she would be available to participate on Thursday evening."

The Globe reports Brown does not want a final debate, though he didn't rule it out.

"We’ve already had three debates. I had two radio debates that she didn’t participate in," Brown told the Globe Tuesday as he examined hurricane damage in Westport.

Brown and Warren had been scheduled to meet Tuesday night in Boston for a live debate moderated by CNN's John King. The debate was to be sponsored by a group of Boston media outlets.


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