Hurt opts out of today's 5th District debate

The first debate of the 5th District’s three-way campaign for Congress takes place today in the Charlottesville area — but Republican nominee Robert Hurt won’t be there.

Today’s 1:30 p.m. forum, hosted by the Senior Statesmen of Virginia at the Senior Center, is traditionally the first debate of the campaign season and will be held even without Hurt’s participation.

U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, will be in attendance, as will Jeff Clark, an independent candidate and member of Danville’s Tea Party.

Hurt has declined to attend any debate that includes Clark, saying he will only agree to debate Perriello in a one-on-one setting.

Hurt’s campaign did not respond to questions Tuesday about why Hurt, a state senator from Chatham, had decided to skip today’s candidate forum.

Perriello criticized Hurt’s decision in an interview Tuesday morning before hosting a town hall meeting in Scottsville.

“If you’re too scared to make your case to the voters, then how easily are you going to get crushed up in Washington in terms of having any independence?” Perriello said. “It’s an important part of the process and I hope Sen. Hurt will show up and try to make his case.”

Two years ago, Perriello faced six-term incumbent Virgil H. Goode Jr., a Republican, at the Senior Center in the first debate of Perriello’s ultimately victorious challenge.

“This is where I first debated Virgil Goode, so it’s got a lot of significance to me,” Perriello said. “Plus my grandparents were members of the Senior Center.”

Jim Peterson, the treasurer of the Senior Statesmen of Virginia and a member of its board, will keep a spot ready for Hurt at today’s forum in case the senator reconsiders.

“We’re going to go ahead and set a nice place for him and set up a table for his campaign, even though we understand he’s not coming,” Peterson said.

Hurt is the first candidate to decline to participate in the forum since the Senior Statesmen began holding its annual event in 1996.

“During all that time, we’ve never had a candidate not participate,” Peterson said. “We think it’s going to be well attended [today], whether he shows up or not.”

Isaac Wood, a House race expert at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said candidates who skip debates can look like “debate dodgers” but must balance that risk with the political benefits of not taking part in the debates.

Hurt’s campaign will be watching today to see if the audience is sympathetic to his decision to avoid such debates, Wood said. Perriello’s campaign, he added, will be watching to see if the congressman is applauded for showing up and if Hurt is criticized for avoiding the event.

“Tomorrow will be a real test for both sides,” he said Tuesday. “Both sides will be looking to see what the reaction is. We’ll see who’s winning the debate about the debates.”

Today’s forum is not the first Charlottesville-area debate Hurt has chosen not to attend.

In late January, Hurt declined to appear at a GOP primary candidate debate sponsored by the Jefferson Area Tea Party. Hurt said at the time that he could not attend the Friday night debate because it occurred during the General Assembly session in Richmond.

At that debate, organizers erected a tiny cardboard cutout of Hurt’s face atop a coat and tie in the senator’s chair.