Do you favor fair and open debates?

UPDATE 7-21-2010

Official press release from Rick Flanigan for Congress 2010
 
Local NBC affiliate, Oklahoma's News Channel 4 (KFOR) has scheduled a taping of a candidate forum for Oklahoma's 5th District for July 22, 2010.  They will be including five of the seven Republican candidates and the two Democratic candidates.  Two of the Republican Candidates and the two Independent candidates have intentionally been excluded. The invitations are based upon a recent poll by Sooner Poll.  This same poll showed that nearly 30% of respondents are undecided which is higher than for any of the candidates.  The poll has a margin of error of 5.6%.  KFOR has said that they only invited candidates polling above 2% which statistically would be every Republican candidate in the race since the margin of error is higher than the cutoff.  Furthermore the two Democrats were not even included in the poll and have no polling data available.

It is Rick Flanigan's contention that KFOR has intentionally excluded Harry Johnson and himself in order to prevent voters from hearing from candidates that they may not agree with and have replaced them with two candidates that will not even be on the same ballot as the Republicans.    Rick Flanigan has been invited to be interviewed by KOCO, KWTV, and FOX25, The Daily Oklahoman, KTOK, The Associated Press, virtually every news outlet in the area excepting KFOR.  The only contact KFOR has had with the campaign before today was for advertising purposes.  Rick Flanigan says "I like to think that KFOR's decision is not based upon the fact that we have not bought advertising with them, but at this point that is exactly how it appears." Mary Ann Eckstein Sr. VP/ News director for KFOR is quoted as saying "It is our discretion to choose who we want" and "Sir, you are not invited"
Each of the candidates were allowed to invite seven guests as spectators and Rick and Cathie Flanigan will be attending the candidate forum as spectators as they were personally invited by four of the five candidates that will be participating in the forum. 
Rick and Cathie Flanigan would like to extend their personal gratitude to James Lankford, Rep Shane Jett, Dr. Johnny Roy, and Rep Mike Thompson for inviting them to be their guests. It is refreshing that most of the candidates in this race believe in open and fair conversation about the issues.  The only candidate that did not extend an invitation to Rick Flanigan was former Rep Kevin Calvey. The lack of an invitation from Mr. Calvey is likely attributable to Mr. Flanigan's recent attacks on Mr. Calvey's record of authoring HB1559 which extended state benefits to illegal immigrants in the way of in-state tuition and calling into question his fundraising in which 77% of his itemized receipts have come from outside the district or personal loans.

 

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Our local "news" station is hosting a candidate forum for Oklahoma's 5th district and is including 5 of the 7 Republican candidates and both of the Democrat candidates.  Apparently when it comes to the other two Republican candidates (Rick Flanigan and Harry Johnson) there is simply no room at the inn.  If you are sick and tired of the powers that be choosing who you get to hear from, I would ask you to let them know.  Please forward this to your friends and family because the cause of freedom should not be silenced by the media.  Below you will find a copy of the email that I sent to KFOR.  Will you be heard or will you sit down and shut up while the media tells you to just live with it.

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Chuck Musgrove Chuck.musgrove@kfor.com
Mary Ann Eckstein Maryann.eckstein@kfor.com
Linda Cavanaugh linda.cavanaugh@kfor.com
Kevin Ogle kevin.ogle@kfor.com
 
KFOR Main station number  (405) 424-4444
KFOR news hotline (405) 478-6397
 
 
In reference to the Candidate Forum to be hosted by KFOR and moderated by Linda Cavanaugh and Kevin Ogle
 
I wanted to take this opportunity to express my disappointment with KFOR's decision to only include some of the candidates for the Republican nomination for US Representative for Oklahoma's 5th District.  I believe that the media in this Country have failed miserably in their responsibility to educate the public on the issues that are important to the general public, and I am very disappointed to see News Channel 4 follow the same model.  You are holding a Candidate forum for the race for the primary yet you leave out two of the Republican candidates in order to include the Democratic candidates.  I am sure that I do not need to remind you that the Democratic candidates will NOT even be on the same ballot as the Republican candidates.  Why not take two more Republicans out of the forum and include your choice for the Democrat and Republican nominee for Governor.  Well of course you wouldn't want to do that because it would not make sense even though the voters in Oklahoma will be voting for Governor in the primary as well.  The logic of including the Democratic candidates for US congress with the Republican candidates is just as flawed.
 
You say that your decision of who should and should not be included is based upon polling data and included the candidates that polled above 2%.  Well if you are referring to the latest sooner poll, you should notice that the margin of error for this poll was
± 5.6 percent.  With that margin of error every candidate in this race could be above your 2% cutoff.  Consider also that 29.1% of the respondents are still undecided.  In this seven man race it is likely that the two candidates that go into the runoff will each have in the 20-30% range of the vote.  That being said it is easy to see that the undecided voters in the poll will likely be the deciders of this race.  Yet KFOR has decided that the undecided do not even have the right to see all of the choices available to them in this race.  I am sure that if the Democrats had been included in the same poll that neither of them would have been included in your event either. This poll was taken of 307 likely voters.  What defines a likely voter these days.  These likely voters are the ones who have voted regularly in the past, but I would contend that during this election we will see a much larger turnout than in elections past and therefore the poll is flawed because it did not include newly registered Republican that have left the Democratic party.  This is a new political climate and the "unlikely" voter may actually be the ones who decide this election. I find myself wondering if "Oklahoma's News Channel" is really for Oklahomans.
 
I understand that you will make the argument of time constraints, but consider that if the two candidates who are not even on the Republican ballot were not included then the time used per candidate would remain the same.  But if you included all eleven candidates instead of the "chosen" ones then each candidate would have approximately 2 minutes less time to speak.  That 2 minutes could easily be made up if each answer were 35 seconds instead of 45 seconds.  So you have basically disenfranchised the voting public so that each candidate will have the opportunity to give an extra 10 seconds of ums and uhs with each answer.
 
The media have a duty and responsibility to the voting public to give the most honest and accurate information available and you have failed in this endeavor because your viewers will NOT receive the most accurate information. In the last year of campaigning if there is one thing I have learned it is that the voters are tired of the status quo and KFOR is simply more of the same. 
 
I can not speak for any of the other candidates in this race but as for me, I made a decision over a year ago to get into this race because I was sick and tired of the same ole same ole.  I have made immeasurable personal sacrifices to run in this race and I am personally very disappointed with the oligarchical attitude of KFOR in deciding who should and should not be heard from in this race. 
 
Thirty years ago I would listen to Linda Cavanaugh ask "Do you know where your kids are" and think now there is someone who cares.  Today I hear "you're not our choice" and I think there is someone who could care less.  How far you have come. KFOR spends more time telling us how much Grandma's china is worth than they will spend telling us who our next Congressperson could be.  It is good to see where your priorities are.
 
Knowledge is power and the first amendment was designed to protect a media who empowers the people and KFOR has completely failed in the most important duty of informing its viewers.
 
As a candidate I have been treated fairly by every other news station in this market and I am utterly shocked that KFOR is the only station to do otherwise.  KWTV, KOCO, KTOK, FOX25 have all done interviews and collected information about me and my candidacy, so why would I expect any thing different from KFOR.
 
Here are a few other poll results you might consider:
 
in February I came in 3rd place in the okeveryman.com poll of over 1500 voters.
in February on Mike McCarville's website I came in 3rd as well
in December in a KTOK poll I came in 2nd with over 24.6%
 
and if you would like a chuckle, you can take a look at this poll of 7 VERY likely voters in which I tied for 1st with 2 other candidates.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgVOC_B7TPU
 
 
 
Assuming you actually read this far, thank you for allowing me to sound off.