With Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s change of heart and recommitment to participate in Thursday’s gubernatorial forum, he managed to narrowly avoid giving his opponents campaign fodder and fulfilled a vital benefit for voters looking to learn more about the candidates beyond statements at staged events, political observers say.
McKee drew controversy when he said on April 28 that he wouldn’t participate in the event hosted by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, even though his campaign earlier had committed to attending. Just days later, he reversed course and said he would attend.
On Thursday, the RIPEC forum was held for its members at Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick, featuring all declared Democrat and Republican candidates, including McKee.
The governor’s shifting plans raised questions about his motivations behind dropping out of the event, as well as his later change of course. McKee’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
Forums such as this are not just an opportunity for candidates to make a statement but ultimately serve to benefit voters who see the candidates address issues in moments that aren't scripted, according to political observers.
“They’re a great benefit to voters because it’s an opportunity to hear what [candidates] have to say on a range of questions that affect their lives that they might not think to ask," said Wendy J. Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown University.
“For voters, you’d want as full participation as possible,” Schiller said, although she added that candidates can also gain voters’ confidence if they are informative through other avenues, such as news conferences.
John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said that debate coverage in the media tends to produce the most useful information for voters, compared with “horserace-oriented” coverage.
"At press conferences or rallies, candidates aren’t being held accountable to their positions,” Marion said, “but at the debates, the candidates [want to] create contrast with one another as they provide more information about their positions.”
While McKee created a stir with his earlier announcement that he would not attend any debates and forums until the candidate field had solidified at the end of June, it’s not uncommon for an incumbent to skip such events, Schiller and Marion say.
“This is a standard strategy for incumbents,” Schiller said, “particularly when they have the opportunity to distribute a lot of money over the next few months,” such as in the case of Rhode Island’s American Rescue Act Plan allocations.
Schiller didn’t take a stance on whether not attending the forum was a good idea for McKee, but she said incumbents generally think of skipping debates so they can instead spend time "marketing what you’ve done, rather than facing questions from your opponents.”
How McKee is faring in the campaign isn’t clear. No polls for the gubernatorial election have been made public, but a quarterly Morning Consult poll released in late April ranked McKee as the third-least popular governor in the U.S.
Marion also noted that “typically, it’s in the interest of challengers to have more debates, and frontrunners to have fewer debates.”
But to Marion, McKee’s previous decision not to attend the event “didn’t make a lot of sense because he’s not a runaway frontrunner for the nomination, and it would create an issue that his opponents could use against him.”
With McKee’s reversed decision, Marion added, “it appears that he may have realized that and decided to diffuse the issues by agreeing to appear.”
