Rubio and Murphy debate on debates, delaying more debates

TALLAHASSEE — With Democrat Patrick Murphy quietly declining debates proposed by two of Florida's largest newspapers and Republican incumbent Marco Rubio adding two other debates to his list of acceptable possibilities, Florida's top U.S. Senate candidates are no closer to mutually agreeing to more debates before Election Day.

Murphy and Rubio have so far committed to only two events together: a debate on Oct. 17 in Orlando and another in Davie on Oct. 26.

Both campaigns say publicly that they're open to potential compromise, but the odds of that being anything more than political posturing are slim. Neither Rubio nor Murphy is giving an inch, but each continues to accuse the other of ducking ample chances to debate.

Rubio has accepted at least eight invitations to debate Murphy. He added two this week: one from Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace and another from the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute and WJXT Channel 4.

Neither of those events have confirmed dates — a detail that would require negotiations with Murphy's campaign, which hasn't come to the table. It's unlikely Murphy would accept the Fox News debate, though, because the cable news channel caters to a conservative audience.

Meanwhile, Murphy is holding steadfast to his commitment of three debates and one candidate forum, which he announced last week. Rubio seems equally unwilling to hash out details over one of those debates and the forum, citing concerns of bias in Murphy's favor.

"(Rubio's) ask for six debates was clearly disingenuous since he is now afraid to even do four," Murphy spokesman Joshua Karp said. "Marco Rubio is only out for himself, using a political strategy to serve his campaign instead of the voters."

Yet Murphy is employing campaign strategy over debates, too.

Karp said early Tuesday that Murphy hasn't "made any other announcements or decisions regarding debates," but the Jupiter congressman's campaign quietly has.

It rejected at least two invitations that Rubio agreed to: one from the Miami Herald and news partner WFOR CBS4 and another from the Tampa Bay Times.

Editors for both the Herald and the Times said this week that Murphy's campaign acknowledged their invitations only after the campaign on Sept. 12 released its list of four accepted events.

Recounting a conversation last week with Karp, Miami Herald Managing Editor Rick Hirsch said the reason Karp gave for not responding to the Herald ahead of time was because Murphy "had 22 invitations and didn't want there to be a story about every debate that was turned down."

Hirsch said Karp told him directly that Murphy wouldn't attend the proposed Herald/CBS4 event, the details of which were to be negotiated.

"I thought, and still think, a South Florida debate with a focus on the Miami area would be of value to voters," Hirsch said. "It would be simple to pull off, in a studio, broadcast and live-streamed. We could still make it happen on pretty short notice."

Meanwhile, Times Editor Neil Brown said Murphy's campaign eliminated the possibility for that newspaper's debate by rejecting all suggested dates prior to Oct. 17. The campaign cited Murphy's congressional work in Washington, Brown said, although the U.S. House is not scheduled to be in session at all in October.

The Times had originally proposed dates in the first two weeks of the month because mail ballots start going out to Florida voters on Oct. 4.

"Given the Times' excellent record of producing quality debates — including an outstanding House debate (Monday) night between Rep. David Jolly and former Gov. Charlie Crist — we are disappointed that we couldn't facilitate a robust discussion in the Senate race," Brown said.

The morning after the Aug. 30 primary, Rubio challenged Murphy to do six debates, the same number of debates Rubio did in his first U.S. Senate race.

"Patrick Murphy has been ducking debates since he first ran for Congress," Rubio spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said Wednesday. "Voters have the right to know where both candidates stand on the important issues facing our country, and there is no better way to do so than for the candidates to participate in six debates, as Marco did in 2010."

That amount of debates wouldn't be an anomaly for this cycle. In New Hampshire's U.S. Senate race — a similarly competitive contest that's also drawn national attention, like Florida's — Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan and incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte have also agreed to six debates, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.

Contact Kristen M. Clark at kclark@miamiherald.com. Follow @ByKristenMClark.