Marathon Pundit: The Southern Illinoisan: Thumbs down to Giannoulias

The Southern Illinoisan, the dominant newspaper south of Interstate 70 in the Land of Lincoln, gives a thumbs down to the failed Mob Banker--Alexi Giannoulias.

Thumbs down ... to a decision by the Alexi Giannoulias campaign team against participating in a debate planned for U.S. Senate candidates Oct. 21 in Carbondale. Democrat Giannoulias, the state treasurer, was invited in early August to participate with Republican Congressman Mark Kirk and Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones. The debate's sponsors, The Southern Illinoisan, WSIU-TV and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIUC, explained participation would be limited to candidates of established parties (just the Republicans, Democrats and Greens in Illinois) or those candidates scoring at least 5 percent in the latest public opinion polls. Only Gianoulias, Kirk and Jones met the criteria, but the Giannoulias campaign staff insisted that Libertarian Michael Labno be included in the debate - or Giannoulias would not participate. Such an ultimatum might work in backroom politics, but the debate sponsors scuttled the event instead of letting a candidate rewrite the rules to his satisfaction and cloud the integrity of the event and sponsors. As a result, the losers are Illinois voters, who will be deprived of a statewide broadcast of the debate planned by WSIU-TV, live blogging throughout the debate on the Illinois Politics 2010 website and an on-demand video of the debate on the Illinois Politics 2010 website. What a pity.