Tarrant says he wants to piggyback on House forums

MONTPELIER, Vt. --Richard Tarrant's Republican U.S. Senate campaign said Wednesday it wanted to piggyback on a month of forums organized for U.S. House candidates, but Bernie Sanders' campaign said it was not a serious offer.

Tarrant sent a letter to Sanders inviting him to participate in the "Sunday Conversations on the Green" forums set up by Peter Welch, the Democrat seeking to replace Sanders in the House.

Sanders responded with his own letter, saying he was willing to debate Tarrant around the state as long as he agreed to an earlier proposal to limit spending between Saturday and Election Day to another $2 million.

That was rejected, too, dashing the possibility that a debate on the issues -- so far overshadowed by feuding over spending and campaign tactics -- would begin to dominate the campaign.

"We're happy to renew our offer to debate in every county in the state as soon as they can be organized as long as (Tarrant is) willing to abandon his Washington-style campaign and run a Vermont-style campaign," said Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver.

Tarrant campaign manager Tim Lennon said Tarrant would head to the events set up by Welch whether Sanders did or not. "We're going to agree to what we asked him to agree to," Lennon said. "We're going to be at the green."

Part of the debate about debates is what form they should take before the primaries, scheduled for Sept. 12. Generally, preprimary meetings are between candidates from the same party, if the primaries are contested.

That is the case for the Republicans in both the Senate and House races. Tarrant faces Greg Parke and in the House race Martha Rainville faces Mark Shepard.

Shepard quickly accepted after Welch proposed that all the candidates meet on town greens to discuss the issues, but Rainville declined. Tarrant's campaign contacted the Parke campaign only as an afterthought, after writing to Sanders and alerting the media.

"Not that he's not welcome, but the focus for us is to try to get Sanders' campaign manager to put his money where his mouth is," Lennon said of Parke before contacting his campaign.

That was a reference to Weaver's lament about the level of discourse during this campaign declining. Weaver said Wednesday that Tarrant was trying to have it both ways, accusing the Republican's campaign of trying to intimidate Sanders supporters at a recent Swanton event and using Tarrant's personal wealth to finance a slick but misleading television campaign.

"If we can get this campaign back on track, as one focused on the issues, not just a spending arms race, we're willing to participate in debates in every county prior to the primary," Weaver said.