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Hernando Today

Brown-Waite Won't Attend Forum

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By TONY MARRERO Hernando Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 18, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite is choosing grandmotherly duties over the county's largest candidate forum.

Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, will not attend the Greater Hernando Chamber of Commerce's candidate forum slated for Oct. 23. Instead, she'll head north to Tennessee, where her daughter Danene is bringing home an adopted newborn baby, her spokesman Charlie Keller said Friday.

Brown-Waite wants to help her daughter with the new baby, Keller said.

"Family first, as she likes to say," Keller wrote in an e-mail.

Brown-Waite declined the invitation in a written RSVP but didn't cite a reason, said Morris Porton, co-chairman of the chamber's governmental affairs committee.

"I'm sure she has lots of forums to attend," Porton said.

However, it now appears Brown-Waite and her Democratic challenger John Russell likely won't appear together in a forum or debate this election cycle.

Brown-Waite did not attend a forum Thursday night hosted by The Citrus County Chronicle in Crystal River or one at Pasco-Hernando Community College last week. She also begged off a televised debate with WEDU, the public television station in Tampa. The debates were to be pre-recorded.

Russell has twice run for the seat, and he and Brown-Waite have had some ugly altercations in the past.

Russell said the fact that voters won't get to see the two candidates side by side is unconscionable - especially, he contends, "in these uncertain times" when federal representatives, let alone candidates, should be more accessible to constituents.

"She's in a district with more than half a million people, she wants people to vote for her, and she's not coming to answer questions proffered by the general public," he said.

Russell said he doesn't buy what he called the "excuse" of her new granddaughter.

"The baby isn't going anywhere," he said, and then offered why he thinks Brown-Waite isn't attending debates and forums: "She's afraid. She doesn't want to face her constituents."

Keller rebuffed that.

"Ginny is not avoiding anyone," he said.

Brown-Waite for months juggled her duties in Washington with the care of her ailing husband Harvey, who died in August after a battle with cancer, Keller said. She had votes on the House floor up until just two weeks ago.

"The long and the short of it is that Ginny did her job representing the 5th district in Congress, and that work will always come before a campaign," Keller said.

He said Brown-Waite, since returning to the district earlier this month, "has taken tough questions from reporters, constituents, tele-town hall guests, and people on the street (not to mention editorial boards)."

Brown-Waite has gone to events throughout the eight counties of the district and apparently is attending different events than Russell, he said.

Of 34 candidates invited to the Hernando chamber forum, 29 plan to attend, Porton said.

The forum begins at 6 p.m. in the county commission chambers of the Government Center, 20 N. Main St., Brooksville. A meet-and-greet session starts at 5.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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