WATD planned a political forum for State Representative candidates in the First Plymouth District.
Republican incumbent Matt Muratore, and challenger Democrat Stephen Michael Palmer, are both running in the general election this November.
There’s a first for everything, and in the decades WATD has been hosting political forums, a candidate has never left the debate.
That changed when Palmer gave his opening statement, and said he would not participate further.
Moderator Christine James, reporter Charles Mathewson, and Monday Night Talk Host, Kevin Tocci, had questions prepared for the forum. With the sudden change, it turned to a conversation with Muratore about key issues in the district.
Topics included immigration reform, the Plymouth County Wood Lot, and November ballot questions.
“If I may just correct one thing that he did say though, he said I voted 99 percent of the time with the Democratic party – that’s just not true,” Muratore, a Republican, said on WATD.
Listen to the opening of the forum, and the conversation here:
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- Republican State Representative Matt Muratore and Democratic challenger, Stephen Michael Palmer before the WATD Political Forum. Photo credit: Lenny Rowe.
Christine James, managing editor of the news department, has organized these forums. October will mark 32 years with the station.
A reporter asked if this has ever happened.
“Never. No one has ever left during a political forum,” said James. “Especially after their opening statement. He made his statement, and that was it, and walked out, and that was the end of it.”
She said things don’t always go according to plan in radio. That’s where experience comes in to adapt on the fly.
“We spend a lot of time and effort putting these things together. We have a schedule that we try to stick to, because we have a lot of these to schedule. We’ve got an engineer in here lining things up, we’ve got another person upstairs, another tech person running this. Reporters make an effort to come here, prepare thoughtful questions, because I think we’re very fair,” said James. “This kind of throws a – it doesn’t make me happy; I’ll try to be very tactful here. It doesn’t make me happy. I don’t think it’s fair, because we make an effort to be fair, and give people a platform on which to speak. I don’t admire what happened.”
On Wednesday at 7 p.m., WATD is hosting a political forum for State Representative candidates in the 5th Plymouth District, Republican Incumbent Dave DeCoste, and challenger Democrat Emmanuel Dockter.
