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Gilmore, Warner to debate in Hot Springs
HOT SPRINGS - The Virginia Bar Association has announced that former Virginia governors and current U.S. Senate candidates Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore have accepted invitations from the association to debate at the VBA's 118th annual summer meeting at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 19, at The Homestead.
Gilmore, a Republican, and Warner, a Democrat, are running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican John Warner.
The debate will be moderated by David Broder, the Pulitzer Prizewinning, nationally acclaimed political reporter and columnist for The Washington Post. Broder, who has covered every presidential election since 1960, joined the Post in 1966 after covering national politics for The New York Times, Washington Star and Congressional
Quarterly. His twice-weekly syndicated column on government and politics appears worldwide in more than 300 newspapers. He is a tenured professor of journalism at the University of Maryland.
This event continues a decadeslong VBA tradition of hosting an early debate in statewide political contests at the Association's annual summer meeting, the most recent being a face-off between George Allen and Jim Webb in their 2006 U.S. Senate race.
Gilmore and Warner are veterans of VBA debates. Gilmore kicked off his successful campaign for governor in 1997 in a VBA-sponsored debate with Democratic candidate Don Beyer, and Warner, in his winning gubernatorial campaign in 2001, appeared at the VBA summer meeting with Republican challenger Mark Early.
VBA debates are conducted before Association members and guests attending the summer meeting and are open to the public at no charge.
The Virginia Bar Association is a nonpartisan organization that does not endorse, support or oppose candidates for political office. Its debate policy calls for invitations to participate to be extended to significant candidates with a reasonable chance of being elected. In assessing the significance of a candidate the VBA considers the results of major, reliable nonpartisan public opinion polls, coverage the media as a recognized candidate and evidence of a level of significant financial support from a significant number of contributors.
Details of the debate format will be finalized at a later date. Additional information, when available, will be posted on the VBA website at www.vba.org.
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