{"id":40598,"date":"2024-09-09T11:05:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T15:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=40598"},"modified":"2024-09-09T11:05:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T15:05:25","slug":"montana-free-press-candidates-for-governor-on-track-for-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2024\/09\/09\/montana-free-press-candidates-for-governor-on-track-for-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Free Press: Candidates for governor on track for debate"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Greg<\/a>
Republican Greg Gianforte, left, and Democrat Ryan Busse, right, represent their respective parties in the 2024 race for Montana’s governor seat. Photo illustration by Stephanie Farmer \/ Montana Free Press<\/figcaption>\r\n
Gianforte, Busse debate back on the table<\/div>\r\n
The prospect comes after Busse releases tax returns to The Associated Press.<\/div>\r\n
Monday, September 9, 2024<\/div>\r\n
By Tom Lutey<\/div>\r\n
Montana Free Press<\/DIV>\r\n
montanafreepress.org<\/A><\/DIV>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nRepublican Gov. Greg Gianforte<\/a> and Democratic challenger Ryan Busse<\/a> appear to have agreed to debate, after Gianforte\u2019s campaign said last week the Democrats lacked a credible candidate<\/a> worth debating.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nBusse\u2019s campaign last Tuesday announced that it has released 10 years of the candidate\u2019s income tax records to The Associated Press, something Gianforte\u2019s campaign last week criticized the Democrat for not having done. \r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cIf this is the singular reason why Gianforte will not debate, I\u2019m not going to let him have that excuse,\u201d Busse told The Associated Press<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nA week ago, Gianforte\u2019s campaign announced to the press in an email that there was no point in debating Busse, whom campaign manager Jake Eaton called \u201cunhinged,\u201d lacking credibility, and unlikely to participate in an exchange of ideas on public policy.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cHosting a debate with an unserious candidate, who has no credibility, who actively dodges transparency, and who makes unhinged comments comparing Republicans to Nazis and fascists, would neither be informative nor advance the public interest,\u201d Eaton wrote last week. \u201cThe governor is prepared to debate a serious, credible Democratic candidate for governor, but unfortunately, there isn\u2019t one.\u201d\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOn Tuesday, Eaton told AP that Gianforte, who released his tax records to The Associated Press several weeks ago, is glad to see Busse onboard the \u201ctransparency train.\u201d\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cAs the governor made clear, now that Mr. Busse, after repeated prodding, released his tax returns, he welcomes a debate,\u201d Eaton told AP.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nTwo gubernatorial debates were originally scheduled to take place on the Montana Television Network October 1 and on Montana PBS and public radio October 7. It isn\u2019t clear as of last Tuesday which, if either, of those debates Gianforte might participate in. MTN News reported that it isn\u2019t sure whether its previously planned debate would include both candidates. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nNote: This story originally appeared on Montana Free Press<\/a>. It is published under a Creative Commons license<\/a>.<\/strong>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and Democratic challenger Ryan Busse appear to have agreed to debate, though the schedule remains unclear.","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,14],"tags":[4,94,56,763,243,249,194,55,85,5351],"class_list":["post-40598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-politics","tag-4","tag-democrats","tag-elections","tag-greg-gianforte","tag-media","tag-montana","tag-montana-free-press","tag-native-vote","tag-republicans","tag-ryan-busse","no-wpautop"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcoJ7g-ayO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/09\/greggianforteryanbusse.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40598"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40602,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40598\/revisions\/40602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}