Money not a factor in choice of debate sites

On July 4th, KSN&C posted the story on Centre College's effort to attract a presidential debate to Danville. I wondered if Governor Fletcher's addition of a $1 million item to yesterday's short-lived special session was related to his Deputy Chief of Staff and Centre alum, Wes Fugate.

Today's letter to the Courier-Journal from Dot Ridings, a member of the Commission on Presidential Debates, raises questions about what such funding would have bought in the first place.

I was startled that Gov. Ernie Fletcher's call for a special legislative session includes a request for $1 million to assist Centre College in its bid to become a site for a 2008 presidential debate. ("Centre vying for presidential debate," July 4).

I hope legislators will carefully consider what that allocation is specifically intended to cover, since I can attest that the only two significant factors in the final choice of sites among the 19 applicants are 1) a venue's production capabilities (which Centre
demonstrated admirably when the 2000 vice-presidential debate was held there)
and 2) security concerns (which have increased enormously since 2000).

If the $1 million is targeted at bells and whistles, it will be money poorly spent.