What's Lassiter afraid of? (with update)

This is just ... weird.

First off, who cancels on a debate co-hosted by the League of Women Voters, the ladies who've been hosting debates since the Late Cretaceous?

Second, who withdraws from a debate a month in advance? When it'd be aired live, in prime time, a week before the election?

John Lassiter, apparently. As of this post, he's offered no explanation other than the tepid, lame one he offered to WSOC-TV -- he disagreed with the number of rebuttal questions.

This was the same sort of nonsense that came close to derailing last week's debate at Johnson C. Smith University. And on top of that, the explanation just doesn't wash. Candidates meet to set ground rules before debates; there's no formula, just an agreement beforehand that the participants will play by the same rules.

So what if rebuttals would be unlimited? More chance for you to get your message out. Worried that rebuttals would go on ad infinitum? Fine, argue to set a limit. Believe me, the station won't let you go on forever. But don't just cancel in a fit of pique a month before the debate.

Then again, maybe something else is afoot. The week before last, WSOC invited Anthony, Lassiter and members of both campaigns to the station to discuss the aforementioned ground rules. Lassiter didn't show. Neither did anyone from his campaign.

Leave aside the bad manners -- is this how John Lassiter would behave as mayor? The Charlotte mayor, in a weak-mayor form of government, has to be a diplomat, exerting influence through persuasion rather than force. It's the way this particular civic cookie crumbles. So if Lassiter doesn't get his way, his response is to take his ball and go home?

Or maybe, come to think of it, it's not so weird.

Maybe Lassiter knows exactly what he's doing.

Maybe he knows that, on equal footing and with plenty of chances to state his case, he'd lose because he doesn't have much of a case to state.

Update: Lassiter offers a little more explanation in Jim Morrill's story in this morning's Observer. It still doesn't wash.

There'd be no restriction on answering questions from audience members, for one thing. For another, Lassiter sounds just a tad too defensive in carping about Anthony's campaign playing "hardball." The six-rebuttal limit was the LWV's idea, not the Foxx campaign's.

So Lassiter plays petulant, turns down the debate invite, then turns around and accuses Anthony of playing "hardball." Right.