What Am I Supposed To Do With This Chicken Costume?

Here's a bit of good news. The campaign of City Councilmember Bill Peduto, who is challenging incumbent Interim Mayor Luke "Flip Flop" Ravenstahl for the Democratic mayoral nomination, may finally be exhibiting some huevos. They are actually doing something to stand up to Master Ravenstahl's continuing and fearful refusals to meet Mr. Peduto in a televised debate. According to a new post over at Bob Mayo's Busman's Holiday, the Peduto campaign has pointed out that Master Ravenstahl is continuing to duck the debate challenge issued last week by his opponent:

The Peduto campaign e-mailed a news release on Tuesday noting that – a week after his initial challenge – no televised debates have yet been scheduled in the race for mayor. The campaign also released the text of a letter from Councilman Peduto to Mayor Ravenstahl, dated Monday, February 26. In the letter, Peduto invites Ravenstahl to a debate at Sunday's City Democratic Committee meeting, prior to the endorsement vote.

Later in his post, Mr. Mayo indicates that he is seeing signs of the kind of behavior that I commented upon this past weekend. While Interim Mayor Ravenstahl talks a good game about participating in these face-to-face debates, he never seems to be able to agree to any of the specifics about actually scheduling one:

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl responded, saying 'my initial reaction is, I'd be happy to participate in all the network debates, and be happy to do that. The difference, I would argue now, between myself and that year, is: I'm the mayor now. We have a lot of responsibilities on a day-to-day basis to run the city. But I would be happy to make myself available.'

Channel 4 Action News took Peduto up on his call. We've issued offers to both candidates to debate on WTAE-TV. So far, we've heard back from Peduto, who has formally accepted. We're awaiting a formal answer back from the Ravenstahl campaign. Informally, the mayor expressed to me his interest in debating here on WTAE.

Oh sure. Informally, I'd be willing to let Dennis Regan come over and kick me square in the nuts. I'll get back to you on a time when we could schedule that. I'm really busy right now.

The weird thing here, however, is that it would seem that Master Ravenstahl is at least beginning to agree to attend non-televised events where he will be in the same room with Mr. Peduto. In my previous post, I mentioned a comment that was posted over at The Burgh Report by someone calling themselves "Demcat". This person had been trying to schedule a candidate's forum in Squirrel Hill, but had kept meeting nearly impenetrable resistance from the Ravenstahl campaign. Now, however, it would seem that Master Ravenstahl has finally agreed to follow Mr. Peduto's lead and accept the invitation. As this same commenter posted just about an hour ago:

Uh-Oh -- As of 4 PM today I have to eat my words. The Ravenstahl camp has accepted the challenge. This Mayoral Forum in Sq. Hill IS ON!! I was wrong! It sucks being wrong, but it happens.

I guess it's too early to send my chicken costume back to the store just yet. I'll hold onto it for a little while longer, keep it in its original packaging, put the receipt in a safe place, and hope like hell that I won't have to put it on anytime soon.