Why Would a Candidate Dis a Newspaper Reporter?

Help me out, please. In the race for a California state assembly seat, we offered the incumbent and her challenger a forum in our local newspaper. A California state assembly seat is not exactly a small-time political office.

Because she is the heavy favorite, you might think that the candidate who blew us off was the incumbent. And that would be incorrect. The challenger refused to answer our questions! Say what? I’ll say it again: the challenger, trailing badly in the polls, blew off our newspaper.

Our newspaper readership probably leans politically a slight bit toward the incumbent, but certainly not enough to cause this blowoff. Maybe all the more reason for a challenger to appeal to voters who may not immediately support her? Or, to the undecideds?

I am seriously puzzled. What on earth did the challenger have to lose?

It makes me hope that the challenger does not pull off an upset, because we’d have someone this perplexing as our assemblywoman.