Real versus fake.  

Rebecca Johnson, a candidate for a state representative position, was mistaken when she claimed that she was not invited to our school forum.

The Livewire staff attempted to arrange a question and answer session between the two candidates who were running for state representative for the 49th district, Linda Belcher and Rebecca Johnson. Both were made aware of and invited to this school event, but only Belcher attended. In a recent interview, Johnson claimed she was never invited and denounced our event she referred to as a “fake debate”.

Our school has never hosted an event like this before February 16. The purpose of this planned forum was mainly to get the students involved in local government and assist over 200 eligible student voters in making the best fit decision for themselves. Not only were current eligible voters able to attend but so were many students who will be able to vote in the near future.

Our advisor, Larry Steinmetz, first contacted Johnson February 8 at 10:05 A.M. through her Facebook page, regarding her invitation to the forum. Later on that day at 3:17 P.M. a lady named Kim (no last name was given) responded, claiming to be “helping with Rebecca’s social media and schedule.” After this, Steinmetz and the respondent had a back and forth conversation.

Steinmetz replied again to Johnson’s Facebook at 3:27 P.M., answering some questions that the candidate and the helper had towards some specifics regarding our event. Towards the end of the conversation, Johnson’s account stated that, “her schedule is filled for the short time remaining till the election.” This was a disappointment, but the person responding mentioned that Johnson may be available after the special election.

In an interview with Thomas Novelly of the Courier Journal the day before the special election, Johnson stated, “Meeting with my opponent was not my priority.” She gave this as a reason she didn’t attend our forum, but like stated before, the sole purpose was to benefit the students.

Johnson also said in Novelly’s interview, “I call them fake debates because she [Belcher] never arranged those with myself or the local GOP so they kind of made up some events and didn’t invite me to them and then at the last minute if it became known to me, which it never did, I would get it through the media. I couldn’t go, I already had other appointments, so I just call them fake debates.”

Johnson is correct when she said Belcher didn’t arrange the “fake debate” with her, because we, the Livewire staff, orchestrated and executed the entire thing. In order to prevent another misunderstanding such as this one, Johnson could improve her accessibility to the public and be more knowledgeable of what is happening on her social media accounts.  

On Tuesday, Belcher won the special election with 3,386 votes which is 68% of total votes. She will fill Dan Johnson’s seat until later on this year.

Good luck to both candidates, as they are still campaigning for the General Election which will be held in November of 2018. The candidate who comes out on top during this election will serve a full two year term.