Now you can't watch the Arizona governor 'non-debate' between Katie Hobbs and Kari Lake

Oct. 12 update: In a series of stunning developments on Wednesday afternoon, even by the standards of Arizona politics, the Citizens Clean Election Commission issued a statement saying that due to Arizona PBS scheduling a debate with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs without its input, the scheduled interview with Republican Kari Lake will not take place.

"The Commission will postpone tonight’s Q & A on Arizona PBS and will identify a new venue, partner, and date when the interview will be broadcast," it said in a statement.

No word yet on when that interview, or the Arizona PBS interview with Hobbs, will take place.

Clean Elections Commission debacle: Kari Lake interview on Arizona PBS canceled

How to watch the debate between Arizona gubernatorial candidates Katie Hobbs and Kari Lake?

In your imagination, because evidently it won’t take place anywhere else.

Hobbs, the Democratic candidate, declined an invitation from the Citizens Clean Election Commission to face Lake, a Republican, in a televised debate. So instead of a back-and-forth between candidates, Ted Simons will instead host a one-on-one interview with Lake at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, on Arizona PBS. The commission rejected a proposal from the Hobbs campaign for separate interviews.

"The Commission gave Secretary Hobbs a full and fair public hearing and, consistent with the law, rejected her proposal," Thomas Collins, the commission's executive director, said.

Yet, Wednesday word came that Arizona PBS reportedly has offered Hobbs her own separate 30-minute interview — essentially what the commission rejected.

Too bad. It all but ensures that, while the chances of a debate were minute, now they're non-existent.

Lake was typically bombastic in her response to the Hobbs interview. "We just learned hours before airtime of tonight's Clean Elections Commission debate that PBS has unilaterally caved to Katie Hobbs' demands and bailed her out from the consequences of her cowardly decision to avoid debating me on stage," her campaign said in a statement. "As the CEC's broadcast partner, PBS' actions are a slap in the face to the commissioners of the CEC and a betrayal of their efforts to put on an actual debate."

She makes a point.

Hobbs has said that “debating a conspiracy theorist like Kari Lake — whose entire campaign platform is to cause enormous chaos and make Arizona the subject of national ridicule — would only lead to constant interruptions, pointless distractions, and childish name-calling.”

If the debate among Republican candidates for governor in June was any indication, Hobbs is probably right.

Still.

No debate: Ted Simons on 15 years as host of 'Arizona Horizon' and debate moderator

What we lose without an Arizona governor debate

Lake, for her part, has branded Hobbs a coward for not debating. And Hobbs’ refusal will dog her for the duration of the campaign. For instance, a profile of Lake in the Atlantic — hardly a bastion of conservative politics — includes this: “Katie Hobbs, is a remarkably dull candidate who has refused to debate Lake. … That refusal might be a gift.”

Certainly, a debate would make for great TV that would be informative for voters — to see the two face off against each other. Simons is good at his job and one hopes he won’t let Lake get away with her more outrageous claims without pushback. She parrots the repeatedly disproven Trump party line about a stolen 2020 election; she relentlessly bashes the media, of which she was a part for decades as a local anchor; she contends that “woke” curriculum is taking over schools.

Lake’s typical maneuver is to blame the journalist when the questions get tough. Simons can withstand that.

But it won’t be the same. It’s true that in a lot of debates the candidates listen to the moderator’s questions, look at them with the curious head tilt a dog gives someone who holds out a treat and then ignores the question completely, going rogue with whatever talking point they want to promote at the moment.

But even that can be newsworthy. Dodging a question is, after all, revealing. There’s just no substitute for the fireworks that debates can sometimes produce. Look at the debates for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat and for Attorney General, in which candidates called each other out on specifics.

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A 'Face the Nation' appearance by Lake and Hobbs was useless

“Face the Nation,” the CBS Sunday morning show, came as close as we’re likely to get to a debate, and it fell far short of satisfying, either as TV or as useful information. Lake and Hobbs both appeared on the show Sunday, separately and one after the other. Major Garrett, filling in as host for Margaret Brennan, went out of his way to give each candidate equal time — to the point that it became pointless.

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When Garrett asked Lake her position on abortion, she never gave him a straight answer. And he could not get Hobbs to move off her talking points, in part, as with Lake, because he was so cognizant of equal time but also because he simply didn’t seem up to the task.

Had the two candidates shared the same stage, those exchanges might have gone a lot differently. It’s one thing to dodge the moderator. It’s another to squirm away from your opponent in front of a TV audience of people whose vote you’re trying to secure.

The nation’s media are watching Arizona, treating it as a kind of bellwether for the future of Democracy. (The New York Times covered the Senate debate in a standalone story.)

But this is, most of all, an Arizona story, a story about a non-debate at a time when Arizona, and maybe everyone else, really needs one.

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Arizona PBS interview with Kari Lake

5:30 p.m. Wednesday on Arizona PBS Channel 8.

Streaming live on azcentral.com.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Katie Hobbs won't debate Kari Lake. Lake won't appear on PBS either