Morrow to Gowdy: Let's Rumble

It's a truism in politics: Challengers want debates. Incumbents? Not so much.

With just 82 days left until the election, , the Democratic challenger in the race for the state's 4th District congressional seat, wants a debate. And on Wednesday, she challenged first-term Congressman, Republican Trey Gowdy, to one at a press conference in Spartanburg.



Gowdy has been noncommittal so far.

According to a report, Gowdy's office said that the congressman cannot comment until Morrow sends an official debate invitation. "He'll look at it whenever the invitation comes," Josh Dix, a spokesperson for Gowdy, told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.

Morrow claimed she has sent an invitation, by email and by phone, to Gowdy's congressional office. Dix said he was unaware of any such contact. And even so, he said it would be an ethics violation for the congressman or his staff to conduct such campaign business from his House office anyway, the paper reported.

"I've gotten a response from Trey Gowdy's camp on my debate challenge from his spokesperson Josh Dix saying 'He'll look at it whenever the invitation comes,'" Morrow said on her campaign's Facebook page on Wednesday, referencing the newspaper article. 

"I plan to keep sending him official invitations until he decides to come out of the shadows and face the voters of our 4th Congressional District. He owes it to them as the sitting representative to give the voters a choice," she added.

Gowdy, who replaced Rep. Bob Inglis, debated his Democratic opponent Paul Corden in 2010, and ultimately won office by trouncing Corden in the tide of Tea Party fervor that marked the 2010 mid-year elections here and nationwide.

For Deb Morrow's campaign Web site, click here.

For Trey Gowdy's campaign Web site, click here.