It's tough to drum up public interest in a non-presidential year primary election. We've provided a forum for debate at Electionland, but only a few of you have taken the initiative to ask candidates questions.

The Statesman now has its Voter Guide up, profiling 85 candidates in 33 races, including Treasure Valley legislative races. The Statesman got a pretty good response rate to their predictable questions (count the number of candidates whose most recent read is Going Rogue and we'll give you a cookie), providing one of the only places to find some candidate positions.

Read the Statesman guide and then pose your own followup questions at Electionland. Many of the candidates will answer your questions personally there.

Tomorrow, Tea Party Boise is holding a candidate forum at Eagle High School (6 p.m., 574 Park Lane, Eagle) to focus in on candidates for U.S. Congress. Tea Partiers will ask about: FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY, CORRUPTION & ETHICS, SOVEREIGNTY & STATE’S RIGHTS and LIBERTY in all caps. (The invite says it's for the "voting public," so bring your birth certificate!)

On May 4, Idaho Public Television hosts its first Idaho Debates debate with Idaho Supreme Court Justice candidates John Bradbury and Roger Burdick, starting at 8 p.m. and limited to 30 minutes. On May 9, candidates in the Second Congressional District—Chick Heileson, Russ Mathews and Mike Simpson—will debate, starting at 7 p.m.

Simpson is being a good sport here; Gov. C. L. "Butch" Otter has refused to debate on Public Television for years and Sen. Mike Crapo also turned down the League of Women Voters, which sponsors the Idaho PTV debates.

On May 11, First Congressional District candidates Vaughn Ward and Raul Labrador will try to out-conservative one another on tax-payer funded public television and on May 18, Rex Rammell and Sharon Ullman will take turns pummeling the ghost of Otter—the former with an inflatable dinosaur—as they seek to peel off votes from the incumbent governor. Both debates begin at 8 p.m.

You'll note that several candidates are missing from the list, including Otter and Crapo, as we mentioned. Otter makes a good point in his refusal to participate, though it appears to be a hollow excuse. Otter told the League that he deplores the decision to limit participation to active candidates, thereby excluding fellas like the affable Pete Peterson.

“Mr. Otter has always objected to the fact that we’ve established criteria for who should participate,” said Elinor Chehey, debate coordinator for the League.

Chehey sent us a .pdf of a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Arkansas Public Television to establish objective criteria for participants in political debates, Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes. Still, we think Pete ought to be included in the debate, especially since an unnamed public television personality reportedly has a pair of Beat Butch briefs displayed on an official bulletin board.

Peterson makes the point that he's had campaign events in London and is airing television commercials in Kentucky (what)? And that his platform includes beating Butch, having a good time and increasing voter turnout. He's repeatedly said he does not want to be governor.

On May 11, the Eagle Chamber of Commerce will hold a debate for Legislative candidates from Eagle. It is 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Eagle Nazarene Church, 1001 West State St. Lunch is available for a charge and there are free seats for observers.

We'll let you know about the other debates out there next week.

Tensions must be running high when a simple question to a legislative candidate gets such a clipped response.

"I had a print job that didn't go very well, and I had some problems with my financial reports," Kevin McGowan, District 19 candidate for House, said of why he wasn't able to attend the North End Neighborhood Association candidate forum on Monday night. "I'm actually trying to hand this stuff in now, so I think you have your answer, and I guess you're going to do what you're going to do," he said after further questioning. Click.

"I was very surprised that he wasn't there," said Brian Cronin, McGowan's opponent.

McGowan is also the president of NENA. Gary Reedy, NENA's vice president, said that the organization kept McGowan completely out of the loop in the forum planning process to prevent a conflict of interest.

"We made sure that he was not going to be participating in the actual conducting of the forum," Reedy said. "We do not endorse any candidates or any ballot positions. Our entire objective was to provide a neutral forum so that people in the North End could come out and hear their candidates for the state legislature and for the county commission."

Reedy said that about 45 people gathered to hear the candidates speak. All of the District 19 candidates were present except for McGowan and Democrat Anne Pasely-Stuart, who is running unopposed for 19's other House seat. The four county commission candidates and one ACHD candidate also attended.

"He had emailed beforehand but I hadn't checked that email," Reedy said about how McGowan alterted him that he would not be attending.

McGowan has criticized Cronin in the past for failing to show up to a candidate forum sponsored by the Collister Neighborhood Association, according to Cronin.

"I didn't even know about it until after the fact," Cronin said. He said that Joan Wallace, one of the event's organizers, later called and apologized for not inviting him, saying that she didn't expect McGowan to show up because only a few dozen houses in the Collister area belong to District 19.

Cronin jabbed back at McGowan on his blog, saying that Republicans were conspicuously absent from the Sept. 18 forum sponsored by the Idaho Women's Network, the Snake River Alliance and the Association for Education of Young Children, among several others.

"Why would he skip out on this forum? I can't really say for sure," Cronin wrote. But he later speculated: "I can only surmise that perhaps it's because the answers he would give to questions on human rights, reproductive rights, energy, and the role of faith in politics might not jibe with the values and preferences of District 19 voters."

Lately, McGowan's blog has been berating Cronin for "refusing to debate" at Boise State at a political science forum this Thursday.

"Despite multiple attempts by the organizer to contact my opponent, he has not responded," McGowan wrote. "If there is a miscommunication, that is fine, he needs to get in touch and confirm his attendance."

Cronin said there hasn't been a miscommunication; he simply hasn't decided yet whether or not to attend.

"I haven't refused, actually. I haven't decided. I sort of left it open," he said. "We've got a week to go in the campaign, and there's a lot of voters I'm still trying to contact here in the last week. The time could be well spent contacting voters."