Let's engage in some informed debate on the issues.

Here's an open invitation:

I'm in a unique position right now to talk to a lot of Democrats that didn't back Culver in the primary, and hear what they're thinking about November, who they'll support, how strongly they feel about it and why. Just over 36 hours after the polls closed, I haven't asked anyone about it, but I've already had two lifelong Democrats tell me straight out they won't support Culver because of his stance on the death penalty.

I'm not wanting to get into the death penalty as a Culver-specific issue at this point. I've heard Chet and others say he's not running to reinstitute the death penalty, and I've heard varying levels of likelihood concerning the Legislature's ability to get him a death penalty bill to sign. I feel like it's a very vague problem at this point. So I want to open it up to a broader spectrum.

I'm strongly against the death penalty, and I feel like, given my own personal experiences and my connections to others with strong ties in the criminal justice community, I'm relatively good at the argument against it. I'm looking for someone to play the other side. Drop me an email at FFGKyle(at)gmail.com if you're willing to take the opposing view by:

a) Posting the responsible opposing view on your blog and doing some blogging back and forth,

b) Directly emailing me your opinion under your name, and we can play both sides here, or

c) Emailing me your opinion for anonymous posting here in this blog.

While I'm bullet pointing, here are the groundrules I want to lay out:

1) Keep it clean. As I said in the title of this post, I want this to be informed debate on the issues, not a flame war.

2) Be willing to stick it out. I see this lasting maybe a week at one/two posts a day. If you're going to get bored 10 minutes into the conversation, this may not be the thing for you.

3) Keep it one on one. While the comments section will remain open for people to say whatever they have to say about my posts, I'd like the two people involved in the debate itself to remain the same throughout, for coherency's sake.

4) Keep it efficient. I think if we go back and forth with 3000 word diatribes, people will get bored. Unless I see objections, I think it's probably fair to give both parties involved 500 words to establish their position, then no more than 500 words for each post from that point forward.

So, with that said, the challenge is down. Email me at FFGKyle(at)gmail.com and we'll get the party started.

KL