A debate planned for Wednesday at Santa Fe College became heated, though only one candidate was present.
The forum, held by SFC's Democratic Saints, featured Tim Cunha, the Democratic candidate for District 6 of the U.S. House of Representatives.
John Konkus, a district director for Cunha's opponent, Rep. Cliff Stearns, said he was uninvited after agreeing to stand in for Stearns. Konkus said he was originally invited to represent Stearns in a debate against Cunha and had been corresponding with SFC since Oct. 7.
Plans were finalized Tuesday, he said, but he received a voicemail at 9:30 that night saying that SFC no longer wanted him to come.
Alan Beck, adviser for the Democratic Saints and a political science professor at SFC, said the group had not received an RSVP from Konkus until Tuesday.
The invitation was retracted because members thought a debate between a candidate and a candidate's representative would have been unfair, Beck said.
He compared it to the possibility of Sen. Barack Obama and a representative of Sen. John McCain having a presidential debate.
Konkus said he blames the retracted invitation on Cunha's negative campaign.
Cunha has been misrepresenting Stearns by telling people the congressman does not show up to district events, Konkus said.
"Why doesn't Mr. Cunha want us to participate?" he asked. "Because he knows we'll call him out on his misstatements about Mr. Stearns and tell voters the truth about his financial troubles in New Jersey."
Cunha, though, said he has never made a secret of his bankruptcy.
In the 1980s in New Jersey, he owned many small businesses that were once successful, he said. He filed for bankruptcy in 1992.
Cunha said Stearns should not have attempted to send a representative to the debate because it was designed to be between two candidates - not their representatives.
