No debating candidates' willingness to face off.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Bob Beauprez - Bill Ritter

BOB BEAUPREZ AND BILL RITTER, WHOSE RACE FOR THE OFFICE OF Colorado governor will be decided Nov. 7, will have met each other face-to-face more than 25 times on stages across Colorado to debate issues one will confront as the state's 41st governor.

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I was a panelist asking questions during one of those sessions co-sponsored by ColoradoBiz, 9News and Colorado State University, on Oct. 12. The focus of our debate was business issues, and you should still be able to pull it up at 9news.com to listen to and view if you are still an undecided voter.

Although your attention as a panelist during such an event is more focused on the ebb and flow of the conversation, it did occur to me under the bright lights that the two candidates have pulled off a significant contribution to the openness of politics in Colorado by keeping up their heavy debate schedule.

John Marshall, Beauprez's campaign manager, and Evan Dreyer, Ritter's deputy campaign manager, both told me the frequent face-to-face standoffs were a happenstance of the campaign, rather than a strategy of either party. Dozens of groups requested debates, and the candidates accepted most of the invitations just to provide an arena for voters to hear their positions.

The accessibility of both candidates to the forums benefited those staging the events as well as the voters who must make a decision between the two.

Many of those decisions, by the way, are probably going to be recorded by mail ballot, and in some cases could have been made as quickly as one of the matchups was finished. That's the way voting is done nowadays, although the multitude of campaign appearances also allows the thoughtful voter to draw out his or her personal decision-making process, and still cast a ballot as late as Election Day.

I don't remember many of Gov. Bill Owens' campaigns being marked by such frequent matchups, and I wasn't in Colorado during Roy Romer's campaigns, so seeing the candidates on the stump in multiple face-offs seems to me a healthy development in public affairs. Dreyer said he thought it was a unique development for any political campaign.

Our debate, "The business of Colorado," was also unique in that it was streamed live over the Internet by 9News during the lunch hour, in hopes that people working at their desks at businesses around the state would link into the broadcast and learn more about how each candidate might deal with the business community...