Opinion: Candidate for 116th Assembly District Duffy questions opponent's debate stance

Editor’s Note: When North Country This Week called to confirm that Gray had in fact declined the debate he said he declined the debate on Duffy’s terms, but did attempt to set up an in-studio debate with a local TV station that declined to host it.

To the Editor:

As the Republican Assembly candidate, I have to ask why my opponent refuses to debate the issues in a public debate and why the media is allowing it.

“I have to ask why is my opponent afraid to debate me,” said Duffy, a small manufacturing company owner, who brought her company, Queenaire Technologies, to the Ogdensburg area where it now employs 13 people.” If he won’t stand up and debate me, how can the people of Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties think he’ll stand up to the Democratic bosses who control the state assembly in Albany.”

“I am a fighter,” said Duffy. “That’s always been a big part of who I am. That’s why I started my own manufacturing company so I could take care of my children and my family.”

“I know what it’s like to be a divorced mother who sometimes had to choose between buying groceries and filling my gas tank to get to work,” she said. “No one ever handed me my own business on a silver platter. I had to work to build it from the ground up.”

“But those experiences made me stronger. They taught me that small companies can succeed even in New York State,” she said. “I want to take the lessons I learned to Albany where I want to be able to stand up to the one party bosses who control government so they can hear about what really works and what needs to be changed if we want to save New York State for our families, children and grandchildren,” she said.

“The media needs to ask my opponent why he has repeatedly refused to attend a media sponsored debate that would give both of us an opportunity to take questions from the press to help the citizens of the North Country, to ask why our sitting Assemblyman Mark Walzczyk chose to back my candidacy.” “Why does he delete and block followers on social media when they ask him policy questions or questions about his record?”

“Why did the New York State Conservative Party choose to reject his candidacy?” Duffy said. “Republicans want real Republicans who share their conservative values, not someone who is looking to compromise on basic values before they even win the nomination.”

Susan Duffy
Candidate 116th Assembly District