What do you do if you are a political candidate and your opponent is a no-show for your televised debate?
If you are Shane Hazel, a Republican candidate for Lawrenceville Congressman Rob Woodall’s 7th District seat, you lace into him, stake out hard-right positions and tell a story about George Washington appearing at the debate, grabbing an AR-15 and going back in time to repel the British.
Standing next to an empty podium in a Georgia Public Broadcasting studio Tuesday, the Marine Corps veteran accused Woodall of “running scared.”
“He has sacrificed himself and he has become a D.C. propagandist to the Georgia Seventh District, instead of a representative of the Georgia Seventh District, taking vote after vote to grow government as a Republican,” Hazel said in the Atlanta Press Club debate.
“In the Georgia Seventh District — as a Republican — he has real trouble when he will not stand in front of his constituents or a challenger for a debate who happens to be a combat veteran. I believe he is running scared.”
Woodall campaign spokesman Derick Corbett said the congressman attended other events Tuesday in his district, which includes parts of Forsyth and Gwinnett counties. Corbett pointed out that Woodall faced off against Hazel in a GOP candidates debate in Forsyth in March.
“He had events in the district he had committed to unfortunately before the debate was scheduled, which prevented him from attending,” Corbett said. “As far as policy, he has a longstanding conservative record that he is happy to not only defend, but run on.”
During his one-man debate Tuesday, Hazel called an Obama-era program that is shielding hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — “unconstitutional.” To bolster school security, he said he wants to set up “entry control checkpoints” and deploy armed personnel. And he wants to do away with Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps and stop the federal government’s involvement in local public schools.
“The federal level is not the place for that,” he said of welfare programs. “It is not a constitutionally delegated authority.”
“It is a state issue,” he continued. “It is a community issue… And really an issue we need to be solving in our communities through consent.”
When one of the debate panelists asked Hazel about his claim that people have an “inalienable God-given right” to carry firearms, Hazel said that includes carrying guns without permits, including automatic weapons.
“I believe that if George Washington was standing on this stage with me and he saw an AR-15 and he had to go back in time to fight the British,” Hazel said, “he would gladly take that weapon and destroy the British with it.”
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