It was hard to believe as the rhetorical sparks flew. If you bought the contentions in the campaign press releases, it looked as if there might not be even one debate between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle in the U.S. Senate race. At issue–officially speaking, though the politics was a bit more complex–was the date early voting begins in Nevada and a heated conflict over timing between the two campaigns.

The Reid campaign said Friday it had generally committed to two non-partisan statewide debates. The first was to be held in Reno on Oct. 19, and was to be sponsored by Sunbelt Communications and the Las Vegas Sun, with a panel of three Nevada journalists. The second was to be hosted by the Nevada Broadcasters Association Foundation in Las Vegas on Oct. 21 and moderated by Mitch Fox, producer and host of the weekly PBS show Nevada Week in Review.

But Angle’s campaign spokesperson, Jerry Stacy, sent out a Friday afternoon press release strongly objecting to any debates after early voting has begun on Oct. 16. “Every voter deserves to see a fair and open debate prior to the start of voting,” the release said.

The Reid campaign’s response was to state concern about the fall Senate schedule and the “impossibility of predicting recess,” even though the session is currently scheduled to end on Oct. 8. Reid spokesman Kelly Steele said the two debates the campaign had accepted were “timed to ensure Senator Reid is able to attend, and that we don’t have to cancel once the venue has been set and the event promoted by its hosts.” He characterized the Angle’s campaign’s objections as “phony excuses” and said the avoidance of debates based on early voting were “a conveniently-manufactured standard that no candidate has ever offered, and that precedent suggests is preposterous.”

To bolster their argument, Team Reid provided news clippings referencing the fact that Angle had debated a few days after early voting had begun back in the 2006 congressional race, when she faced Dean Heller and Dawn Gibbons in the Republican primary. 

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesperson Brian Walsh threw in an incredulous two cents with his own follow-up press release addressing a line pulled from one of the Reid campaign’s statements:

“Sen. Reid will be in Washington, DC, fighting for the people of Nevada through Columbus Day weekend – assuming the session ends on time, which history suggests is by no means guaranteed.”

Walsh pointed out that as Senate Majority Leader, Reid has the “sole discretion to set the schedule of the Senate — when the session begins and when it ends” and added that Reid had already distributed the schedule to every Senator’s office, informing them that the Senate would recess on Oct. 8th until after the November elections. 

“That is a full eight days before early voting begins on October 16th,” said Walsh. He provided numerous news clippings verifying the senate schedule and added:

Therefore, if the Senate is now scheduled to stay in session beyond October 8th, as the Reid campaign is claiming to the media today, I would point out that that would certainly be news to Reid’s fellow Senators.   

We’ll let the facts speak for themselves as you determine which campaign is telling the truth today. 

And in the meantime, please consider asking Senator Reid what exactly he’ll be doing, and where exactly he will be, between October 8th and 16th instead of allowing the voters to hear from both candidates before early voting begins. 

As the war of words waged on, the Angle campaign told BATTLE ‘10 it was quite skeptical of Reid’s supposed concern about the Senate schedule running long because he had in the past taken time off in order to do fundraising for his re-election campaign. Communications Director Jarrod Agen said, “In both 2009 and 2010 Senator Harry Reid closed the Senate to fundraise for this election, so it’s odd he cannot do the same in order to have an open and honest debate about his failed economic record.” He provided numerous examples; one assumed a press release would be forthcoming and the battle would wage on.

However, late Saturday the Harry Reid campaign sent out a brief press release saying it had agreed to a new debate date with the Nevada Broadcasters Association, two days before early voting begins on October 14. A few minutes later, Laura Myers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal Tweeted news of Angle’s acceptance:

Whether pressure from the Angle campaign got to them or whether the Harry Reid campaign just thought better of refusing to schedule a debate after the Senate is scheduled to recess is unknown. To listen to Reid spokesman Kelly Steele tell it, they were the ones who laid on the pressure and it was Team Angle was “finally forced to capitulate.” What we do know is Nevadans will now see at least one debate in the most hotly contested senate race in the nation.