With each passing day, Meg Whitman’s unwillingness to engage the public outside of places where she controls the message is becoming more obvious. Californians don’t like it, as a new Rasmussen Poll shows 71% want to see a 3-way debate between Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, and Steve Poizner.

Yet Whitman isn’t willing to do it, as she told KTVU’s Randy Shandobil:

It [the debate proposal] was, in my view, a political stunt…he’s debating about whether or not we should debate. We’ll debate in the fall, there’ll be lots of time for that.

Steve Poizner accepted Brown’s proposal, which makes it seem like Whitman is afraid of giving Poizner a boost. Whitman in the past has had a 50 point lead over Poizner, who has closed that gap somewhat but not by nearly enough to make this a close race.

So what is Whitman afraid of? If she is confident she can win the primary and the general election, she should embrace the chance to get her name and ideas in front of voters.

The fact that she is unwilling to do so indicates she does not believe she can convince Californians to vote for her unless she controls the communication. She appears to be afraid that unless it’s a one-way conversation, she might get tripped up and reveal her true right-wing colors.

Californians aren’t waiting around for Whitman. Raven Brooks has started an act.ly petition to the Whitman campaign asking them to accept the challenge and hold a 3-way debate.

There’s a perfect opportunity in just a week and a half to do this. Whitman and Poizner are scheduled to debate at 5pm on Sunday, May 2 at The Tech Museum in San José. It would be easy and timely to include Brown in the debate. What does Whitman have to hide?

…Interestingly, the Rasmussen Poll finds Jerry Brown has a lead over Whitman, 44-38. This is despite the house effect that has Rasmussen consistently favoring Republicans this cycle, to the point where their polls tend to be outliers from the rest of the polling done on a particular race. I’ll wait to see what the next Field and PPIC polls have to say before claiming Brown has regained the lead.

UPDATE: Jerry Brown has added his name to the act.ly petition.