Why Won’t Malia Cohen Debate Lanhee Chen?

Mountain View, CA - Yesterday, Fox News reported that Malia Cohen, candidate for California State Controller, took a trip to Venezuela in 2006 to study Hugo Chavez’s undemocratic regime.

“It’s no wonder that Malia Cohen told CalMatter that she refuses to debate me,” Lahnee Chen said. “Malia is afraid to discuss her record and she is afraid to discuss her past. The many Californians who fled despotic regimes deserve to know why Malia took this trip and whether she would still praise ‘the revolutionary thought and mindset’ of Hugo Chávez’s brutal dictatorship.”

Kyle Morris of Fox News described Cohen’s Venezuelan study trip.

A Democrat running for election to serve as California state controller, the state's independent fiscal watchdog, traveled to Venezuela in 2006 to learn about Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution.

Cohen's trip to the country was documented in a CNN story about the group's tour, with Cohen claiming that "revolutionary thought" is "generational" as it showed an image of her gazing at a mural featuring a quote from Venezuelan leader Simon Bolivar that roughly translates to: "The health of a Republic depends on the morality acquired by education of citizens in childhood.…"

"The revolutionary thought and mindset is generational," Cohen told the outlet at the time. "What we see in the United States, and you really don't see grandparents and parents and even young as active politically."

The trip taken to Venezuela by Cohen and others was allegedly sponsored by a San Francisco-based group called Global Exchange.

A brochure shared to Global Exchange's website for a trip costing $1,250 to Venezuela in September 2006 showcased the socialist revolution in the country positively.

"Something remarkable is happening in Venezuela," the brochure stated. "The lives of millions of Venezuelans are improving as historic wrongs are being righted. The world's fifth-largest oil producer, Venezuela has long been a country of contrasts: despite its great wealth, 80% of Venezuelans live in poverty. Now, for the first time, millions of Venezuelans have access to education, job training, housing, land, clean water, health care, and something maybe even more precious: dignity."