It’s time to set the record straight.

U.S. Senate Republican primary candidate Bob Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga, recently announced his plan to attend President Bush’s State of the Union Address in person. Corker was apparently invited by Rep. Zach Wamp and will sit in the visitor’s gallery using the ticket reserved for Wamp’s spouse.

Coincidentally, the State of the Union address will be delivered on Tuesday, January 31, falling on the same day that all the other primary candidates will be in Memphis for the year’s first debate, sponsored by the Main Street Journal. Bob Corker’s campaign had previously declined the MSJ’s debate invitation in late December, saying Corker had chosen instead to participate in a “candidate forum” hosted by the Associated Press, which takes place on February 9, more than a week after ours.

The Main Street Journal was in contact with the Corker campaign beginning in October and consulted with each of the campaigns in setting the date. The MSJ’s first press release about the debate was sent out on November 10, at which time the Corker campaign requested that its participation be noted as “pending.” At that time, the MSJ’s blog had not yet launched, but our release was posted on several other blogs, including Blogging for Bryant on Nov. 11 and the Van Wagon on Nov. 14. (See our timeline below for a detailed look at how all this came to pass.)

At no point during the planning of the debate did the Corker campaign, or any other campaign, suggest that the date be changed in order to avoid being set for the same day as the President’s State of the Union address. At that time, late October, the SOTU’s schedule was not known, at least not publicly.

A cursory Google News search turned up December 12 as the earliest mention that the State of the Union would be held on January 31st, but the press was still treating that date as “tentative” as late as the first week of January.

In order to verify that there was simply no way the MSJ, or any of the campaigns, could have known that the debate would be held on the same date as the President’s speech, we placed a call to the White House (several calls, actually). A member of the President’s staff eventually directed us to the office of Rep. Dennis Hastert, who, as Speaker of the House, is responsible for the President’s invitation each year. A Hastert staffer verified that there was no way we could have known about the speech at that time, and that his staff hadn’t sent out its official releases until last week.

Still, we thought, could the MSJ have anticipated that the State of the Union address would be held on January 31, 2006, via some other method?

Isn’t the President’s speech always held on the same date, or on the same day of the week, or set according to some other historical standard?

Is it always delivered on a Tuesday, or always in January, or always on the fifth week of the year?

The answer to each of those questions is no.

In fact, since 1934 when Franklin D. Roosevelt re-established the tradition of delivering an oral State of the Union address before members of Congress, the President’s speech has only been scheduled for Jan 31st one time (1990) until this year.

Not including 2006, the State of the Union address has only fallen on the fifth Tuesday of the year four times in 71 years, or four times in 73 speeches (to include the two years in which both the outgoing and incoming Presidents gave speeches — 1953 and 1961).

That means there was less than a 5% chance the Main Street Journal’s debate would be scheduled for the same date Congressional leaders would later choose for the President’s address.

Despite all this, Corker’s supporters have taken another opportunity to bash this publication and the people who put it together. Writing on Corker’s unofficial campaign blog, “Mr. Evans” has this to say (emphases mine):

The debate is scheduled to begin at 8:00 EST. Who at MSJ made the grievous error of scheduling this event on the same night, at about the same time, as our president’s address? This type of scheduling faux pas does not speak well of the MSJ’s organizational abilities, I must say. Maybe someone there will wheel in a T.V. on a cart or something so others may watch the speech?

First, how is it a “grievious error” or a “scheduling faux pas” to set a date that is much later chosen by another group for another event?

Second, while it is true that the debate is scheduled to begin at 8pm EST, it is not true that the debate will take place “at about the same time” as the President’s speech. The debate will conclude at 9pm EST, at which time the President’s address is set to begin. Typically, the President doesn’t take to the podium and begin his speech for several minutes after that, meaning there should be ample time for everyone to mosey over to the Mid-America Reception Hall, where audience members will watch a live broadcast of the President’s speech and later have an opportunity to mingle with the candidates and members of the media.

Of course, this isn’t the first time “Conservatives for Corker” have attempted to defame the Main Street Journal, a new conservative monthly magazine. We first noticed the trash talk