The candidates forum at Plattsburgh State Thursday evening was revealing and helpful exposition for the two participating candidates for the 23rd Congressional District seat and especially for attendees and voters. It was at the very least a rare and wasted opportunity for the third candidate, Conservative Douglas Hoffman, who failed to show up.

Democrat William Owens and Republican Dierdre Scozzafava acquitted themselves well before hundreds of people who attended the forum, sponsored by the Plattsburgh Chapter of United University Professions, the Plattsburgh State Student Association and the Plattsburgh Area League of Women Voters.

Scozzafava, a longtime assemblywoman, proved the more savvy politician and comfortable speaker by providing more specific, focused answers to many questions. Owens tended toward generalities. For example, he assured he would study the need for more combat troops in Afghanistan, whereas Sozzafava said unequivocally that the safety of the troops already in the war zone required stationing more soldiers there. Owens promised more jobs for the district; Scozzafava said what is first needed is fewer taxes and less stifling government regulation.

Yet you came away with confidence that either one would make the interests of voters of their district their top priority.

Throughout the 75-minute forum, though, frequent allusions to Hoffman's absence emerged, and that can't have helped the Conservative.

Moderator Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio scolded Hoffman at the outset, saying he had talked with the candidate earlier in the day — in Plattsburgh — and was told there was nothing on Hoffman's schedule to keep him from attending.

Whatever Hoffman was doing Thursday evening could not have offset the negative effect of that empty lectern in E. Glenn Giltz Auditorium as his two opponents answered more than a dozen questions posed by Mann; co-moderator Lindsay Lyons, president of the Student Association; and 10 audience members.

Those in attendance could disagree on who fielded the questions more gracefully or insightfully, but there could be no disagreement that Hoffman had squandered a chance to get his views across to a significant segment of the voting public. It isn't so much the total attendance as the resultant media coverage and, of course, word of mouth. As Scozzafava said at least twice, voters are far better served by hearing candidates express their opinions in an impromptu setting than on a 30-second television commercial designed to accentuate the negative of their election opponents.

This is especially so in a district as vast as the 23rd — Mann called it the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi. It isn't; it is the fifth largest, but, at almost 15,000 square miles, it's virtually impossible to reach all voters in a couple of months of trying. The chance to reach this big an audience in one 75-minute sitting should be prized indeed. The forum was choreographed by the League of Women Voters to ensure fairness and thwart grandstanding.

If Hoffman loses this election in a close call, he'll always wonder whether things would have been different if only he had made himself available at this forum.