If Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice is indeed too busy with her day job to debate her four Democratic AG opponents, it’s news to the New York Democratic Lawyers Council.

The NYDLC, whose AG candidate forum I’ll be moderating this evening at Cardozo Law School, informs me that Rice confirmed she would be attending the event and then abruptly changed course two weeks ago.

“The campaign said they had a scheduling conflict and that she had a different evening event, but was trying to work it out so she could do both and would let us know, so we moved her status to unconfirmed,” the staffer said.

The organization’s communications coordinator, David Stonehill, said he made a last-ditch effort to find out if she was coming by reaching out to last night to her campaign manager Jeff Stein by e-mail. He received no answer.

Rice’s scheduler never got back to NYDLC Executive Director Alex Voetch, through whom the initial confirmation was made.

When Rice failed to show up this morning at the City Hall News debate (editor and moderator Edward-Isaac Dovere said she had been invited and never committed one way or the other), it became fairly clear that she probably wouldn’t be making it to Manhattan tonight, either.

Look for this issue to come up at the forum. (OK, you can bet on that).

Several observers have noted that Rice’s sudden reluctance to appear on stage with her competition comes on the heels of a SurveyUSA poll that showed her way out in front, second only to “undecided.”

While I guess one might argue it’s a smart strategy to go dark in the wake of such a positive poll to avoid doing anything that might mess up that lead, another school of thought might be that it’s not good form to suddenly decide not to show up at an event and not bother to inform the organizers they shouldn’t be expecting you.

Miss Manners would not approve.

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