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Gov. Mark Sanford agreed Wednesday to three televised debates with Democratic challenger Tommy Moore, who denounced it as a unilateral decision by the governor to limit the exposure of "a record you want to keep in the dark."

The number of debates is significantly fewer than Sanford aggressively pushed for when he was the challenger to Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges in 2002 when seven were aired.

It's the difference four years can make.

To Scott Huffmon, a Winthrop University political science professor, "The view of the electoral landscape always looks different as an incumbent than it did as a challenger. The strategies are different. What seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, like insist on multiple debates to point out the failings of the incumbent, seems a lot less appealing when you're an incumbent."

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While Sanford's campaign referred to picking the dates and locations offering the widest audiences, Moore said it is "disingenuous that he puts out a press release applauding himself for three debates. Four years ago, he was singing a different tune."

"What happened to 'sunshine is the best disinfectant'?" Moore said, borrowing a Sanford comment from 2002. "I guess that goes out the window when you have a record you want to keep in the dark," Moore said.

Jason Miller, Sanford's campaign manager, credited his boss with taking the initiative to assure there would be debates and said that there had been no contact from the Moore campaign about debates.

Moore's spokeswoman, Karen Gutmann, said, "No one from the Sanford campaign had any contact with the Moore campaign about accepting or declining debate opportunities." Other broadcast debate invitations are pending and eight forums and town hall meetings and more are expected, she said.

Miller said, "This schedule will give South Carolina voters opportunities to hear directly from the candidates themselves and learn about their contrasting visions for our state, and the timing of these debates occurs when the largest number of South Carolina voters will be paying close attention to the governor's race."

Not likely, Huffmon said.

"People don't regularly tune out their favorite weeknight viewing to watch a debate, so the more debates you have, the more likely the candidates' messages are to get out. When you limit the number of debates, you really are limiting the information available to the voters," he said.

But Huffmon said it is hard to fault a candidate for choosing a strategy that is best for his campaign.

In 2002, there were nine face-to-face encounters between Hodges and Sanford and seven of them were televised statewide, regionally or locally. Three were in Columbia; the others in Greenville, Florence, Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

Sanford, who debated frequently in his 2002 primary and runoff campaigns, refused to debate his 2006 GOP primary challenger, Oscar Lovelace.

Miller said in a press release that the governor had agreed to three televised debates, Oct. 25 in Greenville, via WYFF; Oct. 30 in Columbia, South Carolina Educational Television; and Nov. 1, in Columbia, WIS-TV.

In opting for a studio debate at WIS-TV on Nov. 1, Sanford rejected a debate planned that same night by WPDE-TV in the auditorium at Coastal Carolina University in Conway before a live audience.

Miller said the campaign "accepted invitations for debates that offered the largest viewing audience during a timeframe in which the most South Carolinians would be paying close attention to the governor's race."

The debate over debates overshadowed what Sanford billed as his fall campaign kick-off: A new round of television ads.

One focuses on Sanford's record, one that Moore has challenged.

Miller said the other ad questions "why would we go back (after) the tremendous progress that South Carolina has made over the past four years ... to the business-as-usual, status-quo politicking that dominated Columbia before Gov. Sanford took office."

Moore's campaign offered no response to the ads, although Moore has said previously that the state's economy has suffered under Sanford.