He also frequently responded to the straw man argument of, "I know people like to say that we're flying around on private jets and eating caviar, but that's so far from the truth."

This is despite the fact that I mentioned, from the very beginning, that I did NOT feel the PPA was spending its funds on needless frills for its officers. So why repeatedly respond to this "private plane" argument when I'm trying to ask him about completely unrelated matters?

Again, it was done because it's a standard debate tactic for question avoidance. You need to have some sort of response, so creating a straw man and responding to it sounds a lot better than giving a bad-sounding answer to a tough question.

This is actually why it is tilting for me to watch political debates. I see politicians on BOTH sides using these sorts of tactics, and I never really get the answer to some of the very good and specific questions asked by the moderators.