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Did you watch any of the debates this past week?
Most folks probably did not even though it was a rare opportunity to evaluate the candidates based on something other than those often misleading campaign commercials. In fact some valuable advice is, if you base your election decisions based on those ads, do the Democracy a favor and don’t vote.
Enough has already been written on the “exchange” in the U.S. Senate debate where it must of taken hours to sanitize the TV studio after they left.
In a more civil and content driven debate between the two candidates running for governor, there is some material to chew on as a result of what Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James had to say.
Most of the coverage centered on where they disagreed but when you look at everything they uttered, much to your surprise you found they actually agreed on not one, not two, but six different areas.
Given how that is not the norm, likes take a look.
First in their opening statements, they both surprisingly mentioned they would get rid of the “corruption” in Lansing. You would expect that from a GOP candidate on the outside wanting to get inside. In fact Mr. James dragged the current governor into the conversation in an attempt link her alleged miscues while in office to his opponent who basically had little to do with forming the Gretchen Whitmer agenda over the last eight years. Yet he accused the Secretary of State for not “standing up” to the governor.
Ms. Benson did point out that the governor is a policy person and the SOS is an administrator but did say she would shape-up the Whitmer Health and Human Service department.
She of course, on numerous occasions returned the volley trying to link him to President Trump and not standing up to him. He noted he broke with the president on stopping the war in Iran.
One kept waiting for them to present examples of this so-called corruption but alas, they did not.
On their agreements.
He wanted to pause the state gas tax. A week or so ago she called that a bad move because it would “blow a hole” in the state budget. But that night on the debate stage came an apparent conversion on the road to the governor’s chair. She was now “open” to the idea with no explanation as to why the switch. You don’t suppose it had anything to do with the absent balloting already underway? He missed the opportunity to call it a flip-flop.
They both want to hit the pause button on what has turned into a real hot potato namely data centers. They assert that local citizens should have veto power over these monster projects which over 60% of the citizens don’t want.
You have to wonder why the data center barons want to hide the details unless there is something to keep secret? Both candidates came down on the side of that friend of Democracy, “transparency.”
So how many Flock cameras are on the light poles in your neck of the woods?
Ms. B. and Mr. J. agree that the state, in conjunction with local officials, needs to slap some “guard rails” on these cameras in the air capturing your license plate number and who knows what all?
Law enforcement, which was not on the stage, vigorously argues these spies in the skies are helping nab bad guys but yet many citizens wonder what info they are gathering on law abiding motorists?
It’s been widely reported for years that many of our little third graders are not very good at reading ” See Dick and Jane run. Run. Run. Run.” 44th in the nation is nothing to brag about and both want to implement the strategy used in Mississippi to boost the scores but she would go one step further with some additional reforms if she gets into office.
On the same subject, she does not favor holding kids back a grade if they can’t read. Instead, as a former teacher, she thinks the call rests in the hands of the parents and instructors. He wants to state law to do the job instead impacting every school not just individual children.
Among the few zingers that night, he looked at her and suggested, “I’m a combat veteran, I have been to war. She has not.”
Adroit on her feet she came back, “First of all I’m a mom and a military spouse. And (looking him in the eye) by the way military spouses serve also.”
Mr. James evened the score later on when she was explaining to the audience that if they wanted to check her personal and family finances you could go to a web site that had all the data.
But to understand what he said you need background that the viewer most likely did not have. You see in her office she had another web sight where elected officeholders had to file their campaign finance reports. Only problem was they and the news media could not log on to do it. She was on the hot seat for having an unworkable system that eventually was reworked.
So when she asked the audience to go to her finance web site, he shot back, “Is it working?” Frankly it was a great line but it’s unlikely most viewers got the point.
They hold debate two on October 15th. Tune in if you can unless you’re comfortable getting your voting info from those darn commercials.