The Debate, Such as it Was

Well the Mayoral candidate debate is over and it was as expected. The silly ad flap dominated, wasting time, and not much else was made clear. No real new ground was broken. Democrat AC Wharton, Republican George Flinn and Libertarian Bruce Young participated.

Kudos to Steve Dawson, Fox13's primary news anchor, for a good job trying to keep order. In the first question, to George Flinn, Flinn elected to try to bring up the ad flap. Dawson immediately stopped him, Wharton who tried to jump in, and Dawson forced them back on topic. Dawson was controlled and focused throughout. Well done.

Flinn didn't come off as well as backers hoped, I think. He immediately went to the ad flap and brought it up again and again. It appears he was trying to pin it on Wharton and then sit above the fray, but he didn't achieve that. It made both look juvenile. Wharton, oddly enough, rebuked the Commercial Appeal's reporters and columnists by calling Flinn's ads "not negative--misleading." Take that!

Wharton began very calm and professional, as Lutrell was in the previous ABC24 Sheriff's debate. But when Flinn kept up with the ad flap (and I should point out that Wharton also did his bit to keep that whole exercise alive), Wharton lost his cool, growing angry and taking on some of his lawyerly demeanor. That was especially shown when Wharton forcefully demanded Flinn "look me in the eye" and accuse him of doing what CA stories claim Flinn is accusing. Wharton's question was weasel-wording, as he used "I" and we all know that it would be an underling who would do that, with Wharton given plausible deniability for situations exactly like this. Wharton's campaign image of fatherly and kind and cool was blown; how you look at his reaction would probably be colored by your politics.

Flinn essentially accused Wharton of colluding with the Commercial Appeal to triangulate him, with the "political elite" as the third leg. Nice piece of triangulating, but Wharton accurately pointed out "your debate is with the CA." All of this was a silly argument, as Bruce Young pointed out. Steve Dawson finally called the situation "intractable...[with] no more left to be said" before he pushed on.

Mr. Young came off quite well. The Libertarian Party candidate held his own and looked good on camera. His drawback is the "who's that?" factor, as most television viewers and paper readers won't know him. The ad flap arguments kept him on the sidelines, largely, which made him look slightly irrelevant against the two major party candidates. Still, he did make the most of his opportunity.

All candidates called for "accountability" as the solution to county school funding, though Flinn proposed floating county bonds to make it "local money" not subject to the three-for-one formula of present school funding. And Wharton mentioned "enhanc[ing] property not performing." Whether this was code for re-appraisal of commercial property, or for redevelopment, was not clear enough.

All candidates supported making Shelby Farms an independent entity, per Ron Terry's plan.

Two bits: First, AC Wharton undercut one of Susan Adler Thorp's whacking points against George Flinn by saying that the County Mayor "does" affect education in the county. Hu-zaa! Second, all the candidates proposed fiscal responsibility, even Democrat Wharton. Nowhere but in the few left-liberal politicians like Chumney or Cohen and in black Democrats do you hear old-Democratic speak about more government spending and more programs being touted. Strange times.

Mike Fleming will have a field day with all this tomorrow, but voters didn't get much out of the deal. Too bad.

Until next time, that is all.