I guess I really shouldn’t call Tuesday night’s gathering at the Northside Civic League a “debate.” Instead, it was a forum in which the four candidates – Ralph Northam, Nick Rerras, Paula Miller and Hank Giffin – took turns answering questions. I don’t recall a single instance of a candidate saying, “my opponent believes X while I believe Y.” Taking its cue from the candidates, the crowd passively listened.
Each of the candidates got about three minutes to make an opening statement. Senate challenger Northam got to go first. He provided a brief bio and talked about the issues that are important to him and why he is running.
Next up was Senator Rerras. In his statement, Rerras talked about his accomplishments in office, taking credit for Virginia being named the best place to raise kids as well as Norfolk’s return to neighborhood schools at the middle school level.
Delegate challenger Giffin gave his background as well, emphasizing that he is committed to community service. He touched on his issues as well, adding that as a veteran, he can be a voice for that group.
Last up was Delegate Miller, who used her time to talk about the issues that she champions.
The candidates managed to answer ten questions, many of them with a local focus. Some of the questions were only for the delegate candidates, others just for the senate candidates. The experience that comes with incumbency sometimes puts a challenger at a disadvantage and last night was no exception. Throwing around terms like “DEQ” and “599 funding” sounds impressive enough, especially to folks who don’t follow politics closely enough to know what those terms mean. But occasionally, the challenger has a more impressive answer, such as when Northam explained the problem of storm water runoff in Mason Creek or when he put numbers on the cost to homeowners of the new grantor’s tax portion of the transportation plan.
All of the candidates supported the 20% homestead exemption, a proposed constitutional amendment that Rerras managed to get passed for the first time this year. Giffin and Rerras support a 5% cap on real estate assessments, Miller and Northam oppose such a cap. Giffin went further, saying that he supports a freeze on assessments for seniors. (I personally think a cap on assessments is irresponsible in our operating environment, unless the goal is to further handicap localities.)
The casual observer may have left last night thinking that this was about the only thing that separated the candidates. All are for more funding of public schools, all want more money to combat crime and gangs. Heck, they all support the eminent domain law that was recently passed, as shown in the video below.
Wait. Didn’t Rerras vote against that bill? You’d never know it from the way he spoke. And that was the one thing that I found most irritating. Rerras conveniently left out item after item, and ran away from his voting record. He never mentioned that his 5% cap bill (which the mayor referred to as a “brochure bill”) didn’t pass (and was, in fact, unconstitutional as proposed). He never mentioned that “his” homestead exemption bill was one that has been proposed in the past by another Senator (Mary Margaret Whipple). And he claimed that the transportation bill was a bipartisan one. Rerras reinvented himself right in front of my eyes last night.
This was the first of what will no doubt be many candidate forums for these two races. From what I saw, Miller outperformed Giffin and Northam outperformed Rerras last night. I suspect others saw the opposite, and that many saw it as a draw. As the campaign season progresses, I hope that we will see more differences between the candidates and their positions.
As an aside, it was interesting to see the number of people there with stickers on for Miller and Rerras, further proof of the struggle that challengers have. They must be able to answer two questions: why to fire the incumbent and why to hire them. It’s not an easy task.
Technorati Tags: Ralph Northam, Nick Rerras, Paula Miller, Hank Giffin
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I entirely clear on the exact format but do we not have an obligation to challenge those in the public forum when we know they are telling half-truths or running from their records. Did not one person challenge the record of the incumbants in the public arena or is our intention to simply wait for the challengers to do so. Sounds to me an opportunity was lost by the challengers to draw clear distinction between fact and spin.
J Scott, it sounds to me like the precise format eliminated that possibility unless the challenger jumped in, interrupted and made himself look whiny. That’s the problem with not having a rebuttal opportunity drawn into the candidate forum: if the challenger automatically goes first and the incumbent automatically goes second with no rebutall, the incumbent can respond however he wants, generally without consequence.
What I want to know is why I’m only reading about this on Viv’s blog. Where’s the Pilot?
The format – with no opportunity to rebut – is always a problem. I wish it were something that is required. Perhaps the campaigns can request that in the future.
anon – the Pilot was there. No idea why there was no writeup in the paper.
stop harassing me! I will never vote for a politician that calls my phone # every 1 hr. LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!