Lucas County Commissioner Debate - Democrats

Progressive Toledo has a post from yesterday on this. Yesterday was technical difficulties day for me. First blogger would not publish then our dsl went down. Yes, I am so technologically spoiled I decided to wait and see if it was fixed last night as promised, which of course it wasn't. (SBC tsk tsk) So this morning I am on dial up.

I did watch the debate last night and took prolific notes, the Blade did provide video to the debate for those of you who missed it here I plan on watching it again to see if I missed anything. (update...yes my dsl is back)

Intial feeling was that it would have been nice if it would have been a bit longer of a format. With commercials it was well under a half an hour and there were some time management issues that were obvious. Jim Tankersley did a nice job in the questions he asked as well as trying to press for more complete answers if necessary. Diane Larson also had some good questions for all three candidates.

Phil Copeland once again did not answer questions, even when pressed by Jim Tankersley he gave non-answers. The initial question concerning Phil's claim of creating jobs when Local 500 has in reality lost jobs ended up with a non-answer that basically affirmed that Jim was correct in stating that Phil has not created any new jobs. Even when asked by Diane Larson what concrete plans he had, he did not have one except he wanted to be friendly and bring unions in.

There was no economic plan revealed by Phil, other than his statement of if he is elected he will work with the Two Commissioners going to them stating "I got an idear about bringing some business in". Ben mentioned Phil's earlier promise of unveiling his economic plan which was not really responded to.

Tim Wagener promoted what is his campaign message of "Experience Matters", pointing to the Dana Tech Center as a success story that he felt should be a blueprint for future job creation. He when asked if he had any bolder plans other than his one involving senior citizens and high schoolers interacting more stated that until he gets into office he won't know. He wants voters to consider his years of public service which he stated was more combined than all of the others running for Lucas County Commissioner as why he should be elected. I don't think it was intentional, but Tim gave off an attitude of superiority that might not be received well by some voters. I wasn't the only one who noticed it, those viewing with me also commented on that without me saying anything.

Trying to view Ben Konop's performance critically is hard, he did an excellent job, he answered questions even hard ones relating to his not having political experience or what management experience he had, he kept to his talking points and took a comment from Phil Copeland where Phil said Ben was "fooling" people about tax increases and used that to bring up a comment that bothered many of us that Phil stated about not being concerned if people thought they were voting for Bill Copeland. Ben even demonstrated he had practiced his closing and was the only candidate that had it timed properly. While it's not talked about often, being able to work with the limited amount of time the media is going to give you to create soundbites is an important one. Ben demonstrated that he can handle the media aspect of a Lucas County Commissioner's job on top of promoting his message that he believes it is time for a change and that his not being a career politician is a plus rather than a minus. Only complaint I would have with Ben's performance is I think he was a bit too technical on the economies of scale discussion. That's something he could explain further but difficult to express in a short time frame to people that might not have heard him speak about that in more detail.

Those watching with me gave the "win" to Ben, second place to Tim and a very distant third to Phil. How much of an effect will this have depends on how many people viewed it. I would be very interested in hearing from anyone that has now seen both debates that still feels Phil Copeland should be the Democratic candidate.

So there is my take on the debate, I will watch tonights as well and hopefully now that I have been techonolgically restored, be able to post tonight.

On Progressive Toledo the discussion brought up the college degree topic since Ben is the only one with a college degree. Here's my take on that. I think a college degree is helpful however it is possible to have life experience that would also make a person qualified for public office. Tim Wagener as an example, is qualified from an experience point of view. Ben's lack of political experience should be no more of an issue than Tim's lack of a college degree as far as a direct comparison scale to me. That is the unfortunate thing about this election, there is a valid concern that Phil Copeland could win the primary because voters that are informed are going to be selecting between Ben and Tim. Several people have voiced concern that Tim should drop out of the race because he is creating a potential for the vote to be split. Personally I'd like to believe that wouldn't happen but presented with the information from the last Blade poll where it is clear people think that they are voting for Bill Copeland? I guess it boils down to hoping for the best and that the informed voters take everything into consideration and outnumber those that are not. I'm not going to take the position that Tim should step down, even though I understand where those who have stated it are coming from.

Politics in Mudville also has impressions of last night's debate.