Debate
Best line so far - KCBS' Paul Magers to Antonio "Mr. Villaraigosa, I am not sure whether you answered the question or not."
Post yours here!
Post yours here!
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 2/28/2005 06:57:00 PM
Monday, February 28, 2005
Previous Posts
- Hertzberg to Butcher - You're out of Here!
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- KCBS Mayoral Debate Update
- Taking the Fight to the Next Level
- Cynthia Ruiz
- The Money Game
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8 Comments:
CBS should be ashamed of themselves, locally, by refusing to air as important of a debate, as that of the Mayor of this City.
They have showed their lack of concern for Los Angeles and their citizens, but pre empting it with day old Oscar news....and irrelevant interviews with 'actors' and 'dress designers'.
Talk about screwed up priorities !!!!!!!!!!
....oh, and where was the City Channel, that we all pay for, when this fiasco arose. Why couldn't they step in and carry it on their government channel. Isn't this more important than reruns of City council fights?
Oh, wait. Forgive me. It is ONLY about the future of this great City !!!
OK so here is the skinny on the Debate Awards:
Best Performance: Definitely Richard Alarcon. This all starts when he shows up at CBS with a Big Ass Bus filled with supporters.
Then we see him being golf carted past us with Comedian George Lopez and Neighborhood Council member Jim Alger at his side.
Alarcon wasn't the only one touting high profile Neighborhood Council support, sitting comfortably in the Hahn reserved section was Kim Thompson of the Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council.
Inside he pulls off the most applause lines but just barely squeaked past Hahn in performance.
Best Actor: Huggy Bear Hertzberg who was sitting there with this shit-eating grin on his face in anticipation of the next camera shot. Of course he is still spouting off a ton of promises he can't keep, and seems to acknowledge that Hahn spent millions to synchronize traffic lights ... guess he forgot about the Bobzilla adds where he says he will do what the mayor didn't.
Best Performance: This goes to Tony V for being able to dance around questions so much that the commentator had to ask if he actually answered the question ... audience howls with laughter. He does manage to stay in there.
Best supportive performance: Definitely Hahn. This guy has been listening to his coaches. Much more animated and engaged. This time around he actually defends his record and lists his accomplishments, as he sees them.
Not winning an award: Bitter Bernie. His mantra is, we can't close dumps, we can't give Neighborhood Councils Power, we can't let Neighborhood Councils have decisions on Commissioners, we can't let Neighborhood Councils audit the city ... basically we can't do anything so all you Neighborhood Council people go away.
Shocking moment of the night: When Huggy uses the line "I'm going to roll up my sleeves" Alarcon and Hahn's heads spin to their left with gaping mouths at this blatant theft of a line. Probably won't show up on TV but was a good moment.
Most applause: Richard Alarcon. His plan of giving Neighborhood Councils actual planning authority strikes a cord with a group of people who are tired of City Planning ignoring them at every turn. His plan has been hijacked and morphed by other candidates, but he definitely goes out on a limb for the Neighborhood Councils.
Hahn pledges to root the big money out of LA politics in his second term... DUH he GOT ALL THE MONEY ALREADY!!! Alarcon talks about suing the DWP to get back the "illegal rate hike" and a ballot measure to "eliminate contributions from developers."
Overall, no big shocker in the debate. Typical Hollywood, lots of show little substance from most of the contenders.
From what I heard on the radio Hahn got the most applause. I heard when they had to repeadetly ask Antonio to answer the question. What's wrong with him these days? He did awful Sunday on Channel 4 and looked like he just rolled out of bed. Jim Alger has just thrown his crediability out the window. I thought he was suppose to be non partisan as a rep for all NC"s. By kissing butt to Alarcon who by the way doesn't have a chance in hell to even be in the run-off he's compromising his new position. Hahn was tough and aggressive. Meat must be hating this. Very embarrassing when most people who interview Antonio they mention that he's lost his spark and by the polls he's not doing as well as he did in 2001.
I didn't hear how Antonio answered the illegal immigration question. Can someone post? I know he doesn't do a damn thing about the out of control vendors who are mostly illegal on the Eastside and part of his district in downtown? Didn't he say something on the Doug radio show that he supports them?
No surprise that ADV was the only major candidate who refused to do a one-on-one with McIntyre on that radio show. Why bother, he can't possibly convert any of the city's conservatives, and most right-of-center and even centrist moderates. He has to try and pull 50+ percent of the likely voters out of what's left in a runoff. Talk about a hat trick.
Synopsis:
Alarcon struck a chord with neighborhood council folks who want more power. But he seems to be going off the deep end of this populist stance. He was very passionate but didn't provide a real vision. Alarcon received the most applause.
Parks was again very good, using stats to back up his statements and keeping with his calm demeanor. He showed he's very knoledgible and, frankly, honest about the complexity of problems. For example, the others wimped out by agreeing to send our trash to some other place rather than managing it. It's typical NYMBYism to pollute another place and want your neighborhood pristine.
Villaraigosa seemed overly subdued. He's probably playing it safe since most agree that he has a spot in the run-off. He can let Hahn and Huggy go after each other with the hits and save his ammo for the run-off. Smart, but also risky.
Hertzberg was very animated. He stayed totally on message. Despite the criticisms made against him to break up LAUSD, it strikes a chord with voters. His message is that you can't ignore the big issues that affect our city and its future by saying that's not under my jurisdiction. Voters want a leader who is going to take on the big problems.
Hahn was the best he's ever been. It obviously helped having everyone elese relatively subdued. But he had a level of energy he normally doesn't have and kept hammering the "Sacramento politicians" on stealing money from the City. He was also much calmer when Parks and Hertzberg made some attacking remarks. He held his own and came off much more in charge of the setting.
The two standouts last night were Hertzberg and Hahn.
Did it ever occur to you that Jim Alger backed a candidate that couldn't win to make a point? He is backing the only one trying to really help the NC's.
He also works for Alarcon in the Senate office, who did you expect him to show up with, Bitter Bernie Parks???
it was pretty awesome.
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