I want that 90 minutes of my life back. Gah!
I had looked forward to the “Danville Voter’s League State Political Forum” ever since I heard about it 6 weeks ago.
WRONG! I hadn’t even heard that this event was going on until a friend told me about it Thursday morning. That’s not a very promising sign.
I was told that 5th District Democratic candidate Lawrence Gaughan was going to be there, and that Danville School Board member was going to a stand-in for Mark Warner. OK, I can live with that. I really didn’t expect US Senate candidates to come to a non-greed-to small event like this. Quite frankly, I was quite confident that Robert Hurt wasn’t ever going to attend this event because he had absolutely nothing to gain by being here.
Fine. I’m going to go anyway. And here’s what we get…
I could easily caption this photo as “Lawrence Gaughan wonders why the heck he’s here, too.”
Anyway, let’s bring on a Big Board and tell you why this was interminably bad…
- I arrive, put my bag down and am asked “Are you with the Register & Bee”. No. No, I’m not. The Register & Bee isn’t going to cover this. In fact, if you relied on the Register & Bee for coverage of this 5th district race, you may not even know that there’s even an election this year.
- The Danville Voter’s League (GAH! It’s not a single voter. Put your apostrophe AFTER the “s”.) actually goes over the rules for this forum, and they’re actually going to keep time for the answers to the questions. Why? There’s one candidate and one stand-in, and both of them are from the Democratic side. It’s not like there’s going to be any Republican response.
- Each candidate introduces themselves. Even though Lawrence Gaughan is a huge underdog in this race, I’m going to give him credit for always being well-spoken and on topic with his message. Steven Gould’s introduction of himself on behalf of Mark Warner is actually better than Mark Warner was at the Institute last week.
- Let’s get to the questions, and they’re going to come from the audience. All 15 of them. Hoo boy.
- (These questions are paraphrased because my brain was already starting to shut down) “How many jobs will you bring back to the area if you’re elected?” Oh yeah, now that’s a question they can answer with a highly specific answer. “18,314” or something like that. Of course, Gaughan turns that question into an opportunity to talk about jobs and minimum wage increases… you know, his campaign’s talking points. Steven Gould does the same thing and again sounds better than Mark Warner could ever hope to.
- “Where does federal money for education go to? Hey, that’s not a campaign question, but it’s not too bad. “How does local money get applied if students get suspended from school?” Facepalm. That’s not a federal issues question for a US Senate candidate. Luckily, we have a LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER up on the stage to answer a LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD QUESTION . My head is starting to hurt.
- Cecil Bridgeforth asks how lottery money is allocated for education. Facepalm. Cecil Bridgeforth has been in local education. He should know that that’s a STATE issue, and nothing that a US Representative or Senator can control in the least. I’m sensing a need for a civics lesson. Luckily, we still have a LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER up on the stage to answer a LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD QUESTION.
- By the way, Lawrence Gaughan is awesome when he says “That’s a great question” to these horrible questions. He sits back, lets Steven Gould answer the LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD QUESTION, then spins the question into something that he can talk about using his campaign positions.
- About 35 minutes into this, I can’t take anymore of this. I am duty-bound to ask some real federal issue questions so I stand up and fire off three good ones to the stage. Finally, Gaughan and Gould get to show their understanding of federal issues and they knock the answers out of the park just as I expected. I actually get nods of approval for bringing this forum back to federal issues for federal candidates. By the time they answer the question, I’m actually starting to believe that Steven Gould is running for US Senator instead of Mark Warner.
- We mercifully get to the end of tonight’s forum and I start to think maybe my head will stop hurting. WRONG! Cecil Bridgeforth reminds everybody that “The Danville Voter’s (sic – probably but I don’t care at this point) League continues to be the political voice for the African-American community.” Yep. right. All 15 of them that showed up. Two older white people were there along with me. I’m guessing that the Danville Voter’s League doesn’t care about us crackers. Damn straight that pisses me off. It always has, and it always will. Danville will never be United with things like this.
- Anyway, Bridgeforth pretty much urges the “crowd” to vote Democratic on November 4th. Wow, didn’t see that one coming. Hey, you want to know why Robert Hurt isn’t going to come to events put on by this organization? Well, duh. He had no chance at gaining any of these people’s votes and the president of the organization showed his Democratic bias. Bridgeforth didn’t act this way during the school board forum in May, as he was impartial then. This was shameful, but not unexpected.
That’s it. I’m out the door as fast as I can go. I learned my lesson… and you didn’t have to sit through this. We’re all winners.
Isn’t the School Board a nonpartisan position? Why is Gould continuing to use his position as a School Board member to stick himself in the middle of a US Senate race? His letter in the newspaper last week supporting Warner invokes his school board position, as well. Why point out Bridgeforth’s bias but not Gould? After his wife’s fumble at the City Council meeting Tuesday ( “if something offends one person, get rid of it”) I would have thought they’d be laying low for a while.
Gould’s “bias” was going to be pretty clear considering he worked for Mark Warner and was asked to represent Mark Warner’s position on the stage.
I pointed out Bridgeforth’s bias because he is the president of the organization that put this thing together.
Didn’t Warner do some big favor for Gould when his dad was in all that trouble a few years ago? That could explain why Gould is quick to trash his “bi-partisanship” to do anything to help Warner. Loyalty is not all bad.
If we are all winners why all the negative comments? All decent people know that if you don’t have anything good to say you shouldn’t say anything. Therefore, I will not respond to any of your negative comments. I want to be positive even though some people only want to make untrue negative comments.
Care to tell us what you’re talking about?
The writer of this blog. If you don’t like what you are hearing leave. If you want to be respected and treated like professional then l act like one. You twisted must of what you wrote but I guess that is how you think you should behave and it is probably the only way you can get people to pay you any attention. I have no further comments. I prefer to take the high road. The view is better from up here. I will not come down to your level and I am not interested in anything else you have to say so save it for those people who find you interesting.
By taking the high road, you mean the opposite. I am very satisfied with the service that SSC provides for this community (for FREE). It sounds to me like someone is mad, but too chicken to identify themselves. Must suck to be you.
Listen to your rhetoric and tell who is mad? I would be mad if I was you. Just because something is “free” it is not always valuable. Everyone has an opinion and I disagree with his and yours. Goodbye mad people. I am wasting my time and again I refuse to come down to your level. I will not respond to or read any more foolishness.
Yet you still haven’t told me what was “untrue” in my article.
How many times can someone not respond? I am not afraid to let people know who I am. I am not yellow so I stand by my words instead of hiding.
“We’re all winners” because most people didn’t go to that debacle.
As for “untrue”, tell me specifically what was untrue.
Was it worse than the council debate last year? If so, I am glad to be in NC for the duration of this cycle.
The Danville Voter’s League is well known as an arm of the Democrat Party. There is no reason whatsoever for a Republican candidate to ever attend these events. A few years ago one Republican candidate did attend. When he arrived he could tell the organizers were surprised he showed up. They then required him to sit in another room while the Democrat was allowed to take questions. He was unable to hear the Democrat’s answers or responses. It was very unfair. The GOP candidate was mad at himself for not walking away, but he was a novice candidate, so he went along. Afterwards, he vowed to never attend again. No matter what he said or did, he would not gain one single vote by attending. Everyone who was there already had his mind made up.