A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Part I

As mentioned earlier, your humble correspondent was in attendance at the Candidates' Forum on Women at the Ogle Center on the IUS campus on Tuesday evening. Both of the main party candidates for the 9th District race were present, and their supporters held rallies beforehand.

The rallies were the usual campaign event; people with shirts and signs with the usual candidate livery. I counted over thirty people at each.

At his event, Sodrel spoke briefly about the negative nature of the campaign, saying that his ads have said how he voted, and they have said how his opponent voted. Sodrel noted that comparative advertising isn't negative, and that his campaign hasn't made anything up about his opponent's record. He also noted that his campaign had cast no aspersions or smears on his opponent's character, as Sodrel apparently feels has been done to him.

Sodrel's wife spoke briefly and was rather emotional about the allegations being leveled at her husband. "Mike is his own man. He does what is right." I think that much of her statement was directed at the whole Foley thing.

The Hill event was held at a different location, and slightly later. While I was there, Baron Hill himself was not present. He apparently arrived later. His supporters spent most of their time milling about aimlessly, and chanting "Bring Back Baron" whenever someone walked by with a Sodrel shirt on.

I half-expected some of the older participants at the Hill rally to launch into sixties era chants like "Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" Between half and two-thirds of those present at the Sodrel event seemed to be of college age. By my count and estimation, maybe a third of those present at the Hill event were of college age. That is pretty much exactly the opposite of what I would expect to see on a college campus, even a small one like IUS.

I saw several signs at the Hill rally proclaiming, "Bush lied, they died." Of course, the absence of "Baron lied, they died" signs at the Sodrel rally was conspicuous by comparison. I wonder if anyone carrying such anti-war signs even asked Baron about his vote for the Iraq war. I somehow doubt that they want to be reminded of it, and I also suspect that Hill would have avoided answering if asked.

Inside the auditorium at the Ogle Center, the forum was divided into two sections, each done in a panel format. The first was for local and state candidates. The second was for federal ones. Candidates from the state group did not share the stage with those in the federal group.

The candidates were seated on the stage next to each other in a row. They were presented questions by the moderator. The questions were chosen (or amalgamated) from those submitted in writing by the audience before the start of the forum. One question was posed, then each candidate approached the podium and was given a fixed period of time to answer it. The first answer rotated, so that no candidate always had the advantage of going last or the disadvantage of going first.

It was a straightforward and effective format. Save for the limiting of the topics to women's' issues (essentially all domestic political ones), it was probably as fair for the candidates as could be expected given the limitations of its nature. This limitation was, of course, more pronounced for the federal candidates.

On the downside, the number of candidates involved and the limited time available for the event prevented significant numbers of questions from being asked. About five or six questions were posed to the seven attending local candidates in the allotted fifty minutes. The federal candidates--numbering five (yes, five)--managed to get through eight, though their debate ran longer than the scheduled time period.

There was a camera present from WLKY 32 News in Louisville. It was fixed to a tripod and focused on the stage, so I think that they taped the entire event. I brought my trusty digital camera. Unfortunately, I put the wrong batteries in it, leaving the recharged ones at home. I managed one picture (of the Hill rally) before the batteries gave out, so I have no pictures of the debate itself.

A young preppy fellow in a blue shirt sat in the front row with a camcorder. Upon inquiry with several people from the Sodrel campaign seated near me, I learned that this was a Hill staffer. He spent the entire federal section of the forum with the camcorder aimed at Sodrel (who apparently saw this and smiled at the guy) regardless of whether the Republican was speaking or just seated. I suspect that there was a Sodrel person present doing the same thing to Baron Hill, but didn't see one (and I didn't want to spend the forum twisting around in my seat to try to locate them).

It is disappointing that politics in America (and now even southern Indiana) has descended to the point where taping an opponent just sitting there during a debate is deemed useful. Might the candidate roll his eyes while someone else is speaking? Perhaps he will scratch himself in someplace embarrassing. Maybe he will fall asleep. He could whisper something derogatory to the opponent seated next to him while another candidate is speaking.

What a political catch it would be for a candidate's staffers to catch their opponent yawning while they are repeating their talking points. I bet that some hard-hitting negative ads can be made of such unflattering footage.

Sarcasm aside, this tactic may be par for the political course these days. That does not, however, make it any less sad or any less pathetic. I bet that the blue-shirt guy (and his Sodrel campaign counterpart, if there was one) feel mighty important for taping a guy sitting there, in the hopes that he might pick his nose. That's a good source of experience for future political ambitions. I bet it looks good on a resume.

I'll blog more on the forum hopefully tomorrow, when I'll get to the actual questions and the answers given by the candidates.

Tune in later. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.