candidate forums – Doug Rutherford

April 28, 2011

Once More Into the Breach

The last of the candidate forums took place Wednesday evening and again, there was little possibility of calling this a debate. This was sponsored by CBC and included an online Facebook feed and Twitter component as well. I was hoping to live blog the event but discovered that, when the hotel said that WiFi was available for the event, it just wasn’t available in the room where it was held.

The format was slightly different, in that the candidates answered questions from the floor and telephone and did have a chance at rebuttal after their earlier chance to answer. However, each of the candidates supported the various concerns, be it reducing violence against women or increasing the amount of affordable housing.

Some of the obvious things that appeared were the standard issues. Some of the candidates are very unfamiliar with the difference between Federal and Provincial/Territorial responsibilities. This was apparent in the answers on free entry staking mining and when discussing education as part of their answers. Much of the time, candidates read their responses from party platforms and their answers seemed flat and uninteresting. In one case, Ryan Leef, the Conservative candidate, refused to answer a question on how the candidates felt about removing support for abortion counseling. His response, that he knew little about the subject so it would be improper to answer, drew a bit of ire from the crowd.

Not all of the questions proposed were asked due to the two-hour time limit on the event. However, a point of note was that some issues, such as health care and the long gun registry, were not brought up in the discussion.

One aspect of many of the responses was the amount of time candidates spent referring to their history. One tweet from the Twitter feed dealt with this: “when a candidate speaks about himself, he has nothing to say.”

Winners? Losers? Most of the comments on Twitter and Facebook suggest that John Streicker, the Green Candidate, was the most passionate and informed. But, in the long run, I don’t see where these forums actually accomplished a great deal. There should be a more structured debate format rather than the current one next time. The current format does nothing to allow you to differentiate between the various parties and probably adds little to deciding on whom you’d choose.

For all intents and purposes, there should be little more to the campaign. The leaders are all running around safe ridings to ride out the last few days and avoid doing a “Kim Campbell” at the end of the campaign. Few big issues will come forward to prevent making any mistakes in the final days. Now, the main thing that remains is wondering what will come from the NDP polling results, a trend you probably will not see extended to our riding…

April 28, 2011

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Live Blog

My posting today starts with an apology. I had planned to use Cover It Live to cover last night’s candidates’ forum. My plan was to do this through WiFi. I contacted the Gold Rush Inn early in the week and was told that WiFi was available. Sadly, their WiFi network doesn’t extend into the meeting room where the forum was held and I had no way of notifying people to the contrary. Sorry.

April 20, 2011April 20, 2011

Yup. We’re Yukoners.

Note: This is also my next posting for the CBC Your Take blog.

I attended the all candidates forum on arts issues held in Whitehorse Tuesday evening and have noticed a trend. The candidates don’t want to disagree with each other.

Art forum — Audience and candidates at the All Candidates Arts Forum, Whitehorse, April 19, 2011.

I’m not the only one see this, either. I’ve had comments from people attending the forums that there’s been “a great deal of commonality” on the issues. The local papers have also noted the lack of debate at the forums as well. There have been minor discrepencies between the parties, but, to the greatest degree, the forums have been cordial, respectful and each party seems to put forward the same message: “Yes, we support … (insert issue here).”

It took me until this morning to understand what’s going on here. There seems to be some agreement between the candidates to not be antagonistic, aggressive or belligerent. In short, they have been conducting themselves much along the lines as we have been asking them to conduct themselves for years. They’ve given us what we’ve requested.

Here’s the problem. If they’re bickering, we call parliament a daycare. If they’re agreeable, it’s boring. We’re from the Yukon. We spend more than half of the year going, “It’s too cold” and the rest saying, “It’s too hot” in a pretty whiney voice. Most of us list Eeyore as our mentor.

As a Yukoner, I guess I should express this using a beer analogy. Not having beer is a bad thing but a case would probably be too much. I guess the official election request is “Give us a six-pack.” And, as a working philosophy goes, the six-pack thing pretty much works for me…

April 16, 2011April 16, 2011

A Few Simple Rules for Candidate Forums

Revised

As of Friday evening, half of the all candidate forums for theYukon election are over. At that point, Bringing Youth Toward Equality (BYTE) sponsored a forum on youth-related issues and raising the profile of politics for those least likely to vote.

Having attended both of these forums, I can’t help but notice a few points that candidates should consider in the last half of the campaign.

Statistics

Statistical arguments do have a place in this world, but these deal with making reference to specific data. When you do this, you should be doing it with definite figures from your notes that relate exactly to the situation at hand. Sadly, 74.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot. For example, one candidate stated in the last forum that less than 60% of eligible Yukoners voted in the last election. That is actually the national figure. About 64% of eligible voters in the territory did make it to the polls. Also, another candidate suggested that theUS deficit now stood at $1 trillion. It’s actually expected to be $1.5 trillion. When you get to talking about trillions of dollars, 0.5 does have some meaning.

Repetition

If you really know your party platform, you will have something to actually say when answering questions. If you’re really sure of the party message, you will be able to explain these concepts without buzz words or obviously politicizing your responses. Stating that the only way to be sure that something will happen is to vote you in as a candidate and giving your party a majority government was not the proper answer for any of the questions asked in either Thursday’s or Friday’s forum. Answer the question directly and you may find the voters will respond.

Your Train of Thought

An all candidates forum is like a job interview. The job you are interviewing for is one requiring excellent public speaking skills and the ability to present a cogent argument. Being well prepared and knowing what specifics your party has in mind to deal with issues should keep your train of thought from derailing.

Plants

Everyone knows that the parties plant questioners at these events. If your communications director doesn’t do this, you may need a new one. Despite this, polite conduct does suggest that plants are supposed to make an effort to be subtle. When a) someone shows up for the youth forum wearing a suit, b) starts the question with a partisan shot at the incumbent and, c) asks a candidate, by his first name, to list why his policy is so superior, the rules of subtlety have fallen away.

When more than 74.2% of the audience roll their eyes at the question, a few more acting lessons should have been called for…

April 7, 2011April 7, 2011

Waiting for Local Issues

So far, there seems to be little in local issues really coming to the fore. But, there also seems to be little in the way of real policy being pushed by any of the parties.

There does seem to be a little protest, though. The local conservative candidate hasn’t said much other than the official party talking points. Given the perception that the Conservative Party goes to great lengths to stay on message, it does bring to mind how the two local papers have both printed stories with all of the official words in quotes: coalition, island of stability, etc. It’s actually kind of funny.

We’re still waiting to hear final dates for some of the all candidates forums. The youth issues forum, organized by Bringing Youth Towards Equality (BYTE) is scheduled for the evening of April 15th. All four candidates are reported to be attending.

The Arts Issues forum still has not been scheduled, but apparently can only be on one of two dates. This was very well attended in the 2008 General Election.

CBC Yukon is also organizing the all candidates forum for the evening of April 27th. There has been no word, however, confirming whether or not the Whitehorse and Dawson Chambers of Commerce, who have sponsered similar events in the past, plan to do so this time around.

And that’s it for today. I do get to have those horribly unprolific days and using them up in the 2nd week of the election campaign, a notoriously slow part of an election, seems the be approach.