[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Sacramento voters who were hoping to see a debate last night between the candidates for Mayor were probably wondering if their TV was tuned to The Comedy Channel instead of the local ABC affiliate.

What was billed as a critical forum between the seven candidates vying for Mayor was largely reduced to a laugh-a-thon. It was Exhibit A for why one of the top contenders, Kevin Johnson, has skipped these events in favor of precinct walking.

Why was it a semi-disaster?

Let's begin with the candidates on stage. Most of them had no business being there. They're not running campaigns. They simply paid to have their name on the ballot. Why there wasn't criteria (polling threshold, fundraising or expenditure threshold) for weeding down the field is beyond me. The precious hour of debate had to be divided between the entire field of candidates, giving none of them time to articulate much of anything.

Then there was the format. Candidates had 30 seconds to respond to questions. Barack Obama can't answer a question in 30 seconds. Did the sponsors really think these candidates could? There was no follow-up, no opportunity for candidates to respond to attacks from other candidates.

There's more...

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

In a post today, Steve Maviglio echoes my thoughts on the Sacramento mayoral debate: the debate yesterday was a disservice to the people of Sacramento. With all due respect to the Led Zeppelin t-shirt guy, the lady afraid of being trampled by elephants, and Padilla Texas Ranger, one of two people will be mayor of Sacramento this time next year, and their names are Heather Fargo and Kevin Johnson. Through no fault of the candidates, yesterday was an exercise in sprinting talking points and nothing more, due to the size of the field and the density of frequently repetitive questions. As a casual observer of the race, with a minor preference for one candidate but open to being persuaded otherwise, I learned nothing yesterday to influence my position one way or the other.