The Hispanic Affairs Council of Alaska hosted a candidate forum this afternoon at the Mountain View Community Center for the US House Race. It was a chance to see all the candidates except the incumbent.
All of them were a refreshing change to polite and respectful compared to Don Young, who, we were told, was unable to make the audio conference connection because of a change in travel scheduling. But he offered to meet with the HACA board when he's back in the state. Hmmmm, what is a better setting for getting your ideas across? A forum set up with four other candidates where each is limited to two minute responses, or a private meeting with the board?
The format was interesting. Candidates were NOT asked the same questions. They had too many questions to do that. But at the end, candidates were able to choose one of the questions they weren't asked.
I got there late and heard Sean Parnell, responding to a question on NAFTA, saying that he believed in free trade, therefore, yes, Mexican buses should be allowed into the US.
His next question, on how to lower the Hispanic dropout rates in school, was a chance for him to talk about incentives, namely the incentive scholarship that he had something to do with. He said incentive or incentivize about 6 times in his two minutes. He never addressed the Hispanic part of that question.
Next he was asked about Federal reimbursements for translations/interpreters for patients with limited English. He responded that if those Americans are entitled to health care, I don't see how we can say no. (I'm not using quotes because that's close but probably not exactly what he said.) Then he changed the subject to agree with Berkowitz about allowing out of state health insurance.
And then he was asked,Which Presidential candidate has the best economic plan for the country? He said he was speechless and then regained his speech and talked about economic stimulus - reducing economic barriers, gas tax holiday, need to move forward on alternative energy, reduce demand, conservation, and reduce the deficit. He appeared to not know what McCain's economic plan was so he changed the topic to something he was prepared for. He never did name a presidential candidate.
When offered the chance to to pick a question he hadn't been asked, he talked about how we all benefited from the oil pipeline and how the next big thing was the gas pipeline.
Finally, for the last question - what makes you the best person for the job? - he talked about the difference between success and greatness. Success is achieving things. Greatness is who we are as a people (I wasn't sure now if he was talking about Alaskans or himself) our core. Great - who we are, I'm calling Alaskans to greatness. Limit government growth, stimulate individual initiative. Make a change, make difference.
Overall, Parnell talked in platitudes, in generalities. He started from an ideological stance each time - free trade is good; incentives are good, economic stimulus is good - but never got into the subtleties of the issues or got very concrete or detailed. Just being polite isn't good enough for me. We just saw what the prosecutor called a "politely corrupt" legislator sentenced to 42 months. I don't mean to imply that Parnell is corrupt, but just that being polite isn't enough. Even though it's a positive change from our current Congressperson.
LeDoux suffered from the same problem of generality, though to a much lesser extent. She was "in general" against vouchers, but wouldn't rule them out in situations where poor kids in failing schools were concerned.
She was for expanding the rural dental assistant program.
When asked if we were in a recession, said Alaska was in better shape than most of the country, but that yes, we were. She mentioned the high price of fuel and that we should never give up on ANWR, as well as finding alternative energy sources. I know that ANWR is the Holy Grail for Alaska Republicans, but if we couldn't open it with a Republican US Senate, House, and President, what makes them think it will get opened by a Democratic controlled House and Senate and perhaps President? I know that they think that $120/barrel oil changes things, but squeezing out whatever little oil there only postpones the day of reckoning a bit and contributes to global warning. When I think about the millions of dollars Alaska has spent on lobbying for ANWR unsuccessfully while cutting $10,000 here and $40,000 there for social programs, I just have to shake my head and wonder. Sorry, didn't mean to veer off there.
When she got the chance to pick a question she'd not been asked before, she jumped to discuss No Child Left Behind (NCLB) which she called a total failure. Then went on to use ideology to explain what it was a failure - the Feds shouldn't be telling the communities how to educate their kids. And there was something about Anchorage having a lot of bilingual kids, but I didn't catch her point on that part of it.
Finally, when asked why she should be the candidate, she said that an important part of leadership is never say "die." She then went on to relate how in 1992 she lost her husband and a son in a car accident, how she didn't even want to get up in the morning. But she had two other kids and needed to continue her law practice and that is what she did. "I've been tested. Been through hell and back. I know I can fight for you." Can't argue with that. That was the only time I really felt I heard directly from her heart during the forum.
OK, now I've boxed myself in. Giving so much time to those candidates, it's only fair to go through each of the questions for the other two candidates. Not sure I can do it. When I graded student papers, I always felt I needed to write more on the papers that I thought were lacking something, because those students needed more direction. But the good papers also needed encouragement and challenges. So here again, I find that I needed to justify my sense of the two candidates who were less impressive by giving more detail. The other two candidates conveyed to me a much stronger grasp of both details of the implications of policies and laws (such as No Child Left Behind) and they understood the larger context. But then if you don't like the unequal coverage of what the candidates said, you can go to the next forum and hear for yourself I guess.
Benson, when asked about drivers licenses for illegal aliens got to the practical
issues immediately. Of course (I'm writing here) there are logical, rule of law, standards for saying no to such drivers' licenses, but Benson said that she'd been in an accident the other day and she wants everyone driving to have a license so they can get insurance. She did it again on her next question on NCLB, she had the jargon acronyms on the tip of her tongue. HQT for example. Sure, she said, it sounds good, we all want Highly Qualified Teachers, but when a village has only a couple of teachers, they can't be HQT in every subject.
When asked, "What are your priorities for vulnerable populations to gain access to health care?" she quoted John Edwards' recommendation to move from the terminology of access to the terminology of provision. Then rattled off numbers - 30% of Alaskans at some part of the year don't have adequate health care. Then she went into another practical example of a guy with an injured hand who got bandaged up instead of the getting the surgery he needed because he didn't have insurance. Now he's on disability. How is that cost effective she asked.
Berkowitz was also fluent on the issues, spoke from the heart, and filled his time with specifics that showed his familiarity with the topic. When asked about seniors
getting cut off by doctors when they get onto medicare, he said first, we need more doctors, need to grow more here, get a medical school in the state. Second, find solutions so doctors don't lose money when they treat medicare patients. There was a range of options he said, but the real question is why the system is broken? We need to solve some of the problems ourselves - expand Denali kid care, buy health insurance across state lines. (I'm not so sure about the economics of a medical school, but I do know that people who go Outside to school, usually don't come back to Alaska.)
There was a look of glee on his face when he was asked about alternative energy. "I love this question" he said and then listed all sorts of potential energy sources in Alaska - geothermal, solar, the bark beetle killed lumber, wind. He then listed three key objectives here:
1. Lower utility bills and create jobs
2. Need for Alaskans to respond positively to Global Warming because we are the most affected state and need to set an example for the rest of the country
3. Get energy independent - I see, he said, a time when every house is energy self sufficient.
My personal favorites here were the two Democrats. But it wasn't merely because of the stands they took. Benson and Berkowitz were both clearly far more able to talk about each topic in great detail, offering a sense of understanding - intellectually and in human terms - all the issues that were addressed. From Parnell I mostly heard platitudes and he didn't answer all the questions, preferring in some cases to change the subject. Maybe that was the luck of the draw of questions, but I don't think so.
Berkowitz made the point sometime during the forum that it's important with a Democratic Congress, to have a Democrat. Of course that was the argument Stevens and Young gave every year until the Republicans were no longer in the majority. But as head of the minority in Juneau, Berkowitz knows well how little one gets done. I suspect that will be a theme we hear a lot from Democrats in this election.
