By Kaitlyn Rich
The lights are bright on the stage where candidates Don Barber and James Seward sit. Papers, containing facts, opponent weaknesses and their promises, are strewn across the round plastic tables where each waits for their questions. Three television cameras and more than one hundred people sit patiently hanging on their every response. However, this political debate is not for a place in Washington D.C., but instead for a seat in Albany. There is no security and those who have come to watch are greeted with apple cider and home baked cookies. This debate is not being held at Hofstra or Ole Miss and is not being moderate by Brokaw or Lehrer, but instead it is refereed by a group of elderly women - and it is of local importance.
The Tuesday Oct. 28 debate, held at Tompkins Cortland Community College and organized by the League of Women’s Voters of Tompkins County, cast a very different light on political debates. The grandeur and pomp and circumstance of the presidential debates many have seen, some more than once, was absent. This debate for the New York State Senate seat in the 51st District was grassroots politics and, despite the snow on Tuesday, many came out to support it.
“It’s really cool to actually watch something like this happen,” said Ithaca College sophomore Elijah Kruger, “You are so far removed from the presidential ones but here you can really see it.” Kruger was one of the more than hundred spectators at the debate. The audience, while mostly older, did contain some younger voters. However, while their ages varied, all were allowed to ask the candidates questions.
“We provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the candidates and we moderate the forum. We delete duplicate questions and we time the opening statements and we time the candidate’s response. We are a non-partisan organization so we don’t support either party, we just perform a community service,” said Kay Sharp President of the League of Women Voters of Tompkins County.
Besides for the cookies and lack of security, the real familiarity of the debate was the most striking difference. The questions asked were to the point, often just one sentence long, leaving little room for the candidates to talk their way out of anything. The differences are seen in the two separate video clips below. One is of the presidential debate and the other is from the state senate debate. Both show the candidates answering questions on the economy.
While the differences are apparent, there were also some similarities. For example the phrase "on my farm" was said more than a dozen times by the candidates, an amusing allusion to such presidential catch phrases as "Joe the Plumer" and "change." However, the senatorial debate did cover other issues such as health care, gay marriage, abortion, and many other hot topics of the election cycle. Many were issues that those in the audience, like Kruger, wanted to hear about. “By being able to get your question answered right on the spot you know they don’t have much time to talk around it. And plus these are the guys making the laws that really have an impact on me,” he said.
Sharp reiterated the importance of the debate, but from the politician standpoint: “Usually we respond to a request from candidates from outside of Ithaca to moderate a candidate forum. This year both Barber and Seward requested that we moderate the event.” She said that in years past they have had audience members speak directly to the candidates, but for this forum both debaters asked that the questions be written out on cards.
The 51st Senatorial District comprises the counties of Otsego, Greene, Schoharie, Herkimer, Cortland, parts of Chenango, and the towns of Danby, Caroline, Groton, and Dryden in Tompkins County. This year James Seward is the incumbent Republican candidate and Don Barber is the Democratic candidate.
“It’s time we open the doors of the senate and let the sun light of democracy shine in,” said Don Barber to the auditorium. Seward countered him in his closing statement saying, “It has been a real privilege to work with my district over the past 20 years, and I have been in every part of my district time and time again, because it is important to me, not just at election time, but whenever the towns and my constitutes have needed help.”
While it is important to hear the issues and more important to vote this coming Tuesday, it was Sharp who best expressed why these grassroots debates are important: “These debates are different because the public has a way of asking and structuring the course of the debate. While we read the question we just allow the candidates to answer. We’re just structuring the way the questions are asked and answered, rather than just the candidates speaking to no one in particular.”
Top to Bottom: The audience watches intently at the debate on Tuesday; The moderator, a member of the League of Women Voters of Tompkins County asks the candidates questions; Seward (closest) and Barber (far side of the stage) debate in front of the crowd and media.
To check out another debate between these two politicians click here
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