TBD.com, the link to which you can find in my Additional Reading section, hosted a live streamed debate between the two front-running Democratic candidates for District mayor, so the odds are that you won't find video on it (I couldn't). It was also liveblogged, which is kind of like being promised a steak but getting a plate rubbed with steak sauce. Anyway, check out the liveblogging.
While we're all here, I seriously have some serious gripes against my city and the way major elections are handled. First, in case you weren't aware, there are more than two Democratic candidates running for mayor. Every election year it seems to be the same thing: incumbent mayor versus City Council chairperson. It's like no one else has a chance, so why even bother?
Second, there are more political parties than the Democratic Party in the District of Columbia and some of them have candidates for mayor as well. I'm not certain if District residents are even aware of this fact since, as it has been since Home Rule was enacted, whoever wins the Democratic Primary wins the General Election. Why should anyone who isn't a registered Democrat be rustled to vote at all?
Finally, what with all the local media we have in this city, you would think that you'd know my first two points already. But the odds are that you don't. And that is a major failing of our local media. All candidates should have equal coverage. (Okay, maybe not all candidates should get equal coverage. How about all serious candidates?) We have Independent, Statehood, and, in past elections, Republican candidates that the general public know nothing about. How difficult would it be to run stories on these candidates? We could have Democratic Mondays, Republican Tuesdays, Independent Wednesdays, Statehood Thursdays, and Everyone Else Fridays. Seriously, see how easy that was? And I'm not even a newsroom editor!
As I've griped before, I believe our city would be much better run, much better represented, much better ... better ... if more parties were part of our city government. I think the monopoly that the Democratic Party has isn't a good thing for our city. The Democrats have erected a wall that is almost impossible for any other party to scale. And that is a disservice to us, the people of Washington, D.C. It's up to us to right this wrong and make our government more inclusive, more diverse, and more functional.
Washington D.C., tear down this wall!
UPDATE: 08/11/2010 12:26: DCist steals my thunder. Bastards.
UPDATE: 08/11/2010 18:05: Check out the comment section for a comment from Many Jenkins with a link to the video of the debate. Thanks, Mandy!
2 comments:
Hi there. Thanks for writing about TBD's Fenty/Gray debate today. It was kind of an experiment for our new site, but it turned out pretty well. Here's some video from the show: http://tbd.ly/b6xPwZ
My pleasure, Mandy. I added you to my reading list as soon as I saw that you were live. I like what you all are doing over there and I hope you get a ton of traffic. Keep up the good work (and keep up giving me stuff to write about).
Post a Comment