The Debate Over The Debates

California's gubernatorial candidates struggle to agree on forums, formats

The California recall election is still weeks away, and the attentions of those most interested in the electoral process -- the candidates themselves -- are focused on the gubernatorial debates that will precede election day. In fact, with the election day looming large, it is the debates themselves that have become the subject of a considerable amount of debate.

The debate over the debates concerns the number of debates, the form of the debates, and the candidates that will be able to participate in the debates. There are 135 candidates on the ballot to replace Governor Gray Davis, and inviting all of them to participate in a debate would be a logistical impossibility.

Instead, debate organizers have focused on the most viable candidates, namely Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, state senator Tom McClintock, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, and porn star Mary Carey.

The debate over the debates has subtly revealed each candidate's strengths and weaknesses to the voters who will choose whether to replace Gray Davis on October 7.

Lieutenant Governor Bustamante, for example, has stated that he favors numerous debates, with at least half of them being conducted in Spanish for the benefit of California's large Latino population. The other candidates, none of whom speak Spanish, feel this will give Bustamante an unfair advantage.

Senator McClintock favors a small number of debates, but insists on excluding Mr. Ueberroth, whose views are virtually identical to Senator McClintock's.

"There's no sense in confusing voters with two candidates who think the same way," said a McClintock spokesman.

Mr. Ueberroth, the fomer baseball commissioner, defends his right to participate in the debates, and favors what his team calls the "double header" approach -- two debates conducted back to back with a short intermission debates for audience members to purchase refreshments.

"People have short attention spans. There's no need to spread out a bunch of debates over three weeks. Let's get them all done at once," said Ueberroth.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, considered one of the weakest of the debaters, has indicated he will only participate in only a single debate that follows a strict and unusual format. All questions asked must be designed to elicit a single word response, preferably "yes" or "no". Mr. Schwarzenegger's advisors indicated that they would allow their candidate to answer "true-false" questions and "multiple choice" questions, as long as the questions were fair and did not contain an "all of the above" option.

The most controversial of the major candidates, porn star Mary Carey, has indicated that she is flexible enough to participate in any type of group debate. In fact, she has indicated a preference for larger group scenes, if possible. Ms. Carey has also suggested that the candidates conduct at least one debate at home in their bedrooms in front of their web cams, where she is considered to have a distinct advantage. So far, none of the other candidates have risen to the web cam debate challenge.

The various candidates for governor represent numerous viewpoints on how the state should be run. Hopefully, though, they will be able to resolve at least one of their issues -- the debate over the debates -- and let the people of California know exactly where they stand on the issues.

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