Two, four, six, eight, that is not a real debate
Syracuse City Eagle
Walt Shepperd
September 18th, 2008
Samadee, the Has Been and the Wannabe were eating Italian outside on Hanover Square. It was Sunday of Festa Italiana, and they had picked up Philly Cheese Steaks from the perky ladies at the Dominick’s booth, and were sitting at a table outdoors on the Southside of the Square, waiting for the live band to create another Soul Night at Downtown Manhattan’s. It was cheating for Samadee, whose Trainer had taken him off red meat. He would be seeing the Doctor the next day at the behest of the Trainer, who had tested his blood pressure, free of charge, at the Y, and found it a potential obstacle to his quest of a spot on the roster of the B&B Lounge team in the Baby Boomers Basketball League at South West Community Center. Samadee hoped that the nice Merlot from Quigley’s would prove medicinal, especially limited to two glasses for the sitting.
"The Maxwell School and the Democrats," the Wannabe said loudly. "Two pillars holding up their own weight in the abandoned warehouses of democracy." He was referring to Maxwell professor Robert McClure’s decision to exclude Green Populist congressional candidate Howie Hawkins from the school’s debate in collaboration with WTVH-TV on October 15th. That week local Democrats had been unsuccessful in challenging Hawkins’ nominating petitions, in an attempt to keep him of the November ballot. Earlier in the summer there had been rumblings in the camp of Democrat aspirant Dan Maffei that their candidate would not participate in debates that included Hawkins.
A request to reconsider
At the time of the rumblings, when Maffei’s spokesperson told City Eagle there was no need to consider including Hawkins in debates because he had not yet qualified for the ballot, Republican candidate Dale Sweetland told City Eagle that if Maffei declined participation in any debate that included Hawkins, "Howie and I will have our own debate." This week Sweetland sent a letter to the Post Standard saying he was "frankly incensed by the comments of Professor Robert McClure (published September 12 in the P-S), as he attempted to justify his arbitrary exclusion" of Hawkins from the debate. Sweetland knocked McClure for contending that adding Hawkins to the forum would decrease the amount of "meaningful information" the public would receive.
"McClure must have missed the mayoral debates two years ago," the Wannabe said with disdain. "There were a jillion of them, and Howie was really the only thing happening on the issues. Actually he got Driscoll and Mahoney both talking his public power issue before they were done."
In this letter Sweetland referred to Hawkins as "a thoughtful individual who expresses coherent views on a number of issues." He suggested extending the time of the debate to enable Hawkins to be heard "without denying the public of ‘meaningful information’ from the major party candidates. He also noted that while McClure stated that he also based his decision on his contention that Hawkins has no chance of winning, all the other debate sponsors have acknowledged that as a candidate qualified for the ballot, Hawkins has earned the right to participate. He finished his argument with a call for fairness and, ironically, academic freedom.
Fairness may not, however, have been the overriding concern in a mailing from Sweetland 08 to voters in the 25th Congressional District linking Maffei’s fundraising efforts to the questionable behavior recently surfaced on the part of New York Congressperson Charles Rangel, for whom Maffei once worked. Saying that Maffei "continues to take tainted cash from embattled Congressman from NYC," the post card notes that the Democratic National Committee will return a $100,000 donation from Rangel.
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