If you attended the debate, you probably walked away thinking that Charlie Hall was a class act.

Hopefully, Smyth will reconsider and join Charlie and there will be an open community forum. 

Charlie, once again, carries out his vision....establishing an open dialogue with people who care about their neighborhoods, their parks, their schools, and on and on and on.

Eric,

You clearly have never worked on a campaign, because if you had, you'd know that campaign schedules are very busy.  All debates are schedules weeks if not months in advance so that candidates and citizens can clear their schedule.  You planned a debate that is scheduled to take place in 24 hours and now you're crying because one of the candidates cant make it?  DUH, She's probably doing voter contact, not to mention anyone that's attending your "shotgun debate" are most likely not friends of hers.

Stop whining about schedules!  If Mr. Hall wants to win, he'll have to beat her in the issues and at the polls? not at your "Debate"/Hall Rally. 

I had heard about this debate sometime ago and I'm not even a candidate.  It was clearly not a "24 hour" planning thing.  Let's be fair.  Does anyone know, precisely, when the invitations were issued to the candidates? 

Personally, I attended the last debate to hear the candidates with an open mind.  In fact, I favored the incumbent slightly coming in.  I found the debate useful, if not a little unusual in its conduct.  Mr. Hall conducted himself as a gentleman.  He had many opportunities given to him by Mrs. Smyth when he could have attacked, and where if I were in his shoes, I would have attacked, but he resisted that.  He remained composed.  He had a conversation.  Mr. Hall showed he is not a man who loses his cool.  Although I am still undecided, that was something I saw as in his favor and I appreciated hearing his answers to really basic questions, and now I am starting to lean his way after hearing him debate.  So I am willing to go listen to him again, whether or not Mrs. Smyth chooses to show up. 

I feel that elected officials and candidates owe it to the voters to make themselves available for debates.  I hope that Mrs. Smyth reconsiders her schedule and enters this debate.  Otherwise, I am quite sure I will not be voting for her (again) this primary. 

 

First off, I didn't plan or schedule this debate.  Nor did RK.  So it's not "my" debate.  But that's a minor point.

Second, tomorrow's event has been in the works for two weeks that I know of, perhaps more.  Linda flat out refused to participate, citing a busy schedule, at last week's debate.

Now then, I'm not sure if the sponsors of this event had offered alternatives but I do know that we at RK have made numerous offers for live blogging, blog talk radio, and interviews to Linda. 

You clearly have never been on a blog before, because if you had, you'd know that Linda could take a short time out of her schedule to do a live blog which could be scheduled at almost any time.  You'd also know that the blog talk radio format provides almost endless scheduling configurations and Lowell and Ben are, and would still be, open to setting up a show based on Linda's schedule.  She was offered an opportunity to call in, even for a few minutes, to the show that did happen and yet she did not.  Is she sooooo busy that she can't spare a few minutes?  Was she so busy that she couldn't request a change of time that suited her better? 

Numerous elected officials, and candidates in the middle of campaigns bigger than this one, have done all sorts of live blogs on short notice. 

Other offers have been made for alternate sponsors and moderators for another debate - see NLS for more on this.  Linda has refused or ignored the offers. 

And is her "voter contact" something that can't be rescheduled in any way, shape, or form?  Do you mean she can't skip a few hours of knocking on doors to reach a wide internet audience?

Look, instead of you whining about this, how about you and the other Smyth supporters go talk your candidate into making a few minutes to participate in this little thing called the blogosphere.  We're flexible and would love to have her participate in an online debate or live blog.  And she'll reach an awful lot of voters through an hour with us. 

And if she does, I promise I'll stop bitching about the fact that she has been avoiding us with flimsy excuses. 

Courtesy of the Vienna/Oakton Sun Gazette:

Who would have thought that the League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area would get itself into the censorship business?

The organization banned everyone but approved press representatives from making audio or video recordings of its May 23 debate between Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth and her Democratic primary challenger Charlie Hall.

The League of Women Voters also added this inarticulately phrased demand of candidates: "Neither campaign will provide any links from their Web sites to any Web site using any material from the event that has not been authorized by LWVFA."

To quote a posting, concerning the League's rules, on the Raising Kaine Web site, which tracks Virginia politics, "What the hell is this all about?!?"

Our view has been consistent in recent years, as the League of Women Voters and other organizations have attempted to place increasingly nonsensical restrictions on candidates. League officials, who in theory should be working to promote open debate and encourage a full airing of political views, ought to be ashamed of themselves.

So long as it can be done without interfering with the debate itself, recording ought to be not simply allowed, but perhaps actually encouraged. And if words uttered at the event end up on blog sites, cable-TV ads or other venues, isn't that a good thing?

Whichever campaign made the demands that the League incorporate these restrictions into the debate rules is irrelevant; League officials should have rejected those demands out of hand.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

FPA management was contacted by the SMYTH campaign to see if we at Fairfax Public Access would tape and re-broadcast the Smyth/Hall debate. It was their request that we then relayed to the league with whom FPA enjoys a special and trusted relationship.

The first thing that Sherry (the local league president) expressed to me was her extreme desire to avoid problems as occurred last year with their Richmond debate. You should remember that was when the Allen campaign improperly and in violation of their signed agreement used a "taken-out-of-context" clip from the league sponsored debate in Richmond. This clip was used to attempt to discredit and distort Jim Webb's statements using a false representation.

The league typically PAYS organizations such as ours a very nominal fee to supply crew and equipment for the taping of debates. Since this was a "primary" debate a payment was not in the budget. SO, myself and two other non-paid volunteers made ourselves, equipment, and time over the following days to tape and process the debate.

During the debate, we encountered an unusually low audio volume from Charlie whenever he spoke. The longer his response the quieter it got by the end. Not knowing whether this was just Charlie tapering off his volume as he spoke or if it was something equipment related we attempted to make electrical attachment directly to the auditorium sound system the candidates were using to improve sound quality. That was the sound of gaffer tape being put down to safely cover over the floor cables we quickly strung to attempt to fix this. We wanted to ensure Charlie's presentation to the audience both live and later during replay was at a fair and intelligible level for the listener.

As it turned out we have had to process the audio even further as well as to polish up the camera shots we recorded. At our request the league also granted us permission for the first time ever in our history with them to post the debate on Google Video, but only in it's complete entireity. No content edits whatsoever !!! We did that with the raw tape on last Thursday and we made sure that the one hour show was even made available here on RK.

The re-work and clean up was finished today. We will process this cleaner version and start it playing as often as practical on FPA Channel 10 in the Fairfax area until the primary. The preliminary rough cut we have already posted on Google has already had hundreds of replays as well and it will be upgraded to the newer cleaner version.

So in summary, Linda Smyth asked us, we offered our services to the league, they accepted and confirmed with both candidates, the league also agreed to allow us to post a complete version on the web for EVERYONE to see cable subscriber or not.

Last year, I worked on the Webb campaign, as did Josh Chernila and Lee Diamond.  So, as Eric says, "spare me" this nonsense about how Linda Smyth is soooooooooooo busy that she can never seem to find time for anything she doesn't want to do.  By the way, I wonder what would happen if Bechtel or the Greenwich Group International called her and needed to talk, would she say she's "too busy" or that her schedule is "packed?"  Something tells me, the answer to that question is NO!

Within days of the announcement that the 5/23 debate would be held down in Tinner Hill, five different organizations canvassed their Boards and agreed to sponsor a second Forum and authorized letter to be issued to both candidates. 

That was a Friday. Charlie Hall accepted Monday.  Linda was silent even in the face of a follow-up request Tuesday 5/22.  She actually had to be cornered by a sponsor Board member after the debate and asked for her response.  She said she had "no time". 

But don't take my word for it.  Look at the end of this article.

I understand that, even after this, ANOTHER letter encouraging her to attend was issued over the holiday weekend.  No response. 

Of course this is just what the Board is doing in connection with repeated public demand for a public hearing on Dulles rail, pretending they don't hear the request.

Tell me, would any of you simply IGNORE three separate invitations by serious community groups concerned about what is going on and wanting to engage in a serious discussion?  Would you fail to give even the courtesy of a response? 

Thank you for setting the record straight. 

Why wouldn't Smyth show the simple courtesy and respond to a request from the sponsoring organization?  These organizations represent hundreds of families whose only interest is to provide recreation opportunities for the kids.  Why on earth would Smyth not have said, "Sorry folks can't make it?"

Nope that would have been the right thing to do.

Now let me go back to the night when the debate was held with Hall and Smyth.  When the question was raised about alternating between the two candidates, all Smyth needed to say, "It is okey.  Lets alternate."  My sound card is broken so I don't know what Smyth said, but I guess she did not say anything in support of encouraging the League rep to change.

Smyth sure does not sound like the person I want to be in charge of my community's destiny.  I am afraid she will continue to destroy our quality of life in Providence.  Approving one high density project after another.  Sitting in more gridlock is not my idea of a good time. Charlie Hall is who I will vote for on June 12.  Please join me.

...is taking the Connolly bait....and questioning Hall's party affiliation...so sad that the business community is doing this...but, I guess this shows who's pocket Linda is in...

http://policysoup.bl...

As the individual in the Supervisor's office who receives mail and schedules events, I must say that I NEVER saw this invitation.  Had I received it in the office, it would have been forwarded to the campaign scheduler for scheduling and we would have coordinated the Supervisor's schedule.  But, since I NEVER received it, that did not occur.  Linda's event that precluded her from attending this "event" was with a community association and had been scheduled well in advance as community association events generally are.  It's fortunate for Mr. Hall that he can make himself available at present for campaign events but the Supervisor must remain on the job doing the people's business.

Can you please post it here or e-mail me at lowell@raisingkaine.com?  Thanks.

That's great news! 

We at RK (and NLS) would very much like to do a live blog, interview, or best of all - a blog talk radio show (or debate) with Supervisor Smyth and so far we haven't been able to make that happen.  If you are involved with her scheduling please contact Lowell (email in his comment) as soon as possible to arrange it.  We have a lot of scheduling flexibility and can certainly arrange one of these online meetings around her existing schedule.

n/t

This was an invitation to the candidates, not official Supervisor business, so it is my understanding that the sponsors on 5/18 sent the invitation directly to her campaign email per her website contact information.  Charlie got his at his website email also.  The invitation was not for a specific date but for any time prior to the election, although it mentioned 5/29/30/31.

Smyth on 5/23 did not deny knowing about the invitation when a sponsor directly asked about her lack of response; she just declined.

There is an overwhelming body of evidence that Smyth knew about the second forum, including her reply to one of the sponsors as stated in the post above. And it was all over the blogs and other media.

If she didn't want to participate, just say no. Don't try to hide behind "Gee, I never got the invitation."

Just as she continues to try to hide her Republican voting history. It's OK to switch parties. But be honest about it.

This disingenuous approach to addressing issues contrasts sharply with Charlie Hall's honest and open approach.