Thursday, May 24, 2007

GOP PRESIDENTIAL POLL

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Mayoral Debates

There is a debate going on over at the discussion baord for the Lakewood Observer regarding what is a better way to handle the Mayoral Debates. Should it be just filling in a questionniare or sitting down for a debate, as is the case with most of Observation Deck discussions it has gotten down to petty bickering.

So I decided to jump in with the following response:

As a former candidate for office here in Lakewood, I would like to offer my opinion on the "white paper" vs open debate question.

To me this is equivalent to the old lite beer commercial about less filling or taste great.

Ladies & Gentleman what we have here is a very large job interview, at least that is how I approached things in 2005.

Now, when we apply for job what is the first thing we do, we submit an application or send a resume, then we hope for interview.

With the questionnaire, I took two approaches to it.

First, if I already knew that there was not going to be an interview (for example the Plain Dealer), I tended to give the boilerplate answers to the questions. For the questionnaire that had a follow up interview, I tended to give some pat answers, but like a resume I tried to get something in or leave something out to be asked at the interview. I felt much more comfortable about defending or advocating a position, because I felt the interviewers were at least paying attention to what I wrote.

As for the debate only situation, tendency is to give the stump speech perhaps with a flourish because you are hearing what the opponent is saying or not saying. Yes, you are getting a test of the Candidate's ability to think on their feet, but in the long run unless someone videotapes the message, very few people will remember everything a Candidate says at a debate when they are standing at the voting machine.

I go back to my message of earlier, it is simplistic one, but we the citizens of Lakewood are trying hire someone for a job, I am not going to hire someone based on just writing samples or just a 30 minute discussion I want both.

How do you want to handle the hiring procedures?


Let's see how badly I get hammered!