Anyone who wants to email me already has my email or should be able to decipher it from my Colorado Index site, so if I don't respond to a comment, please send me an email.
Anyway, here is David's comment:
I would love to do an online debate between Udall & Schaffer - do you think there is any way I could get them to agree to it?
ps - what did you think of the questions {your post is clear what you think of the answers :) }?
I know for a fact that staffers from both campaigns regularly read this site. How I might know will be left to your imagination. You've planted the seed. Wait a week or so and let it germinate then ask them yourself.
I don't speak for or communicate with the Schaffer campaign, so they will find this about the same time that the Udall campaign finds it.
I wouldn't mind seeing an online debate that was jointly moderated by you and Ben DeGrow. Each of you come up with six questions. (Ben doesn't know I am writing any of this.)
As to your questions, some were too touchy feely. They pretty much fit the 2d CD and the candidates, but would they fit the whole state? I didn't like the bit bucket one-it was a waste of an opportunity to ask a more serious question. Because of the way blogs work, last in, first out, it made your very serious project appear less serious to readers who don't actually read.
Your 100 year question had potential but you made it so broad and so long that you got shallow answers. Most politicians don't think 100 years out on any subject, and none of these three did. But can they? Think back to how three politicians of 1908 might have answered this question and how far off the mark they would have been. They couldn't forsee the 16th amendment, 1929, Hitler, the rise and fall of communism, Sputnik, an oil economy, a global economy, or China and Japan as ecconomic powerhouses. In 1905 the Japanese Navy cleaned Russia's clock with a navy that hadn't existed 20 years earlier, but could any 1908 politician have used that event to predict an attack on Pearl Harbor using airplanes, when flight was a technology that was only five years old?
The questions could have been different, but they were a good first start, and the effort noble. I'm glad you did it.
You ought to talk to Ben and make a proposal.
And my predictions for 100 years out? Why not nuclear powered railroad engines for freight trains?
1 comment:
A couple of comments on your feedback about the online debate.
1) I went for a number of questions about the person because the candidates stands on the issues are pretty similiar and well covered on their websites.
2) The problem with questions like that is you don't know in advance which ones will strike gold. I discussed my take on the results of each and some worked better than others. The funny thing is, the bucket list question got the most interest.
3) Looking forward 100 years was I thought one of the best questions. No a person in 1900 could not predict Hitler or the arc of Communism. But German & Japanese militarism was a clear issue (see war of 1870) as was the global economy which was well on it's way then, until WWI pushed it back. And I think the answers they had for this question were incredibly good guesses based on what we know today.
I emailed you about seeing if between us we can set up the online debate. Definitely would be fun.
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