29 November 2001
Mayoral Debate
Houston's mayoral candidates debated tonight. Unfortunately, the local television station does not seem to have a media file up, or I would link to it [11/30/01 update: Click here for RealVideo of the debate]. Instead, some impressions:
Orlando Sanchez thinks well on his feet, and is good in debate. He was much better than in his last debate with Chris Bell.
The mayor, on the other hand, was disastrous -- worse than usual (which is pretty bad). I actually felt SORRY for the man (and I rarely feel pity for political opponents). I should say, I would feel sorry for him if I hadn't watched him preside over the crumbling of this city for the last few years. In any case, the mayor was, at many times, incoherent, simply reciting campaign slogans instead of answering questions, and not matching the topics of the slogans to the questions. Very strange. He also twitched noticeably while answering many of the questions from the media panel, including one on his attempts to inject race into this campaign. He twitched even more when Orlando beat him over the head with that nifty Wall Street Journal editorial from earlier today.
It's never truly a public appearance by our mayor without some real abuses of the English language taking place. Here are two of my Lee Brown favorites from tonight:
Just because people of color receives [sic] money does not mean cronyism.
...you have to make some decisive decisions.
Err, umm, okay. Thank you Mayor Brown. It's been an entertaining four years linguistically, but it really is time for you to go.
* * * *
On a completely different note, I'm not so sure periwinkle looks very good against the gray. What do you think, Evelynne?
[Posted @ 11:00 PM CST]
