Last night, WADL hosted the first televised mayoral debate. I watched the debate and came away thinking, elected officials are truly a reflection of its constituency. If we expect mediocrity, we accept mediocrity. The debate questions were more or less, trivial at best and the answers were worse. My first strike against the debate was there were not enough voices. Mayor Ken Cochrel, former Deputy Mayor Freman Hendrix, and basketball legend turned entrepreneur, Dave Bing participated in a debate hosted by Mildred Gaddis and two reporters from the Detroit Free Press. Out of the eighteen candidates, only three candidates participated in the forum. I did not expect to see all eighteen candidates but five would have broadened the spectrum of opinion.
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The city is in crisis mode and the general focus of the debate was the past administration and each candidate’s ties to it. All of the candidates on stage last night have connections to the past but that was not the reason why I sat through such a tedious debate. I wanted plans of action. I wanted to hear clear and concise goals for the city but in the end, I learned nothing about the candidates’ plans to get people jobs and improving our quality of life. Detroit suffers from a staggering unemployment rate of 15% and if Detroiters are able to get a job, the average household income is a measly $28,097 a year. One of the better questions asked by a reporter was about keeping a hypothetical young family with school age children in Detroit. Well, if you have a lousy education system dripping with the slime of ineptitude and incompetence, do not expect people to stay. Detroit ranks last in graduation rates in the nation. Only 24.9% of students in Detroit public schools graduate.
I have a few more quibbles. Can we hear something close to an FDR style plan for the city with the help of private enterprise and unions? How do you plan to lure businesses to the city while improving education standards? How will you improve a horribly run transportation system riddled with dirty dilapidated buses? Why was there was no mention of the changing economy, globalization, and Detroit’s role in a competitive marketplace? There are some outstanding colleges in Detroit and not one question mentioned anything about outreach to students so we can give them a reason to stay in the city after they graduate. Can we mention anything about the creation of green-collar jobs and getting into the forefront of the newest forms of technology? One more thing, what about the 800 lb gorilla in the room, the 25 billion dollar rescue plans for the auto industry? How are you going to keep the citizens of Detroit in our homes when we have the highest foreclosure rates in the country?
I can tell you that I heard some things. I heard defensiveness about past debts and wives. I heard about allegations of carpetbaggery and benefitting from doing business with elected officials. I also learned something about demolition projects from over ten years ago but the debate was a waste of time.
This year, I learned something about candidates, campaigns, and the electorate. If you, as a candidate can inspire, you can light a fire. Barack Obama lit a fire under me and many citizens. The brilliance of his campaign was his ability to tap into a yearning desire for us, the citizens to participate in something bigger than all of us and not to accept the status quo. Unfortunately, from what I saw last night, the excitement and enthusiasm of the Obama campaign will likely diminish and die in Detroit. I hope that someone in that room or any of the candidates will study the template of the Obama campaign and follow its example but as I said earlier, when you expect mediocrity, you accept mediocrity.