King County Executive candidates David Irons, Gentry Lange and Ron Sims are facing off live right now on the John Carlson Show KVI 570.
Irons mentioned the e-mail I posted the other day about the race track operator who was allegedly shaken down by the Sims campaign to host a campaign fundraiser in order to facilitate a county development permit. Sims implicitly acknowledged attending the fundraiser, claiming to be a race car enthusiast. He also denied that he had ever personally influenced the granting of development permits. But the question was not whether Sims was personally involved in the alleged shakedown, but whether the people in his campaign and administration were.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 04, 2005 04:26 PM | Email ThisDid Sim's tardiness to the debate take away valuable question time? Carlson should have penalized Sims for his lateness by allowing more time to Irons and Lange...
Posted by: Deborah on November 4, 2005 05:13 PMShame on John for not muzzling the bozo. Anyone who has watched Sims knows he'll take 20 minutes to not answer a question and leave the audience with the impression that the allegation was a complete conspiracy theory hatched from the JFK book repository.
Posted by: Andy on November 4, 2005 05:17 PMCarlson is fully aware of the evidence of fraud in the elections office and yet not one word.
Posted by: BJ Gadfly on November 4, 2005 05:24 PMWhat exactly is Carlson trying to prove here by saying this after the debate? After he allowed Sims to ramble on he makes comments like about what "allegedly" happened off air?
Posted by: mimi on November 4, 2005 05:27 PMBottom line, Mike Siegel, who is typically not as good of an interviewer as Carlson did a much better job with Sims that Carlson.
Frankly, it's too bad we have to get behind Irons to defeat Sims. By far and away the best answers and ideas came from Gentry Lange. But the Democratic machine must be disassembled in King County before it does any more damage. And the best way to start that process is to vote for Irons and get rid of Sims.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 5, 2005 12:18 AMBottom line, Mike Siegel, who is typically not as good of an interviewer as Carlson did a much better job with Sims that Carlson.
Frankly, it's too bad we have to get behind Irons to defeat Sims. By far and away the best answers and ideas came from Gentry Lange. But the Democratic machine must be disassembled in King County before it does any more damage. And the best way to start that process is to vote for Irons and get rid of Sims.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 5, 2005 12:18 AMI think that there may have been a condition to this debate made by Sims - that nothing be asked about the Elections staff relating to the 1900+ voters that the Republicans allege were not legal in the primary, to do damage control. What's wrong with Irons calling a spade a spade and having Carlson bring it up afterwards ? (He had to be careful how to say it, for possible retaliation by the Sims camp). Sims was slick with the schmoozing - bloviated alot but didn't say much of substance, and also thought Gentry Lange sounded good - maybe too good - he may end up stealing almost as many votes from Irons as from Sims. Irons was able to give concise and to the point answers and made reference to the elections by stating the Sims had not followed any recommendations put forth by the independent election investigation. Two good questions that Carlson did ask were about 1) the $1billion put out there by Sims to eliminate homelessness, which Irons characterizes as all about bricks and mortar where it should be about putting more stock in the people - having them be the owners after they get back on their feet, by means of social programs - fairly good response, and about 2) the memo that Sims wrote to request that employees of King County refrain to saying Merry Christmas but rather wishing them Happy Holidays - was that something you wished you hadn't gone in retrospect ? Sims' response; No, he did it for a reason - which basically got into promoting the ACLU agenda and political correctness and not offending anyone - then he quickly attempted to schmooze about he being an ordained minister and willing to talk to anyone about their faith and how important faith was.. That would be disingenuous or even a fabrication right there - Faith important, but no Merry Christmas allowed by County employees ? (something that will never be written by MSM).
Posted by: KS on November 5, 2005 11:24 AMAfter the commercial; Carlson pointed out that Irons had called Sims a liar and then David Irons went on to explain why...start with the hit piece by Goldstein, which was collaborated with by the Sims campaign and then spreading fabrications about Iron's credentials - to discredit and also stating that Irons was all for building a new,expensive freeway - I-605, which were not true. Don't you need to be truthful in order to have integrity ? You can't have one without the other - so I'd say that Mr. Sims's integrity was impeached effectively on the air.
The debate did not come off as bad as lot of comments seem to believe. Sims had the edge in style and Irons had the clear edge in substance. MSM will trumpet style over substance all day long, but blogs like SP get into the substance. With that said, I believe that Irons will need to do something extraordinary - for him to win and think that he knows what that would entail.
Posted by: KS on November 5, 2005 01:23 PMWe can thank the public school system and the MSM in their efforts to dumb down the public and suppress intelligence, that leads to the election of mediocre public officials, who happen to be more often than not, Democrats.
Posted by: KS on November 5, 2005 03:09 PMOnly, in its addlepated, likely drug-induced world, he thinks that emoting (especially vitriolically) is critical thinking!
What an affirmation of your statement regarding the sad state of public education!
Posted by: alphabet soup on November 7, 2005 08:42 AM