Friday, October 08, 2010

Jerns vs. Ericksen - If A Tree Falls, After The Herald's Deadline?


I read the article about the League of Women Voters candidate forum in the B'ham Herald and wondered what happened to the 42nd LD Senate candidates.

Pat Jerns (D) and Doug Ericksen (R) are running for the State Senate but they weren't mentioned at all in the article. I looked at the Politics Blog on Twitter and Sam's last tweet from the forum was at 9:06 PM.

So, I'm guessing that since the Senate candidates didn't finish before the Herald's deadline, for the Herald it's as though the debate never happened.

Fortunately, I did get a note from someone who did attended the forum all the way to the end. And what they had to say was quite interesting.

It was interesting to read Sam Taylor's blog comments concerning the face off's between Al Jensen and Jason Overstreet and Kelli linville and Vince Buys at the League of Women Voters forum. Unfortunately Sam missed some of the best comments of the evening between Pat Jerns and Doug Ericksen.

In Jerns opening statement, he clearly challenged Ericksen on several points, namely his lack of business experience and his habit of telling voters he supports programs and then voting against funding the programs.

In the questioning between the candidates, Jerns asked Ericksen to justify his co-sponsoring a bill to add a bed tax on seniors. Ericksen reply was basically, 'it's a complicated issue'.

In spite of his years in office, Ericksen became upset, red-faced and had difficulty responding to the challenging questions presented by Jerns.

Unfortunately, Sam missed a great opportunity to keep the readers informed on an interesting and informative exchange.

It sounds like poor ol' Doug-E has spent so many years working more as a Republican Party operative than a representative of his constituents in the 42nd District, that he doesn't know what to do outside of the hothouse environment of a political rally.

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