Jon Keller has posted the video of his debate featuring Jill Stein and Bill Galvin. It ran about 15 minutes, considerably longer than the promised five. It’s quite interesting, and both did pretty well. Kudos to Keller for making it happen.
Please share widely!
And I have to say, I don’t think Stein was impressive at all. She seemed underprepared, stumbled over her words, and frequently repeated herself, while Galvin was collected, clear and succinct — and had answers ready to most of Stein’s points. It also seemed that his criticisms in the first half of the debate were right on target: most of what she started out talking about appeared to be issues for the legislature to deal with, not the Secretary of State. The second half stayed more germane to the actual office they’re running for, but didn’t end up being a lot more favorable to Stein. I still have major concerns about the questions of voting rights and voting machines, and I’m still anything but sanguine about the prospect of Diebold machines being used in Massachusetts, but she just didn’t convince me that she would be effective in the office.
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I’m also still concerned about Galvin’s behavior with regard to his own seat in this election cycle, and his arrogance in refusing to debate Bonifaz, and only offering Stein this mini-debate at the last minute, is deeply troublesome. And of course it’s not his place to decide this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a great many people who saw this on TV thought to themselves, “well, no wonder he didn’t want to debate her, she’s not a credible candidate at all,” because she just didn’t present herself well.
Even I must admit, Keller did especially well in moderating this debate. It was a joy to watch – I but wish it was a much longer debate, and one of several. Mr. Galvin’s to blame for that.
Granted, I wish we (the GRP) ran candidates for every office in every district, but the GRP is not at that level of operation yet, I must admit. But at least the GRP participates in democracy, Mr. Galvin, all year round. You version of democracy is calling for a 5 minute debate 4 days before the election. Galvin made some good points highlighting his record, but it doesn’t seem like he’s really excited about improvements the way Stein is.
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I’m glad a debate, if anything, was held, but I still am going for Stein.