WCCA-TV Candidate Forum

Last night there was a live Candidate Forum on Worcester's cable access channel 13, hosted by the Cultural Coalition.

All politics is local, someone once said, but this forum was all about media campaigning. This goes past any and all opportunities for the candidates to do anything that will "engage the voters" in any real way. Last night was all about campaign strategy, media exposure, and hype. It was interesting to note which candidates actually answered the questions posed, and which candidates didn't. In this wise, the forum on Channel 13 was a revelatory demonstration of who can and who cannot play well on TV.

Are we electing City Councilors or are we electing news anchors?

Last night, the clear winner in the news anchor division was Paul Clancy. And I don't single him out to disparage him, either. I was very impressed with him, despite the fact that he isn't my district councilor, and so I can't vote for or against him.

All I'm saying is that how they look on TV tends to remove them from engaging the voters in any meaningful way. Being able to look good on TV isn't what local politics should be all about. We aren't electing "TV personalities" here.

Of course, at this stage of the campaign season, many can buy into the idea that it's too late to do much of anything else but try to use whatever free promo is available. But it was abundantly clear last night (to me, anyway) that most of these candidates should have spent the evening knocking on doors or otherwise meeting voters on a one to one basis, somehow or other, because they really did suck on TV.

For me, all the yard signs, the TV spots, and the newspaper coverage simply doesn't hold a candle to meeting someone in person. And that work, the work of "engaging the voters" is the heart of local politics, and the truth behind the old saying that "all politics is local" because meeting someone in person changes everything.