John vs. Sam

John Laird will be back on the radio with me Monday afternoon at 5:05 and I suspect we’ll hear more about the debate scheduled for that evening out at Cuesta. As you might recall, we’re having this expensive special election–costing SLO County anywhere between $300,000 and $500,000–to replace Abel Maldonado after he became lieutenant governor last spring.

Laird is the Democrat. Sam Blakeslee is the Republican and sam is taking heat because he’s not showing up for Monday’s debate. Laird says Blakeslee is hiding. Blakeslee says he’s doing the people’s work up in Sacramento. Ro make matters worse, the Independent and the Libertarian candidates are both STILL on the August ballot. What’s up with that? Why did we bother with a June primary if all four candidates got to run again in August?

Is Sam hiding? Maybe, a bit. He’s got a comfortable lead in the polls and will likely win next month. No need to jeopardize it by giving your opponents a chance to confront you. However, in Sam’s defense, he says he’ll be glad to debate on weekends and has already accepted a couple forums in early August.

Frankly, I think folks are making too big a deal out of Sam’s no show Monday night. These League of Women Voters forums tend to be rather tedious, with the same predictable questions asked in the same stale format. I don’t blame Sam for not showing up. Have a real debate. Let the candidates interact with one another. That would be something worth seeing.

Other notes:

Pastor Doug continues on his road to recovery out at Bayside. We stopped in and saw him today. he’s run up a few medical expenses, so we’ll be having a couple fundraising events for him. Hope you can attend.

Happy Belated Birthdays to both Miss Etiquette and Dr. John Alexander of Cayucos, two of my favorite people.

Finally got to see “Inception” tonight. A pretty damn impressive movie, definitely one you need to see on the big screen.