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Our second candidate forum was at West Valley College in Saratoga on Thursday night, the night of the first Bush-Kerry debate. Summary: attendance 14, incumbent phoned in, I liked how it went. Audio recordings of first two forums now online at at
We were told the room but not the building, so I was checking a campus map when three people approached. One said "there's Brian Holtz", and for a moment I let myself believe I was becoming famous. But it turned out to be Rep. Eshoo's aide Amanda, and they didn't know where the forum was either. They came back toward the parking lot moments later saying they'd been told it was across campus. I followed them in my car, but after we then checked a few buildings and signs with no luck, I entertained for a moment the idea that they'd been assigned to make me late. But then we found the designated room. Paranoia 0, Reality 1.
There were only fourteen non-candidates there, including Amanda and her two college-age friends, the cameraman, the moderator, and nine others of whom at least three were LWV volunteers. Our 8pm slot was only 30 minutes after the Bush-Kerry debate finished, but there's no guarantee this was the reason for the attendance numbers. Rep. Eshoo attended via speakerphone, and the Republican Haugen and I sat next to each other some distance from the phone (presumably due to outlet/cord issues).
I worried that this contributed to a possible perception that Haugen and I were teamed up against Eshoo. It didn't help that there was only one question on civil liberty, or that two or three times Haugen made a written note to show me. (In my close I tried to correct this a little, by attacking Republican special-interest policies.)
One of the notes asked perceptively if Eshoo's team was stacking the question deck. Amanda's friend was outed when the moderator asked for a clarification on one blatantly anti-Republican question (about a silly Tom DeLay quote). It was amusing but I didn't care, since it's not hard to give good answers to bad questions.
My voter bet got the biggest response of anything in the three opening statements. Then there was a series of questions that in theory we each had 60 seconds to answer. In practice, Eshoo filibustered even worse than Monday, as she couldn't see the timekeeper's warning cards. The timekeeper just gave up about a third of the way into the event.
I got the biggest laugh of the night after Eshoo ended a droning 3.5-minute answer on water issues. The moderator forgot that I'd already answered and said it was my turn. First I asked to be reminded of the question, and then I drove the point home by saying I'd already answered but it was "a while ago".
The questions were:
- Tax cuts. Rebutted Eshoo's fairness complaint, and her idea of counter-cyclical tax cutting.
- Tax cuts again. Rebutted another fairness complaint by asking what marginal tax rate would in fact be fair? 70% 95%?
- Environment. Explained market-based regulation vs. command-and-control.
- Water. Explained negative externalities, pollution taxes, market-based water allocation.
- Health Care. After Eshoo's water filibuster, used 2.5 minutes to give most of my pitch at http://marketliberal.org/Platform.html#5.3._Health_Care
- Assault Weapons. The assault weapon definition is lame. A boring issue, since both extremes are silly.
- Patriot Act. Throw it out. Need hearings on how the worst provisions even got into the law.
In the first part of my close, I attacked Eshoo's invocation of the Constitution with a defense of federalism. I included attacks on two pieces of federal pork that Eshoo's site brags that she won for our district. In the second part, I attacked D & R special interests and gave examples of each. Didn't follow my own advice and have a pre-arranged closing line, but instead again improvised.
Brian Holtz
Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley)
http://marketliberal.org
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