By: Geoff Page (OB Rag)

There was a mayoral “debate” on Wednesday, September 18 at Mission Bay High School.  The word debate is in quotations because, although these candidate events are called debates, no actual debating takes place.  It’s time to call these events what they are, question and answer sessions where the actual questions are often ignored.

Barbara Bry, Todd Gloria, and Tasha Williamson are all running for mayor and they responded to questions posed by moderators for two hours while a packed auditorium listened and applauded. The choice for mayor comes down to Gloria, a man who has lived the life of a politician, Bry, a private citizen most of her life until her successful run for city council, and Williamson, a political novice but an experienced, passionate community activist coming from the outside.

Gloria was clearly the most polished of the three. He is a career politician, and it showed.  He managed to avoid answering many of the questions.  He appealed to the audience emotionally and directly, including them several times by asking a question for the crowd to respond to. It was a clever way of drawing people in by making them feel included. But, substance was lacking.

Bry was well spoken but not polished like a career politician.  Bry’s first venture into politics was to run for, and win, the seat she occupies on the city council now. Before that, Bry was a business person and a journalist for some time.  

She did not use any devices to generate appeal.  Her complete, apparently heartfelt answers were effective.  Bry came off as a basically regular person who was convinced to run for city council and, once there, was appalled at what she saw.  She wants to fix what she has seen.