Last week, the New York State voting public was privy to the first debate between the two Democratic candidates for governor. For one hour, State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, the underdog in the race, took to the stage at Pace University and opined on all the pressing issues facing New York State.
What did we learn? That both men have, at some point in their lives, smoked marijuana. During the so-called “lightning round” of the debate, NY1’s Dominic Carter asked the two men about their past affiliation with the wacky tobacky, and both answered in the affirmative. Since then, the sole Republican candidate in the race, former Assembly Minority Leader John Faso, has also admitted to having smoked a little weed in his lifetime.
The “lightning round” is designed to offer an insight into the non-governmental persona of each candidate. Is anyone still shocked when a politician says he has smoked marijuana? If Carter really wanted to shake things up during the debate, why not ask if either had ever snorted cocaine off a hooker’s backside? Wouldn’t we all love to see their reactions to that?
Also discussed during the debate was whether or not the two men owned an iPod, to which Spitzer said he did. Suozzi, on the other hand, does not, but admitted that he uses his daughter’s from time to time. Another look deep into the minds of the two candidates came when Carter asked if either had ever gambled in a casino. It’s probably safe to say that just about every grown man living in the region has taken some extra cash down the shore to Atlantic City. It’s a perfectly legal activity, so why not ask if either had ever bought a lottery ticket.
When it comes down to it, you can’t really learn anything from watching the debates. Both candidates were meticulously prepared for just about any question, and even their good lines, the zingers meant to sound off-the-cuff, are likely scripted way ahead of time. For example, Suozzi attempted to chide Spitzer at one point on the vagueness of his property tax plan, playing off Spitzer’s prosecutorial reputation by stating that, “If your property tax plan was a Wall Street firm you would’ve indicted it already.” A good line, and the crowd gave Suozzi kudos for it. But then Suozzi tried to use it again later in the night, and it lost any effect it might have had.
If there was a terribly bad moment for Suozzi during the debate, it came when Carter asked both candidates about their chore schedule. Displaying a distance from the common man few would have expected, Suozzi admitted that he has not shopped for his own groceries during the last month (Spitzer had). Now, I’d be willing to bet that Suozzi has a Costco card and regularly indulges in huge boxes of cereal and frozen bags of shrimp. But boy did he hand Spitzer an easy attack piece. Spitzer will probably not have to use that, or any other, negative information against Suozzi since has a 60 point lead in most polls and tends to not even acknowledge he has a primary opponent in public forums. But if this were a close race, you can bet we’d be hearing about the “out of touch, elitist” Suozzi.
Besides that, most of the questions were pretty boring—hearing politicians talk about how they will break the logjam at Ground Zero could put anyone to sleep. Suozzi spent much of the debate going after Spitzer for lacking specifics in any of his proposals, while Spitzer spent the time decrying Suozzi for running a negative campaign. We could have read the candidates press releases out loud and learned as much.
We’ll be having another debate, between both Republican candidates for Senate, KT McFarland and John Spencer, in just a few weeks. Let’s all hope that something more substantial comes out of that debate other than the candidates’ preferences in soft drugs and music delivery systems.
