Brown-Whitman Debate: Candidates arrive in Davis as showtime nears

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

With polls showing a close race for California, hundreds of spectators, dozens of credentialed media members and all kinds of political operatives are descending on the town of Davis tonight as Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman prepare for their first of three scheduled gubernatorial debates.

But does it matter?

Millions have been spent on television ads. Brown has been a California political fixture for four decades. What will voters learn tonight that they don’t know already?

‘There’s enormous debate about whether debates move numbers, but they are a quintessential part of campaign politics,’ Whitman spokesman Tucker Bounds said. ‘This debate offers the most unique contrast that California voters have seen between two candidates in decades.’

Whitman and Brown will square off before an expected crowd of 750 people at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center on the campus of UC Davis.

Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford said tonight may offer Brown an opportunity to pin Whitman down on key policy proposals.

‘The difficulty in this campaign is that Meg Whitman has been able to abandon her positions as quickly as she takes them,’ Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford said. ‘This will be an opportunity to draw some clear contrasts between the two candidates.’

For Whitman, the goal is to just appear as though she belongs on the same stage as Brown, a two-time former governor and presidential candidate. Whitman, who has never held political office, has spent more than $100 million on her race so far, and her campaign would take a balanced exchange between Whitman and Brown as a victory.

Whether or not the debate matters, interest in the spectacle is international. In all, 135 credentials have been issued to members of the media from outlets around the world. Reporters from Germany’s Der Spiegel, Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily and Qatar’s Al Jazeera were among those covering the debate.

-- Anthony York in Davis