Forum Takes Candidates Close to Voters

The earnest-looking suburbanite didn’t have to think twice about her reasons for spending a glorious weekend afternoon indoors, listening to candidates running for open seats in Congress and the Legislature.

“It’s so much more meaningful to see and hear them than to read about them,” said Berneice Parham, who, with her husband, Archer Parham, had driven from their home on the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Torrance for that enduring staple of grass-roots politics: a candidates’ forum.

This one was sponsored by three local chapters of the League of Women Voters--an organization whose candidates’ debates are must-attend events for serious contenders everywhere--and the Torrance chapter of the American Assn. of University Women.

The forum, held Sunday afternoon, was sparsely attended, perhaps 50 or so voters not counting those attached to the campaigns. But it was nonetheless an important event in this bellwether slice of California politics. The people at the forum are committed to the political process. They vote and pass on their impression of the candidates to friends and colleagues.

The candidates knew that. All but two (both Libertarians) showed up for the forum featuring three South Bay-based contests: the 53rd Assembly District, the 28th state Senate District and the 36th Congressional District. They form a microcosm of the state’s electorate: largely white, fairly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, fiscally conservative but more liberal on social issues, pro-choice and pro-environment, concerned about the public schools.

Voters’ questions reflected those issues, as did the candidates’ two-minute introductory speeches and closing statements. And, for the record, nobody mentioned the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky thing.

With its precision-timed format and strict rules for questioners (stick to the issues, keep it short, do not voice your opinions, moderator Carole Wagner Vallianos cautioned questioners as they lined up at two microphones on both sides of the room), the forum was designed to give voters a rare chance to have at the candidates.

In competitive races in large districts, most candidates spend much of their time raising money to pay for expensive mail campaigns that enable them to carefully craft their messages and to present themselves in the best possible light. But at a forum, voters get to pick the issues to be discussed and to see how well candidates think on their feet.

Archer Parham, for example, wanted to know where candidates stood on health care issues.

Bob Ciriello of Rancho Palos Verdes managed to get two turns at the microphone, once during the part of the forum devoted to candidates for the 36th Congressional District--which Democrat Jane Harman gave up to run for governor last spring--and again when Assembly and state Senate candidates squared off.

“This is so important,” Ciriello enthused between sessions. “The [campaign] literature sure doesn’t tell you much, but when you see them in person you have a much better sense of their sincerity.”

Such forums also give underdog candidates badly needed exposure. On Sunday, the Green Party’s Robin Barrett and the Reform Party’s John Konopka got the same amount of time as the two front-runners in the congressional race, Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Steve Kuykendall.

The rarity of such an opportunity was not lost on Republican activist Asha Knott, who is running for the area’s open state Senate seat against Assemblywoman Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey). With pundits predicting an easy win for Bowen, and with GOP caucus leaders declining to target the seat with campaign money and other help on Knott’s behalf, she has trouble getting attention.

Knott expressed frustration at having only two minutes to make her opening pitch but quickly added, “It is better to have two minutes than nothing.”

The forum also is being televised daily at 10:30 a.m. through Tuesday over the local access cable channel in Torrance, the biggest city in the district and an important area in these contests.

On some issues, candidates showed very little difference. In the congressional race, for example, all the candidates favored public funding for poor women’s abortions and said decisions about whether to end a pregnancy should be left up to the individual. Candidates for the Assembly district, Torrance Councilman George Nakano, a Democrat, and governmentpolicy analyst Bill Eggers, a Republican, agreed on that point but differed when it comes to requiring parental consent for teenage girls seeking abortions. Nakano said consent should not be required, Eggers said it should.

The most frequently asked questions had to do with education, and again, the candidates agreed that there needs to be more accountability, a better way of funding schools and improved campus access to computers and other technology. But they split along party lines when it comes to vouchers, giving parents taxpayer stipends to spend on private school tuition.

Democrats Hahn, Bowen and Nakano opposed such an approach, while Republicans Kuykendall, Knott and Eggers said they favored it, at least in some circumstances. Of the two alternative party candidates, Barrett said she would not support vouchers, but Konopka said it was important to look at the reasons parents wanted them.