Wait! It's not the Flagstaff Mayoral Debate, it's the Los Angeles Mayoral Debate. The chintzy set and the low-wattage politicians had me fooled for a minute. (No offense to the attractive and welcoming city of Flagstaff.)

The debate puts Los Angeles' political spectrum in sharp focus. All five candidates are Democrats. In any other debate, the absence of a Republican might be a bit glaring. Not so to the sponsors of the debate, including KNBC and perhaps the League of Women Voters.

Walter Moore - said Republican - stands no chance whatsoever. However, at the least he could have raised points that the other candidates won't. That's probably the main reason he was excluded.

Note that this blog is not endorsing Walter Moore, for various reasons including an email I sent him and the response I received, which indicated to me that he's tone-deaf. But, most importantly, everyone needs to vote for Jimmy Hahn because his competitors (with the possible exception of Bernard Parks) are horrible. I don't often throw around the term "anti-American," but I think there are one or two candidates who might at least partially fit that description. Parks has played the race card, which is a strong suit against him. Thus, I strongly, urgently suggest everyone vote for Hahn. Even if he's the Devil Incarnate, he's better than the others.

As for the debate, the candidates are currently being asked questions that boil down to, "how much of that wonderful socialism are you going to treat us to?" Given the facts above and in the earlier post, I don't really care about the debate, and I have just this to say: Vote for Hahn!

UPDATE: Herzberg has a little fire. The Ronstadt guy (from Spanish-language KWHY) is flinging out what is literally a shibboleth. He's prefacing each question with "buenos noches." The goal is simple: get a response back, preferably verbal. The response will then indicate whether a candidate is Hispanifriendly.

Now it's heating up! Hahn to Herzy: "I'm not going to take any lectures from you... get your facts straight." I haven't looked in to the Fleishmann-Hillard affair, so I don't know who's telling the truth. Who cares? Vote for Hahn!

UPDATE 2: How we're going to bring the NFL back to L.A. and how we're going to do something about L.A.'s traffic are certainly interesting and important questions. However, perhaps for the next debates we won't avoid a small elephant in the room.