Last night a Mayoral Forum on Community Health Issues was conducted at the Museum of Fine Arts. The forum was co-sponsored by a partnership between Legacy Community Health Center, Planned Parenthood, Gulf Coast, the Montrose Center and Change Happens. In other words, it was a progressive forum put on by a combination of progressive groups with a crowd who was progressive in nature.
Based on that information, you won't be surprised to find out that most of the questions at the forum centered on progressive issues: HER Ordinance, Food Deserts, Support for Planned Parenthood. I don't point this out to begrudge the forum, quite the contrary I think forums like this are great, only to provide some context for the candidate's answers.
Yesterday I wrote that The Chronicle Editorial Board did a great job pointing out the weaknesses of the candidates in this race. They pointed out that Sylvester Turner is a long-time public servant who's proclivity for self-service is well-known, that Adrian Garcia has a penchant for giving shallow answers to deep questions, that Bill King doesn't seem to have the ability to pull diverse groups together, and that Ben Hall, Chris Bell and Marty McVey aren't really worth spending much time on.
At the forum, the candidates did their level best to prove the Chron correct.
Let's take a look at them one by one:
Sylvester Turner: Spent most of his time talking about his long legislative tenure as well as griping about Houston voting along racial lines while his campaign continues to post photos of himself with a pretty monochromatic group of supporters. He also doubled down on sound-byte speech. Because, really, if you just add in the catch-phrases you can pretty much replace every other word he says with "blah-blah-blah"
Adrian Garcia: The biggest knock against Garcia is that he gives shallow answers to deep questions. Garcia didn't do anything to contest that by saying he had a pink tie, pink shirt and his wife drove a pink car as evidence of his support for Planned Parenthood. If true (and his wife just doesn't have a successful Mary Kay distributorship) Garcia could be the 2nd Texas politician with an affinity for pink clothing who suffers a humiliating loss.
Chris Bell: Look, I don't take Chris Bell seriously and neither does the Chron. He proved why tonight by bringing attention to his hot pink tie (What is the deal with politicians thinking wearing a tie of a certain color is "taking a stand"?), talking about 'turf wars' that have been conceded by those in charge for a while now and continuing to demonstrate that he has no clue regarding the current fiscal state of the City. Whether or not you support PP you cannot escape the fact that the city is running out of money. It would be amazing that a candidate for the highest executive office in the city doesn't understand this, but then you realize it's Chris Bell and it all makes sense.
Ben Hall: This image is probably the worst thing for Hall. After saying he would be there, he didn't show up. That image of an empty seat is probably akin to kicking the corpse of a dead campaign, but it's a bad look nonetheless.
Bill King: I don't have a tweet to anything King said because he didn't bother to show up. I realize that King would say these are not the core issues that he's worried about, but his seeming unwillingness to engage those with different political beliefs than he only serves to reinforce the belief that he's not someone who can build the coalitions necessary to fix the city's problems.
Stephen Costello: One thing confused me regarding Costello. If you're going to try and court conservative voters is it really wise to get in front of a progressive audience and then stake out a position that's further left than even Wendy Davis? The phrase about a man having no say over a women's body is the slogan of those who want abortion on demand. No restrictions, period. Does this mean that Costello supports late-term abortions, partial-birth abortions and even (as some argue for) shortly-after-live-birth abortions? If he doesn't then he doesn't understand the meaning of his statement. Still, if you're courting Republican votes this feels like a huge mistake. It either signifies that he's not the conservative he claims or that he has no spine. Neither bodes well for his election chances.
Marty McVey: Poor Marty. When he wasn't being poked fun at for being long-winded he was making post-forum tweets himself that suggest he doesn't understand the political nature of a political forum for Mayor. Mr. McVey: You WERE politicizing health issues by engaging in a debate about them in a forum that was an extension of a political race.
Ironically, there was a bad Houston Public Media Poll released late Sunday that showed King climbing up the ladder to draw even with Garcia in second place. This, and Turner leading at 19%, received much of the media attention. What should have gained the most coverage is that more voters responded 'undecided' than made a preference for any one candidate. There was also an odd, leading (potentially biasing), question that seemed to place Turner and Garcia in a run-off. It also appeared to over-sample certain groups and raised more questions than it answered.
Typically, in a hotly contested political race, a few candidates begin to separate themselves from the herd this close to election day. In Houston's Mayoral Election however the field seems to be regressing to the lowest common denominator and is content to stay there. The Leadership vacuum is expanding and it is threatening to take down the city with it.
During this time of trouble for Houston there should be better. It should trouble you that there's not.
