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Question on Services for Seniors Among Those Chosen for Debate

Spectrum staff

A question about the increasing demand for government services for seniors is among the 12 that may be asked Sept. 24 during a debate between recall election candidates, debate sponsors said Wednesday.

The debate, scheduled for 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the California State University at Sacramento, is expected to include the top five candidates seeking to replace Gov. Gray Davis if he is recalled: Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, Peter Camejo, Arianna Huffington, state Sen. Tom McClintock and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Unlike most political debates, the one sponsored by the California Broadcasters Association will feature questions that have been provided to the candidates in advance.

CBA released a list of the 12 questions that may be asked. The questions, submitted by the public, will be asked in a random order. Because of the debate’s 90-minute time limit, it’s possible that not all 12 will be addressed, CBA indicated.

The senior-related question is:

“As our population continues to age, the demand for government services to seniors will increase dramatically during the next decade. What do you intend to do to proactively manage this demand?”

“The questions are being provided in advance to the public, the media and the candidates in order to spur public discussion about the topics prior to the debate and initiate a dynamic interaction among candidates,” the radio and television broadcasters’ group said in a news release.

“This radical idea was mine,” Sacramento Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub wrote on his Web site.

“The risk is that the candidates, knowing the questions, will memorize answers to make themselves look good,” Weintraub wrote. “But anyone who has ever watched a political debate knows that this happens anyway, as the candidates’ staffs can usually predict with 99 percent accuracy what is coming. Now the public will be in on the secret as well, and the hope is that this will generate broad discussion of the issues in advance and raise the viewers’ expectations for the answers.”

Asked in several recent interviews about his decision to skip all other debates, Schwarzenegger has referred to the Sept. 24 meeting as the “Super Bowl” of the debates, and has characterized the others as being insignificant.

On Sept. 17, Schwarzenegger declined to appear at a debate in Los Angeles, choosing instead to appear on Larry King’s show, which was filmed in a studio across the street from the debate hall.

During the debate, Bustamante suggested that the other four major candidates challenge Schwarzenegger’s strategy by skipping the formal CBA event and instead engaging in a traditional debate — without questions provided in advance — just outside the venue at CSUS. Camejo, Huffington and McClintock all indicated support for such a plan, according to statements reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.

CBA debate participants were selected based on their standing in various statewide polls, the association indicated.