A Night at the Forum

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Despite the heroic efforts of the local media and Unicameral Michigan, the forum of the evening of May 4 laid an egg.

Despite promises they’d be there “first, best, live,” Channel 8, Channel 17, Channel 3, Channel 6, Channel 10, Channel 35, Channel 53 and WOOD-Radio all were no-shows. Maybe their newsrooms were inundated with live photos of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and their new baby. At any rate, it was because of their promise of being live at the scene of the big debate over whether the State Senate should be abolished that the decision was made to move the whole production from the Thomas Jefferson Hall to the Hastings High School lecture hall. But the only one with video camera in tow during the whole sordid affair was the ever-faithful Mike Hook on behalf of Hastings Public Access Channel 12. The audience was smaller than what organizers had hoped for, maybe 50 people at best. Maybe a lot of people didn’t want to miss “American Idol.”

Most disappointing of all, however, was that there was virtually no intelligent, stimulating debate on the Unicameral topic. There was no serious, thoughtful exchange of points of view on why or why not the 38-member Michigan Senate should be history.

Of course, State Senator Patty Birkholz was not present once again. She can find time for feel-good photo ops reading to Delton Elementary children or for other carefully orchestrated public relations media events. But she’s AWOL when she is beckoned to explain to her constituents why she should keep her job. State Rep. Gary Newell and State Senator Ken Sikkema have excuses. They’ll both be retired by January, so they don’t need to speak to the issue. Both obviously favor keeping things just the way they are.

I appreciate the eight people who did have the guts to show up, but none of them said anything with any substance. The worst offender by far was Portland loan officer Brian Calley because he’s raking in the big bucks from fat cat banker friends and family and as a result likely will be the next state representative from the 87th District. He showed an alarming ignorance about state government that a bright ninth-grade civics student could demonstrate. He called for a part-time legislature, though it already is. He talked about the horrors of partisanship, as if he is somehow non-partisan himself, lacking the understanding that a good argument is at the very heart of democracy. He agreed he couldn’t defend the current State Legislature’s performance, but to date, like gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, hasn’t given us one shred of evidence he’ll do anything differently. Calley once said he understands the big disconnect between Hastings and Lansing, but actually the biggest disconnect is between Calley’s acknowledgment of our current predicament and his fierce defense of the status quo.

Libertarian William Gelineau waxed eloquent about irrelevant issues, adding nothing of value to the discussion. Moderator Fred Jacobs let him drone on and on for too long and called on him far too often. The entire Libertarian Party has been a big disappointment on this issue. What better way to implement the libertarian platform of reducing the size of government than eliminating half of the state legislature and the politicians who create more feel good garbage bills and yet the Libertarian Party in Michigan has done NOTHING to push the Fire the Senate campaign. I know the party isn't a major force but certainly it has enough members that could circulate petitions to get this on the ballot where most people understand it would easily pass and they could then take credit for it's success and actually achieve something instead of running placeholder candidates who never stand a chance of winning and never get anything done.

Democrat Al Abbassee, who has only a slightly better chance of being elected than Gelineau, waxed eloquent about himself and, like Calley, did a remarkable job defending the status quo and showed himself as mostly a “Republican Light” style candidate (And we've seen how well that does NOT work with the Brinkert campaign- how about going guns ablazing at the Republican dominated government which has screwed up our state budget while calling for still more tax cuts? At least give your voters some red meat so they bother to show up at the polls!).

Brian Reynolds, my choice for 87th District state representative, should be kicking himself. He let these bozos mentioned above get away with glittering generalities, hopelessly inadequate knowledge of the subject and shameless self-promotion. He was too passive, and when asked why he’s not running against Patty, he should have quickly replied that Birkholz is a Republican incumbent and therefore virtually invincible and unlike former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, he doesn’t want to be elected to a position he doesn’t believe should exist any more. At least he stood out by not sounding like an idiot, which in this race is enough to make him stand out as the best choice to go to Lansing and work for We The People!

Republican Frank Campbell brought up the tired old notion of West Michigan vs. the Detroit area, which makes him a divider, not a uniter, and solves no problems whatsoever because southeast Michigan is the most populous region of this state and should not be targeted like a KKK Grand Dragon targets Negroes.

Republican Susan Vlietstra touted herself as a woman who meticulously checks the facts before she makes any decisions, yet the justifications she presented for her opposition to firing the senate were based on minor points, such as the House replacing the Senate in powers of impeachment. She also scored no points for being offended at Jacobs’ noting she is a housewife and township clerk. She should have said she’s proud to be a mother and a public servant at the same time, proving she handle big and important jobs.

Democrats Eric Geister and Doug Kalnbach said nothing, literally. To paraphrase former County Commissioner Bob Wenger, they both should have stayed home and planted corn.

In the end, all eight candidates for state offices failed to give us a reason to get excited about them. They didn’t seem to understand the petition drive to “Fire the Senate” as an idea worth serious, intelligent and spirited debate. In the end, it seemed like the only one who knew what he was talking about was Fred Jacobs, the moderator. Bravo to the organizers for at least trying to get the issue discussed and for allowing the voters an early look at the candidates who will ask for their votes in August and November.

I repeat, sadly, the road the hell is paved with good intentions, and the forum laid an egg.