We already know that it will be the red-hued Hot Wheels versus the blue-colored Cold Fish in this fall’s 9th district congressional race, which has drawn national media attention and bucket loads of cash – far more of the latter for the GOP’s stooge of right-wing appeasement than to the former high school hoopster hoping to reclaim the seat he lost in 2004.
Sodrel, Hill in tentative debate deal, by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener (short shelf life for Courier-Journal links).
U.S. Rep. Mike Sodrel and Democratic challenger Baron Hill have tentatively agreed to a televised debate on Aug. 31. It would be at WTIU in Bloomington, though key details of the event’s format are still to be worked out.
According to Weidenbener, it has yet to be determined whether a third candidate for the seat, earnest Libertarian Eric Schansberg, will be permitted to participate in the debate.
Frequent readers of NA Confidential are aware that the senior editor has little use for pliant tools of the Republican junta against modernity, especially when it comes to social matters, while at the same time he laments the absence of alternatives in races like this one, where Democrats typically resort to various shadings of GOP Lite to win over the mega-church habitués of the exurb.
As a card-carrying contrarian, Libertarians aren’t my chosen cup of tea, either, seeing as they tend to be a bit too trusting of human nature sans a greased Kalashnikov, but from the standpoint of principled positions that generally derive from the intellect and not the fleeting andultimately empty pleasure afforded by a partisan ward heeler’s erection, Schansberg’s platform is deserving of a close look … and he categorically should be included in the debate, if for no other reason than to make the two major party candidates break a sweat, exhibit consternation, and be forced to answer real questions about genuine issues.
Dr. Schansberg – Eric with a “c”, not a “k”, as in the case of the fallacious academic poseur at the Yokel Arms blog – is a professor at Indiana University Southeast, and during his tenure there has visited my pub on occasion, although not once in my memory to drink, but rather to participate in a semi-regular book discussion forum that meets there from time to time.
I can’t say that I know him very well at all, and not all planks of his evangelical-leaning platform appeal to me, but as a candidate for political office who is aware of his microscopic prospects for election, Dr. Schansberg brings a vitally important element to the contest.
He is a thinking man … and we need more of that.
Dr. Schansberg’s presence alongside Sodrel and Hill at least offers some degree of reasonable hope for platitude reduction, a temporary concentration of attention, and basic coherency. It may count for precious little outside the confines of his IUS office, and yet it’s something to be desired as an urgently needed antidote to the grandstanding and pandering that otherwise will pass for dialogue.
Make no mistake: My original plan for the fall election remains largely as before, the primary objective being to illustrate the abject futility of the polling day ban on alcohol sales by drinking stockpiled spirits in the comfort of my book-lined study before toddling off through New Albany’s garbage-strewn streets to vote for the major party candidate most likely to defeat the other major party candidate that I dislike more intensely than the first.
I don’t recommend it to everyone, although it’s worked for me … and take my word for it, the guilt fades over time.
