Candidate Forums during Election Campaigns

While sorting, saving, reviewing and deleting over 3,000 emails; I found myself reviewing the mindboggling campaign trail of last year. It was intriguing to see countless organizations vying to host "Candidate Forums" and present "Candidate Info" via their mediums. The entire process is quite demanding and requires an administrative assistant or staff that can keep a candidate bouncing around town daily for months on end trying to meet, greet, and communicate with key leadership throughout the region. It was extraordinary to experience this environment.

Personally; as an ordinary citizen; I saw so much time dedicated to this process by these various organizations and it made me wonder; Why can't they all just unite for let's say a week to conduct something along the lines of a "CANDIDATE CONVENTION?" I mean, instead of all these organizations dividing our populace to review trite questions and concerns; why cannot they all congregate in one of our many arenas like perhaps the CSU stadium or the Cavs arena to interrogate and review the candidates...? Why can't they make it an event that is both FREE to the PUBLIC and excusable from their jobs to attend? 

I pray that in the future; the "FORUM" part of the democratic process is consolidated, united, and the playing field is leveled. With technology; candidate questions and answers can be previewed online and via public TV stations that are not "steered" by "funded candidates".

The future of Cuyahoga County depends on finding solid, honorable, and dedicated persons to lead our public at large. "VOTING" in general has been tainted nationwide and our citizens have been violated beyond words. These "forums" are usually moderated by people who are "tainted" all the same. It was actually predictable that some of those moderators would be rude, prevent you from answering certain questions, or they'd be divisive in their role during forums. Many citizens would write their personal "questions" on cards that got filtered by those moderators. Moreover, the people who "filtered" those questions were "ALWAYS" trying to save time as the forums always ran over.... which was frustrating for both the citizens and the candidates who humbly desired answering questions from deserving citizens.

Ultimately, our county; the elections people, and the public at large deserve a united front that offers equilateral access to candidates. Perhaps by consolidating, filtering the actual general forum questions, giving candidates the top 50 redundant questions to answer up front, and then opening the arena up to questions by citizens at varied intervals throughout the sessions; perhaps more citizens would get involved. Perhaps those questions could be submitted electronically in a Q & A forum as well.

Our citizens are tired of chasing their tails with programs that are built to deprive them of their direct opportunities to get resolve on their beliefs and understand the views of their candidates.

Ultimately; tons of money could be saved by all the inclusive parties. The forum game could be united to provide transparency to all and lots of candidates could use their time to actually meet and greet citizens in the communities versus in the forums alone. The forum system makes it a steering event full of picking and choosing where to be and who's more important. On many occassions last year; I would walk and distribute flyers and meet citizens face to face at their homes for hours on end instead of attending forums. I believed that those citizens who were not involved in the "FORUM" events deserved attention too. I believe that the "FORUM" Format has depreciated the entire election system in our area.

Prayerfully in our lifetimes; democracy will be given more consideration and the real people who live in our communities will have more direct and interactive access with the people they are considering to choose from in elections when they vote. Future leaders of our community should not be expected to have their loyalties challenged by 'vested' campaign contributors. Yet, I suppose that this is all "Politics as usual" in the world as we know it.