Blogger Forum County Executive
Posted by David Keelan on Friday, November 3, 2006
I don’t want to rehash the whole forum issue. However, please indulge me a bit.
The Blogger forum was sponsored by four of the Howard County blogs, who attempt to provide almost daily commentary on local issues and campaigns.
Many of the questions asked of the candidates were standard forum fare – education, growth, transportation, etc.
Wallis answered and Merdon answered.
Ken punted.
Dave Wissing said
What? Ken refused to answer questions put to him by certain bloggers? What are you trying to imply?
Freemarket said
Many democrats punted. Do you blame them? This blog and the Hedgehog report are very partisan. Hayduke’s and Evan’s blogs are much more laid back. I think there are some minor changes that could have been made to boost democratic participation, the most important of which is hosting the forum on an independent site and allowing comments beneath candidate responses as if each response was a post. It is also the first year for the online forum, so I would expect candidates to be weary of it. I wouldn’t use the failure of a candidate to participate in the online forum against them. The Dems who participated in the forum are unusually brave.
hocomd said
FM,
The questions were developed and agreed upon by Evan, Ian, Wissing, Ken, and me. We spent hours fleshing out the questions and gutting the partisan tone of the questions.
All agreed we did a good job.
All agreed to post them on the Hedgehog report.
It was non-partisan and no one needed to be afraid.
Freemarket said
You guys did a great job with the questions. My point is that the perception is that the blogggers are net Republican. Just because there are 2 Reps and 2 Dems involved does not mean that everything is done in a non-partisan fashion. Maybe another factor is the anonymity of the folks who comment that scared the Dems off. You and Wissing seem to get high comment volume compared to Hayduke and Evan.
Why didn’t Merdon answer a legitimate question posed by a real person at a community forum? Quite frankly, it is embarrassing to me as a Merdon supporter that he ducked that question. It IS a relevant question.