Progressive Democratic political blog BlueNC held the state's first-ever live online gubernatorial debate tonight between Richard Moore and Bev Perdue.  The hour-long event featured four “big questions” from event organizers, plus lots more questions from readers, both regular and less so.   Moore's thread is here;  Perdue's is here.

By the numbers:

Perdue:  14 responses on 8 topics.  12 of them were from “Perdue” (technically, we don’t know who was typing at either camp, but we’re told it was the candidates themselves), plus 2 more from her campaign staff.

Moore:  8 responses on 7 topics, all from “Moore” (see above).

• Both said they’d support using technology to improve transparency in state government, mostly by streaming audio or video of floor sessions and committee meetings. 

• Both said they’re big supporters of economic development of green industries.

• Both said they’d oppose putting the Outlying Landing Field in any community that didn’t want it.

• Both said they have plans for making college more affordable.

Bev Perdue went into more detail on military contractors in NC, negative campaigning, student testing, and physical education.

Richard Moore talked about budget reform and the state pension fund’s performance.

Neither candidate answered tough questions on controversial topics, including the death penalty, collective bargaining rights for state workers, gay and lesbian rights, workers’ compensation reform, or how they’d change the “good-old-boy” network in Raleigh. 

Organizers reminded both candidates they’re welcome to follow up with answers to the questions they couldn’t get to in the allotted hour.  It’ll be enlightening to see who follows up.

Overall, I’d say Perdue probably did a better job, especially as far as fielding follow-up questions goes – she was the better of the two at interacting with the people asking questions.  But generally speaking, neither candidate said much s/he hadn’t already said before in other forums. (No surprise, given today’s latest whisper-close polling numbers.)

Bottom line

A qualified success, but still a great idea and a good start.  Organizers James Protzman and Betsy Muse and all the folks at BlueNC deserve a ton of credit for trying this at all.  As far as I know (please correct me if I’m wrong), liveblog debating has never been done before this year in NC politics. Tonight was the first time gubernatorial candidates have ever tried it.

Issue #1: The pace was often slow (neither candidate is a practiced blogger), and a lot of questions went unanswered.  Protzman said that was expected. As he put it, the candidates must have felt like they were “drinking from a fire hose.”  I can vouch that keeping up with all the new queries popping up throughout each thread wasn’t an easy task, and I wasn’t even tasked with answering them.

Issue #2: it wasn’t really a debate in any sense of the word - more like a synchronized Q&A forum.  Perdue and Moore never once critiqued, refuted, or even interacted with each other, although they were invited to.  They were on two separate threads (discussion pages, sort of, for the uninitiated) – and in all fairness, it was probably all they could do to keep up with their own threads, let alone cross-reference and respond to each other’s claims.

Still, it’s an important first– especially because it puts candidates face to face with informed voters who want to know a lot about a lot more things than the race is currently addressing.  Both Moore and Perdue played it safe tonight, which was the politically smart thing to do.  But I’d bet they both came away with an enhanced understanding of the difference between what grassroots Dems care about and what big party donors do.

Okay, GOP, it’s your turn.  Who’s first?

Devil's advocate: Live streaming

Streaming more of what goes on at the Legislature has been something of a “Sunshine Week” theme. In theory, I endorse the idea wholeheartedly.  But in practice, I'm not sure it changes much.  Floor sessions are already audio-streamed, as are committee meetings in the Budget and Finance rooms. That hasn’t exactly nipped corruption in the bud.  (The US Congress has three broadcast channels devoted to its committee and floor meetings.  Has it helped? Well, no... not so much.)

The state budget conference committee meetings were opened to the press last year, too.  The end result? The tough negotiations – the ones you really want to hear – mostly just moved elsewhere, like (private) caucus meetings or unmarked rooms or someone’s office.  (Remember the SuperSub?)

I’m not saying that’s acceptable, or that we shouldn’t and won't keep pushing for all the transparency we can get.  More cameras, more streaming, etc. is a great idea.   I just don' t think adding cameras to five or six rooms in the legislative complex is going to bare the inner workings of its power structure, no matter how badly we might wish it would.  

What if it even had the opposite effect?  Committee members could start holding private party-line caucuses to hash out their votes before they meet in public...which could make the meetings themselves even less informative or transparent than they currently are. Just a thought.

Comments? Drop me a line.