Assembly Debate in Chico

by jack Lee

Last night in the Council Chambers, we had 3 candidates debating for the 3rd Assembly seat open in November. Incumbent Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, Democrat Mickey Harrington-Magalia and Libertarian Gary Bryant fielded questions from reporters and the audience.

By the end of the evening there was one clear victor, Dan Logue.

Logue overwhelmed his competition and exposed their lack of fundamental knowledge on virtually every issue relevant to this state. Mid-way through this debate I felt like any two people picked at random from the audience would have done at least as well as the two actual candidates opposing Logue. I didn’t understand why they were not better prepared?

Both the Libertarian were often far off the mark in answering the question that was asked as if they hadn’t heard the question correctly. I think if this was their first debate with Assemblyman Logue they might have been nervous and perhaps this contributed to them losing their focus and sounding confused. Logue on the other hand was ready. He listened to the questions and he answered them. He come off as being better versed on topics than his competition and just an all around better candidate in terms of ideas, facts, poise and message.

The Libertarian candidate was personable, sincere and at times he was right one target with some of his common sense ideas, like doing away with the IRS as we know it. He was at ease when speaking directly to the audience, but his message needs to be refined. He needs some practice debating. I felt with some coaching he could make a reasonable candidate in the future, but at this point he was out of his league.

The democrat candidate may have been ill and if so, then this explains much of his demeanor. He came off as stiff, uncomfortable, abrupt and his answers lacked focus. He sat stone faced and frozen and when asked a question he often had to ask that it be repeated. Even then he didn’t answer the question being asked and went off on some other tangent, which is why I wondered if he was not feeling well.

Logue’s message could not have been better. He was crystal clear and to the point. In truth, it was really the only definable message presented this evening. He pounded on the reality that California is one tough state to do business in and we need to fix it or we’ll continue to lose jobs and tax revenue to other states!

He had the facts to back up his positions and he made it clear that as a state we are overregulated and overtaxed to the point we can’t compete. Logue had many examples of quality businesses that have been lured away to nearby states like Oregon, Nevada and Texas ande when called on this by the News and Review Editor, he shoved it right back on him. Logue was not intimidated one bit and he had the facts to back up everything he said.

Logue said we could stop businesses leaving and attract new business if we established a method to help them cut through red tape and lower their taxes so they could begin to recover from this recession (He used Texas as the ideal example).

Noteworthy was Dan Logue is strongly against AB32 that he says will kill jobs in California and has offered competing legislation (AB 23) that suspends what he calls draconian environmental measures until the state’s unemployment is down to a manageable level. I really couldn’t find anything he said that I disagreed with, he was right on target and did a great job.