May 10th, in a Public Library in Los Gatos

There was only one debate between all of the candidates for the 18th Congressional District scheduled. That was the League of Woman Voters thing in the Los Gatos Library. In an effort to do what they can in service to democracy, the LWV always do this kind of thing for every race on the ballot. Trooper that she is, Carol Brouillet did what she could with the opportunity. Long before people started showing up for the event, Carol had a table set up to inform voters about what she is about.

Those are home made date bars and peanut butter cookies. Not quite fresh enough to be warm, but fragrent, tasty, and just the right amount of crunchy. When the debate started Carol was the only candidate with lawn signs, fliers, and bumper stickers to give out. She is also the only candidate working with the viral aspects of the greenback in interesting ways. She was also the only candidate with a looseleaf binder filled with position statements on issues that people could be reasonably expected to ask questions about. It's almost embarrasing to me how little effort the other candidates were putting into their campaigns.

As the debate got under way the room wasn't that full. Carol's race is somewhere in that sleepy zone between the top of the ticket and the local races that the pillar of the community types froth over. A majority of voters can be more or less counted on to vote the party line here, so the mainstream media doesn't really pay much attention to the race. They like that zombie voting because it keeps them from having to waste reporters on answering awkward questions.

The lady from the League of Women Voters said that if you want to find out more about the race, and all of the races on the ballot, just visit smartvoter.org, where all of the candidates have been asked to put their information and answer a number of questions about their positions. You can just enter your zip code, the program will figure out who is on your ballot from that. Then she read a statement from Anna Eshoo, who couldn't be with us because she is serving the district in Washington DC and has to be there for some important vote. Then she turned over the podium to the local dignitary that moderated the debate.

As the candidates did their opening statements, there were still just two of them on the stage. Carol Brouillet representing the Green Party, and William Parks representing the Democrat Party. The Republican and the incumbent were both missing. It was interesting to me that the only candidates that I'd seen at Occupy Mountain View meetings were also the only candidates that showed enough respect to the voters to show up promptly for the debate.

Truthfully, the Republican Candidate wasn't the only one that was late. The room slowly filled during the debate, and then about ten minutes before it ended the crowd slowly started emptying. I was listening from the back of the room, so I watched as some of the rushers left. Many of them stopped at Carol's table and picked up a cookie on the way out.

There were many areas where all three candidates agreed. All are pro choice. All feel that Climate Change is a looming issue. All think the USA is too involved in military adventures abroad. Funny enough, that's about how the people of the district seem to feel. What a coincidence!

Carol was the only one that said "fair trade not free trade". Dave Chapman was the only one that said "if you calculate what defending out oil supply costs and allocate it to the product, it would work out to $40/Bbl." He was calling for an end to hidden subsidies for big business. Bill Parks was the only candidate whose words I've completely forgotten in the five days between listening to the debate and writing it up. Sorry about that.

About half way through a woman dropped this stack of Anna Eshoo fliers on the table. Looking at this juxtaposition, I'm having fantasies that Carol's funny money can have a viral influence on the election.