Editorial:

Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to express our gratitude and appreciation for all that we have and all that we enjoy in life. At La Prensa we have much to be thankful for and this year we have something a little extra to be thankful for! The politicians running for mayor have decided to come together, singing Kumbaya we assume, and have agreed to six debates and have even selected the areas of concern from which the questions should deal with. Of course, we are writing this with our tongue firmly planted in our cheek!

The candidates for mayor of San Diego, David Alvarez and Kevin Faulconer, released a joint statement stating that they will participate in only six (6) debates between January and the February 11 (tentative) election and have asked that the questions be focused in seven (7) areas.

And this where it really gets squirrely. The candidates have decided that they will set the terms of the debate, who more or less can host the debates, and who will participate. The key component of the debates is that there has to be television coverage and that there has to be at least one Spanish language media.

Anybody thinking of hosting a debate must then submit a proposal and those proposals meeting their defined outline will be one of the lucky six (6).

What you have is two politicans trying to control and define the political discussion. After the first debate why have the other five. The questions will more or less be the same (don’t forget they have already outlined the areas of focus) so the other five debates will be a carbon copy… more or less.

What you have are a couple of politicians wanting to manage the political discussion, who is worthy of hosting a debate, and the media. We don’t know how the other media feels about this, but in our gut this just doesn’t feel right!!

This means that many groups who have special interest are going to be left out, for example, none of the debate topics deal with the Hispanic community! And, they are looking to control the media, yes they include one Spanish language media, the assumption being Univision, but what about the Black media, or the Filipino media, what about the Gay and Lesbian media, or the Progressive media? All these other media will be nothing more than fill-in media as needed.

You know the sad part about this whole scenario is that David Alvarez is playing into the hands of the power structure, in other words the Republican Party. The major media such as the UT is controlled by Republicans, and don’t forget they UT recently bought up a lot of the local community newspapers.

It is Thanksgiving so let’s be thankful that they only schedule six of these debates, they could have suggested a lot more!