Mayoral Candidates Go "Mano a Mano"

Yesterday, Mayor Marty "The Slugger" Blum and Lanny Ebenstein went face to face on AM 1290. It was kind of surreal to see coverage of her man at De la Guerra's Travis Armstrong's show in the News-Press. Armstrong, who is really just a permanent guest of the Baron Von Heron, moderated the discussion. The radio show was mentioned again this morning in the article about the Mayoral debates. We've brought up questions here before about this strange relationship between the News-Press and their "leased time" on AM 1290 -- now 1290 gets free advertising in the very realistic form of covering the news. Overall, I think it's great to have local news radio -- this sits a little funny with me, however. I don't remember KTMS or KEYT-Radio being mentioned in coverage of the news before or radio hosts getting quoted when they happen to be a higher up of the reporter...


The battle of the mayoral candidates seemed to go pretty much as expected with the Mayor touting her accessibility and her main challenger touting his fiscal concervativeness. The "Thinker" Bill Hackett added a bit of color. Surprise for the night? I don't remember the Slugger ever saying she was in favor of a carpool lane on the 101 South. Ebenstein, in contrast, wants to pave away. They also discussed the living wage and questioned it's affect on local business.


Last week, Ebenstein ran an ad in the Indie saying that Marty was for higher buildings downtown than he was -- making a weak connection between the height limitation ordinance of 60 feet and the Slugger's position on the matter. Saying he was for 35 to 50 feet buildings, he somehow insinuated she wanted buildings to reach the sky. What a wierd message -- and a stretch as Blum has never said anything of the sort.

You'll notice more lawnsigns going up in the next couple of days -- I predict an article on lawnsign stealing within the next three weeks. You heard it here first.