Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Some Wrap-Up Thoughts From The Candidate Forum


The Gazette has a recap of the candidate forum last Saturday morning. Once again Gina Duwe was on the spot.

You can follow the virtual portion of the discussion continuation at the Observer.

Mason called it informational and fun. That's what we were going for.

In this picture, blatantly stolen from The Observer, are (l to r) Karen Aikman, Mason Braunschweig, Fred Juergens, grumps, and Art Phillips. Looking closely in the audience you can see the back of the mayor's head, the back of my lovely wife's head and the back of my daughter's head.

Reprinted below are my opening remarks from Saturday.
Good morning and my thanks to you all for coming out this
morning.

This week President Bush said, “One of the things that
we've got to value is the fact that we do have a media, free media, that's able
to do what they want to do. -- there's word of mouth, there's blogs, there's
Internet, there's all kinds of ways to communicate which is literally changing
the way people are getting their information.”

That’s part of the reason we are here today. Weblogging is changing the way Americans interact. In an increasingly busy society the Internet gives people the
chance to get news and comment on it on their own terms. Our candidates
are here this morning to answer our questions and will expand on their answers
to these and to a few others later on The Evansville Observer. The voters
of Evansville will then have the opportunity to weigh in on those answers and to
move the debate forward.

I was tempted to show up here today in my pajamas. There are those who feel that bloggers never leave their basements. They are mistaken. Bloggers are your neighbors, your daughters, sons and coworkers. Some estimates say that one new weblog is started every second. Bloggers are the pamphleteers of the 21st Century,
just hoping to get the word out to help voters inform their choices.

Thank you for being a part of this. Now I’m proud to
turn over this conversation to our current mayor, Janis
Rinhand.



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