[UPDATE:] All videos have been uploaded to youTube and are available here.
Tonight, four candidates for Superior Court faced off before 24 folks that appeared to be students (grad or otherwise) and, including myself, two older folk.
Our cup runneth over. Every one of the candidates this evening was quite impressive.
While our choices can be narrowed on externalities, like Adam Stein’s preplanned obsolescence, the character, tenor, experience of these candidates came through…
[UPDATE:]
Posting videos on youTube as I process them. This is my first attempt to film an inside event. I ran into a few problems: dying batteries, filled memory cards, mystery heads popping up, bottle woman, standing candidates, Mr. Tongue clicker, etc.
I apologize to the candidates for clipping various speeches (like Carl’s opening statement which starts late due to a camera glitch). My next effort should be PRO quality ;-).
[UPDATE:]
Moved videos to separate posts to improve page loading times.
- Candidate opening statements.
- Question 1: Importance of community?
- Question 2: What roles should political parties play in judge elections?
- Judge Baddour’s question: What is the most important thing you will accomplish in the next 8 years?
- Mr. Stein’s question: What is your experience?
- Judge Fox’s question: What are we doing wrong that is causing so many [African-American] males to end up in court and what can we do to fix the situation?
- Judge Anderson’s question: How can the current system for selecting our judges (by election) be modified to better serve the public?
The forum wrapped without an opportunity for the folks in the audience to ask a question or two. That said, I appreciated the moderator’s giving the candidates enough time to fully answer.
All in all, a good forum.
I’m using a wonderful open source software (OSS) tool VirtualDub to edit the raw AVI files from my Canon S3 and convert them to YouTube (or is it GooTube) friendly 320×240 MPEG-4 XVids.
Here’s some very, very, very raw notes.
fox – appellate selection – most current appelate judges haven’t served as superior judges, electing of judges then have a retention election
anderson – unlikely we can change the way NC selects judges – legislative actions – how many folks of high quality are discouraged form running? the current system kind of screens out good candidates – don’t want to expose themselves to election – %85 of electorate (Timson) doesn’t know candidates or issues in current election….
Will, I didn’t think Adam Stein’s answer to Allen Baddour’s question was especially peculiar. I think Adam (rightly) saw the “over the next 8 years” part of the question as a veiled reference to the mandatory retirement age, and that Adam took the opportunity to respond accordingly.
Good point Eric.
BTW Eric, ever think of running for Superior Court?