2016 Congressional Candidacy debate
Debate vs Huizenga
A week before the November 2016 election when I was running for Congress against the Republican incumbent, I had my second and last face to face with Bill Huizenga Tuesday night November 1st. Here is the link to the 1:48 video. (Here is an article by Brooke Kansier in the Ludington Daily News about the event as well).[1]
The format was much more conducive to really getting our points across and I do think I did very well, holding my own against a politician who has been doing this sort of thing for 20 years.
I had expressed a mild complaint to the organizers of the previous debate. Curiously, so did Bill. I wondered what would have been his complaint since, if you read my previous post he seemed to have the ability to have the last word on each question. I wonder if he really wanted a format for rebuttal which we did end up having this particular evening in Ludington thinking it would be to his advantage. If so, I suspect he was surprised by my performance.
There was a moderator and three panelists. The panelists were all women from the area (journalist, chamber of commerce, etc). They asked questions and later in the event coordinated questions from the audience.
The panel would ask a question and the moderator would direct it to one of us to answer first. The timing was tight — a young man monitored the time for answers and rebuttals quite diligently.
I did succeed, in a rebuttal at the one hour mark, in eliciting a burst of applause from the audience over a question regarding the new Labor Dept overtime rules for salaried employees.
All in all successful event! Now on to the election.
