Commentary: Media panel persecution (I mean, candidates panel presentation)

By Frank X. Moraga / Amigos805

It was certainly an educational meeting for us all at the Latino Issues Forum, held Thursday, April 5 in a hotel ballroom in Oxnard.

The forum, featuring questions put to candidates for the 26th Congressional District, was presented by Clinicas del Camino Real Inc., Local 721 SEIU, the Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Santa Paula Town Hall.

The evening started off with a little bit of drama when Democratic contender Al Goldberg was told he couldn’t join the candidate’s table because he apparently RSVP’d to the wrong person. I’m sure we have all had that certain feeling when we arrived for a function and our name was not on the guest list and they either scrambled around trying to accommodate us or just sent us off to the local Denny’s to regroup.

Goldberg did get in the last word when he left a business card stuck to the window of my truck in the hotel parking lot. The card said, “Congress shall make no law that applies only to the Senators & Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”

Inside the forum, they were scrambling trying to accommodate the overflow crowd of about 300. They ended up opening the second ballroom, delaying the proceedings slightly.

The candidates attending were Julia Brownley (D), Jess Herrera (D), Linda Parks (I) and David Cruz Thayne (D), seeking to be among the top two winners in the June open primary. The district encompasses all of Ventura County, except for most of Simi Valley and the coastal area of Ventura. It also includes Westlake Village in Los Angeles.

The media panel included political watcher Timm Herdt from the Ventura County Star (click here to check out his informative and entertaining blog), Vida Newspaper Publisher Manuel Munoz (click here for Vida’s website) and yours truly.

The event was moderated by Arnoldo Torres, Univision’s political analyst, and will be aired statewide Univision at a later date.

The only major candidate not at the event was Republican Tony Strickland, who was blasted by all the candidates when I posed this mild question:

“What is your reaction to the Republican candidate’s decision not to appear at the forum? Is this typical of the way Hispanic voters are being treated by certain political candidates nationwide during this election season?”

Oh boy, talk about your red-meat moment. The candidates couldn’t wait to jump on that issue with reactions such as, “This typifies the east/west divide of the district, that Strickland apparently doesn’t care about the feelings of 43 percent of Ventura County’s population and so he doesn’t deserve 43 percent of your vote…”

(On Friday, we sent an email to the Strickland campaign on this question and will update this blog if and when we get a response).

The forum continued with a series of questions from the media panel to the candidates as Torres tried to give candidates equal time. However, Brownley initially was bypassed a few times, most likely because she was hidden from Torres’ direct view because of the big American flag positioned in the way.

Brownley said she felt a little bit targeted by a question that she only became a Ventura County resident (moving from Santa Monica to Oak Park) after she decided to run about eight weeks ago after fellow Democrat Steve Bennett dropped out. In fairness, Brownley said she has represented parts of Oxnard and Port Hueneme for the past six years in her State Assembly district.

Herrera often gave passionate responses touting his economic background leading the growth of the Oxnard Harbor District, his experience growing up in Oxnard as a child of immigrants, and his commitment to the rights of working families in the county.

Thayne also talked about his mother’s immigrant background (she moved from Uruguay), how he continues to speak fluent Spanish and his support for comprehensive immigration reform.

Parks touted her decision to run as an Independent in order to send a clear message to Washington D.C. that the country must meet in the middle to start reaching consensus on key issues.

The candidates addressed that issue when Torres asked the why would they run for a Congress that only has a 10 percent approval rating.

Time ran out so I couldn’t ask my final question: Would they support an amendment that would reduce the current pay of members of Congress so that it equals their approval rating. It was a question I would have asked in humor, but I’m sure if the measure was somehow approved we would have had a nearly empty candidate’s table.

The evening ended with a straw poll of the remaining audience after they had heard the candidates, with Herrera taking 83 votes from the audience, Brownley 43 votes, Parks 31 votes and Thayne 9 votes.

At the end, forum committee member and former Santa Paula City Councilmember Laura Flores Espinoza said she had been to many political forums in her political career, but this was the largest turnout she had ever seen in her political life.

The question remains, Will this large Latino turnout at the forum translate to a large Latino turnout at the polls in June and again in November?

Tiempo will tell…

— Frank X. Moraga has served as business editor, director of diversity and general manager of a bilingual publication at the Ventura County Star, and as a reporter in the community editions of the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Daily News.