It's election season again, and campaign news stories time again, too. There's one race in my parts I'm paying attention to, even if the news crowd isn't, and that's the local DA race here in Travis County (Austin), Texas. The previous DA of 30 years is retiring, and there was a four-way contest of current Travis County ADA's in the general election to succeed him. It’s now down to a runoff.

I used to think that bureaucracies existed in a world that was beyond influencing by ordinary human beings, but I've since changed my mind some. I now think that most but the giant bureaucracies are to a fair degree under the influence of the personality of the person at the top, if that person is doing their job right, and not just warming a chair. That's particularly true of an office such as the DA, which isn't too big an agency in a town the size of Austin. How much of what sort of law gets done depends on the character and agenda of the head DA. Political scientists waste time debating this point, but Mao Tse-Tung had it cynically right when he said that fundamentally, political power is the power to oppress others. Particularly true if you are the DA wielding the law. Texas law gives the Travis County DA a whole lot of power - ALL political corruption and campaign law cases statewide are prosecuted from his office, and if you don't think that matters nationally, just ask Tom DeLay, he'll be glad to tell you about falling afoul of the Travis County DA.

Political campaigns and campaign events are, once the novelty of them wears off, pretty dull and predictable. After watching them for a while mostly all follow the same sort of predictable scripts as bad TV shows. There are no new plot twists in sitcoms and there isn't much new in political campaign events either. This set of facts goes a long way in explaining why political reporting and coverage is as bad as it is. Reporters have seen it all before, are bored and resent writing political coverage stories more than Faulkner would have resented writing scripts for Gilligan's Island. But once in a while, something significant, different and important happens at a campaign event, and that's news, that's important. Why reporters don't see it when it happens right in front of them? I guess they just aren't paying attention. It could also be that they can hardly see anything anymore that isn't in the standard script book; if it isn't in the script book then it doesn't matter or exist. It's too bad for them, and it's worse for us and the functioning of American democracy.

A case in point is the DA's race candidate forums. The first one was held at Gene's Po-Boys, and it had a lot of attendees from the courthouse crowd. Attendance ran a little over a hundred. Close and upfront, all four candidates fielded questions from the audience. The best questions came from ordinary citizens, not the courthouse lounge lizards. Joe asked why the DA's office wouldn't extradite from Atlanta the suspect who'd broken into his house, stolen his house's contents, and left his driver's license behind. Right interesting to see all four fumble the question.

I shot the hard question at them all about the great Travis County Witch Trial of 1992, the Fran's Daycare case, one of the last and ugliest satanic child daycare molestation mania cases that hit this country in the 80's and early '90's. The daycare center's owners are still in the slammer, will be ‘til they die, and most everyone has forgotten them and that decade and a half long mania that put hundreds like them behind bars. We got to see Rosemary Lehmberg fumble the facts on this, her case, and see Gary Cobb's scorn and indifference toward it and me both. Those two obviously go through life without looking in their rearview mirrors.

Stephanie asked about evidentiary problems in past cases, and got talked down to and patronized by Gary Cobb - comes with the territory of being female and less than five feet tall, I guess. Watching how the candidates fielded hot questions coming from out of the blue from knowledgeable and articulate citizens was really instructive and revealing of the character of the candidates. None of this was covered by any of the reporters there, and it really should have.

But there was an even better, more revealing event at the next candidate forum, this one at the Dell Community Center. Attendance was a lot smaller, maybe 30 - the event was hardly promoted. This time, questions from the floor were submitted in writing, in advance and pre-screened by the moderator - you could tell the previous forum's questioning had gotten under the skins of at least some of the candidates. There was a lot less time allocated to audience questions this time, too, and less than a handful were asked, with the time limits set down by the moderator. The moderator called time on the questions, leaving most unasked, and then gave each candidate three minutes for a closing speechette on why he or she should be our next DA.

Mindy Montford's turn came, and she stood up and said that she'd already given her speech, but that there was a stack of citizen questions there on the desk that didn't get answered, and that she wanted to answer them because that was what's important, not another speech.

Her first question was on Joe’s case, and she answered that she had tracked Joe down after the event, gone out to coffee with him later, and had promised him that she would get that criminal back from Atlanta if she had to drive him back from there herself. She was the only candidate who had bothered to meet with Joe on this. Her next question was on the Fran's Daycare case, and she promised to look into it, that the case was before her time at the DA's office but she thought it deserved another look.

Mindy Montford stepped up to the plate and batted those questions out of the park. I was as proud as I've ever been for a politician, to see her real concern with ordinary citizens' problems and her deep-seated belief in the democratic process on display and in action.

I only wish she had had a bigger audience to see her presentation, and that the reporters covering the event would have noted it. None of them did, dammit. This was a real campaign event. This is what campaigns are supposed to be about. This is what campaigns are supposed to do and show and tell us. And if campaigns are hardly ever like that, well the reasons why are pretty openly on display here. Just look at the [Austin] Chronicle note:

“Thanks for writing to us, but your letter is too long to be considered for possible publication. The Austin Chronicle has a 300-word limit on letters. If you wish to shorten your letter and re-submit it, we will gladly take it under consideration.”

There appears to be more concern with the length of a reader letter than there is with reporting important details about an important campaign.

Candidates fear being blindsided, and reporters follow the script they know. It's a lot easier for both groups this way but it doesn't do the democratic process, or the American republic, any favors.

But I'm voting for Mindy this go-round. I'm proud of her.

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Daniel N. White, has lived in Austin, Texas, much longer than he figured he would. He reads more than most people and a whole lot more than we are all supposed to. He recommends all read his earlier piece in BC, 1975 Redux, which is still, in his estimation, the best piece on the Iraq surge anybody printed when it started. He is still doing blue-collar work for a living - you can be honest doing it - but is fairly fed up with it right now. He invites all reader comments, and will answer all that aren't too insulting. Click here to contact Mr. White.

 

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