On August 5th of 2005, the Minneapolis Women's Club hosted the 2005 Minneapolis Mayoral Debate. Candidates for the debate were R.T. Rybak, Farheen Hakeem and Peter McLaughlin. The debate was held up when another candidate, Marcus Harcus stood up in the audience and demanded to be included. The moderator asked that he meet with the event organizers.
As security was moving his way, Mr. Harcus asked the audience to raise their hands if they felt he should be allowed to participate in the debate. Hands all over the auditorium shot up, including two on stage. Farheen Hakeem and none other than R.T. Rybak. The Mayor spoke up after raising his hand and said, "Talk to the organizers," Rybak said. "Let’s get Marcus on stage."
When Mr. Harcus was allowed on stage, he went to join the panel and Mayor Rybak stood up and offered him his chair. Now that is a stand-up person and surely made him look classy as the news reporters looked on.
Fast forward to the 2009 Minneapolis Mayoral debate. Wait... No debate has been held and with less than a week remaining until Election Day, there is only one debate scheduled. Why is that?
The voters in Minneapolis have been given very little information about the candidates by the Star Tribune. That suits Mayor Rybak just fine. In fact, he has been asked in person by at least two other Mayoral candidates but apparently Rybak noticed that there were no news cameras from CNN or Fox News to show him refusing to debate. It makes me wonder if there had been national news reporters there, would he have agreed to debate? Perhaps he would have offered them his chair at the debate as well.
This is very simple to figure out what is going on. R.T. Rybak has his sights set on being Governor of Minnesota. A 8-year run as Mayor of Minneapolis to his credit would sure give him a lot of credibility to the voters from around the state who may not know much about him or maybe don't know him at all.
The candidates running for Mayor in 2009 include: Dick Franson, R.T. Rybak, Al Flowers, Christopher Clark, Papa John Kolstad, John Charles Wilson, James R. Everett, Bob Carney Jr., Joey Lombard, Tom Fiske and Bill McGaughey.
Who will you vote for?
The Star Tribune said that the voters could easily get information about the candidates themselves on the Internet. What??? The Star Tribune is the largest paper in the state for crying out loud! They are supposed to report the news but, they decided that the 2009 Mayoral race is simply not worthy enough to give the public basic information about the candidates so they can vote for who they feel would be the best person to be Mayor. Forget about the best interests of the public. The Star Tribune's best interests are supporting the man who will possibly be the next Governor. The paper sure could use a friend like the Governor the next time they need help surviving and turn to the state for a bailout.
There is very little time left until the election, so it is doubtful there will be a meaningful Mayoral debate. The public will just have to guess when deciding for whom to vote. The current Mayor is not being fair to the public or the candidates by refusing to debate. It makes me wonder what Rybak would have said or done in 2001 had then Mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton refused to debate him. Look at what the results of that year's election were... A new Mayor. That scenario is not a good one for the man who would run for Governor.
Written by Jim Watkins
