This interview with Shawn Wooden was conducted via email.
What are your top three favorite things (events, places, people, etc) about Hartford?
I am endlessly inspired by the people of Hartford, who are resilient and diverse. I love the range of restaurants that reflect where our people are from and the foods we eat. And I love watching my kids, and all the others, play basketball at the Wilson-Gray YMCA. Continue reading 'Five Questions with Shawn Wooden'»
Death and taxes.
That’s all people ever seem to ask candidates about. What will the magic wand look like that they will wave over the city to make violent crime and high taxes disappear.
When I interviewed the four viable mayoral candidates, I began with a question about their favorite things in Hartford. Too often, interviews, forums, and debates are framed in a negative way. Hartford is terrible. It’s broken. It’s unusually violent and should be pitied. Now, who will be the superhero to rescue us? And, who will we blame when this superhero turns out to be merely human? It’s a bogus approach. No place is perfect, including Hartford, but it is not a cesspool either. So, I thought that by framing this differently, I could do two things: (1) encourage candidates to be positive, and (2) find out quickly who lacks civic pride. Using that as a base, I wanted to continue in the positive. Rather than finding out how they would “fix” the city, I asked how they would “boost” it.
The third question is much more specific. It came about by asking a few Real Hartford readers what they would want answered by the candidates. Continue reading 'Five Questions with the Candidates'»
Photo by R. Turner
Candidate forums make would-be politicians more accessible to the public, but the necessity of time limitations forces participants into either speaking in soundbites (shallow) or being cut off, mid-sentence. The conversation is also framed in an utterly predictable way– crime, taxes, and economy. Each of those issues is important, yet discussion is often limited to just those things.
The framing of the questions far too often implies that what exists is broken; not everyone buys into that.
I have contacted those who seem like serious candidates; when I have spoken with all who took the time to respond to my request, I will begin publishing these.
Who is a viable candidate? That’s debatable, but I consider those who have no campaign website, Facebook page, or Twitter account (any one of those things shows some initiative and can be created for no money) to not take the race seriously; therefore, I did not seek out interviews with them.
All candidates will get asked the same five questions; you’ll have to wait to see all the actual questions, but one has to do with accessibility.
If any non-placeholder Republican candidates (or candidates from other parties) opt to join the race later, an attempt will be made to speak with them.
Upon commenting that I almost never receive political phone calls, I, of course, received one two today. The first one was a national poll that lasted all of ten seconds:
CALLER: “May I speak with the youngest male registered to vote in your household?”
ME: “No, we don’t got no males here.”
CALLER: “Thank you.”
These types of calls raise so many questions. Why would this poll only be interested in males? Why would they not have questions prepared for the females? If the purpose is to find out something about the attitudes, beliefs, or intentions of male voters, would they not want something to compare that to?
When all but one of the current mayoral candidates are male, and when all but one of the current City Council members are also male, this type of call, regardless of its intent, seems to echo the local trend: women don’t matter at the polls and we certainly don’t belong in positions of power. Continue reading 'Stop Playin’ on My Phone!'»
There are some gaps in this blog post. You should check out what Live in Hartford writes about this same forum in order to fill in those blanks.
For those who are unaware, eHow is a website that specializes in providing advice that should be obvious, but since it exists, I suppose the instructions are needed. In an article about dealing with bratty kids the advice given is to set boundaries, follow through, pay attention to the child, reward for good behavior, and if junior doesn’t adjust her attitude, seek professional help. Sound advice that any rational person could write, yet in everyday observation of the world around me, can see that there is a lack of thinking parents. Likewise, there is advice provided for those who wish to campaign for mayor. These bits of wisdom include:
Only release information to the public about the current mayoral administration if it is factual.
and
Don’t verbally bash your opponent. It takes away from your positive campaign.
Obvious, right?
Not to everyone. Continue reading 'Mayoral Candidate Forum Spotlights Pressing Issues like Robocars and Raspberries'»
Crime & Justice, Economics, Education, Environment, Gender & Sexuality, Hartford, Race & Ethnicity, The Mayor, Urban Renewal, Youth, blight, commentary, downtown, elections, how to, library, political b.s., quality of life, transportation
Mayor Segarra is popular.
In every conversation I have had regarding him, people have had nothing but positive things to say. For a politician, that’s sort of rare. Usually the way it goes is that if you ask enough questions, someone will have some gripe. Not here.
What that tells me is that those running against him need to set themselves apart. Some have tried this through smear campaigns, since there is really nothing legitimate to complain about.
With, let’s say, former Mayor Perez, setting oneself apart as a candidate should not have been a difficult task. If there were no rumors of one’s involvement with the whole Perez fiasco, then one was already distinguished.
Tonight at the mayoral candidate forum, contestants candidates will have an opportunity to show how they would do better than Segarra. Before we look at how they respond in the moment, let’s look at how they appear in forums where they have absolute control over how they appear: their web presence(s) Continue reading 'Mayoral Candidates: The Polished Version'»
Here are the top twelve items of interest on Real Hartford, judging by which posts were read the most and over the longest period of time. Sometimes there are short spikes in blog traffic, but I am more interested in what is on people’s minds for more than a week at a time. These are not ranked exactly in order of popularity: Continue reading 'Top Stories of 2010'»
Environment, Hartford, History & Politics, POCD, Race & Ethnicity, Regionalism, Suburbs, Urban Renewal, blight, commentary, community, elections, food, fun, holiday, how to, photos, political b.s., quality of life, self-indulgence, transportation
Mayor Segarra announced his 2011 run for Mayor. For more details, see The Hartfordite.
The Secretary of the State website previously broke down votes for candidates by town, county, and congressional district. Now, the site only shows this data for the candidates who were on the ballot. For those who received write-in votes, the only data made available to the public is the total number of votes. The write-in candidates already have to jump through hoops for votes cast in their favor to be counted at all; they should receive the same treatment as the more popular candidates. Obscuring vote tallies undermines democracy and erodes faith in the system.
In case anyone is wondering about their write-in votes in Hartford, the Secretary of the State website is still not showing any votes for several of the third party candidates.
To put this in perspective, I can retrieve a backup manual for my food processor in less than five minutes online. Using Amazon or almost any other bookseller, I can order and receive books within days. To read, comment on, and grade roughly 360 pages worth of student writing, it takes me about seven days. I can even renew my license in less time than it is taking to simply post the handful of votes that these candidates received. This election has been a fiasco for a number of reasons and it erodes the trust that Americans have in our electoral system.
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