Patrick Mara:
That is a minimum of 86 GOP members by the end of 2012. Think about it.
Wednesday February 2, 2011 1:18 Patrick Mara
1:19

Patrick Mara:
Right now nobody can show me a spreadsheet that depicts where each GOP member of Congress/Senator stands on just about any of our local issues.

Patrick Mara:
Where does each member stand on Statehood, full representation, a vote in the House, amendment to the constitution, retrocession, territorial status or modifying our federal tax status? Autonomy? Nobody knows.

Patrick Mara:
We haven't asked many of them. Further, we need to ask for GAO studies on each of these areas.

Great answer. If Patrick doesn't win the election maybe he should take over DC Vote!. That's a lot closer to an effective advocacy approach than I've ever seen come out of that group.

by Jeff on Feb 2, 2011 1:23 pm • link • report

The response to the question about paying for yet another special election if he wins was crap. First of all, when the other special elections were held the city wasn't facing a $600M budget deficit, nor had those officials been in office for less than 30 days.

Second, a councilmember can "advocate" all they want to make reductions, but just because you reduce something in a future budget doesn't mean that it's going to cover what we're spending now. That statement shows a lack of insight into budgeting.

by Special El on Feb 2, 2011 2:20 pm • link • report

Maybe it's just me, but he seemed to spend an awful lot of time/bandwidth talking about his bonafides (the whole gay marriage thing at the beginning) instead of answering questions. I don't know the dynamics of how the discussion works, maybe there weren't any questions waiting for him so he was filling space/time.

by Ward One Resident on Feb 2, 2011 2:39 pm • link • report

I think Mara might be the best so far, he had lots of specifics and sounded well informed. His ideas about engaging Congressional Republicans was intriguing. However, I would have liked to hear what he considers to be "reckless spending."

So if Mara (Or Biddle?) wins, when would the next special election be? And would it be possible that that election could cause yet another special election?

by Steven Yates on Feb 2, 2011 2:41 pm • link • report

There would only be another special election if Mara wins.

by Ward 6 Resident on Feb 2, 2011 2:52 pm • link • report

I'm less concerned about a special election to fill Mara's SBOE seat than I am about what it says about the SBOE or Patrick himself if his first action on the Board was to run for higher office. I don't think he was on the Board for more than two weeks before he filed his papers to get out.

I would have voted for someone else had I known he was just using the election as a publicity stunt/stepping stone.

by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 2, 2011 3:25 pm • link • report

On a stylistic note, it felt like Mara just ran out the clock instead of giving us policy positions on enough issues that matter. He seemed scattered and reaching.

Using the time stamp of the question and the time stamp of the last answer submitted by the candidates, I calculated the average time each candidate took to respond to the first four questions.

Biddle: 3.0 minutes/question
Weaver: 2.8 minutes/question
Mara: 9.3 minutes/question

by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 2, 2011 3:38 pm • link • report

@Ward 1 Guy

If you're looking for substantive policy positions from candidates, I might suggest that timestamps on a GGW liveblog isn't the best way to go about obtaining those positions.

I'd also note that Mara's answers were far longer and more substantive/in depth than either Biddle's or Weaver's. Typing more words takes more time, of course.

by Alex B. on Feb 2, 2011 3:45 pm • link • report

@ Alex B

More words doesn't mean more substantive/in depth.

by Ward One Resident on Feb 2, 2011 3:49 pm • link • report

No, they don't - that was my judgment.

That said, more words certainly take longer to type. I don't think Mara was dodging questions at all, and I certainly don't find your time stamp analysis to provide any evidence of such a charge.

by Alex B. on Feb 2, 2011 3:56 pm • link • report

Patrick might have given longer answers, but he wasn't trying to run out the clock. Actually, he suggested extending the time, even for a whole second hour. We extended it a bit, but I had to leave for something, so we couldn't do much.

by David Alpert on Feb 2, 2011 4:06 pm • link • report

Everyone is going to see it differently, but I don't think that the quality of Patrick's answers compensated for their length, and as a result, we got to fewer questions and therefore fewer issues.

Here is where he scores points:
(1) saying that he'll go to the Hill and plead our case from inside the GOP
(2) saying he supports marriage equality (like all other viable Council candidates), which gives him distance from his evil counterparts in the national party, but then again undermines point (1), since our plantationmasters in Congress hate the gayz
(3) being car-free and loving streetcars, which is a cheap way to win us over at GGW (we're so easy!)

by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 2, 2011 4:28 pm • link • report

He suffered from some Republicanitis by announcing how firmly fiscally conservative he was, then announcing his support for popular and expensive programs (school reform and public transit) and failing to list what, precisely, he would cut that would result in a balanced budget.

Yes, there is probably vastly more wasteful discretionary spending in the DC budget as a percentage of total spending than there is in the federal budget. But it doesn't seem plausible to me that DC's current budget problems can be reconciled through cuts alone without hacking the budget of something substantive. That can be an entirely defensible policy position to take, but you should own it: whose ox are you going to gore and why isn't it providing adequate bang for the buck?

It has proven to be an effective platform for Congressional Republicans, but in my opinion this sort of chicanery about spending and fiscal policy has done our country a great disservice at the national level.

by Joe on Feb 2, 2011 5:28 pm • link • report

I found it refreshing to 'hear' a candidate 'speak' in more than soundbites. The upcoming forums promise to be interesting.

by DC Voter on Feb 2, 2011 6:23 pm • link • report

I like Patrick Mara and I supported him actively in his last try for DC Council. Patrick Mara is one of the few Republicans I have supported. But I will not support him again this time. I find it incredibly offensive that he ran for school board only as a way to jump into this election. He served a total of only 17days before he announced he is running for Council-at-Large. He, like all of us, recognized that the odds were that this would be an open seat long before the school board election. Reporters and politicians across the District were talking about that and asking who would want to run.

It is one thing to run for office and I think Patrick Mara does that really well. It is quite another to actually serve the constituents who elect you and Patrick hasn't proven he can do that. Patrick has some ideas on education that I agree with and some that I don't but if he truly believes eduction is so crucial, and I think he does, and I agree with him there, he should stay on the school board.

His other positions aren't very different from all the other candidates running so his election to the Council wouldn't make any great statement. I think his being a Republican actually did pay off for him when he got a job with the then Republican Senator in his home state. So it may not have been such an altruistic thing to do.

We now have a Mayor who will work with our Congressional Delegate to both find out and impact the positions of both Democrats and Republicans on the Hill. Mayor Gray has already met with Speaker Boehner and will meet with other members in the future. I want our Council members to be active on the Hill but that activity should be coordinated with our Delegate and the Mayor's Office. The District's Republican Committee and the Log Cabin Republicans are also already meeting with moderate Republicans, the ones they can find, on the Hill. I am grateful to both groups for doing that. Mara taking those meetings as a Councilmember will have no more impact than if he just meets with them as an elected school board member.

Maybe if Mara proves his mettle on the school board and serves his constituents well he will have a chance at a future elective office. But I think the least we can ask of an elected official is to spend a little time in the office we elected them too before they jump ship and run for the next office. Ambition is a great thing but it can sometimes get in the way of accomplishing anything.

by Peter Rosenstein on Feb 3, 2011 11:27 am • link • report

Well said, Peter.

by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 4, 2011 9:22 am • link • report

"I also prefer to incentivize good behavior rather than penalize. For example, I prefer tax credits to tax increases."

Fine, but then you have to increase general taxation on everyone in order to balance the budget.

Does Mr. Mara support increasing general taxation on everyone, or does he support running up debt? Since he's a Republican, I assume he supports running up debt, as practically every Republican has been a "borrow and spend" type since 1980.

by Nathanael on Feb 6, 2011 4:41 pm • link • report