Last night, the major party candidates for governor appeared
in Rochester
for the first debate of the election season.
To my inexpert eye, I thought that Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton did not
look well. To my ear, his speech sounded
slurred and his words jumbled.
C-Span has
posted a video of the event on its website.
You can watch and judge for yourself.
If I understand correctly my Twitter correspondents from last
night, to mention the quality of the Governor’s performance on stage was
somehow unsporting, or impolite.
As I’ve pointed
out before, until quite recently, Mark Dayton was an articulate, forceful,
and clear-speaking orator. He is no
longer. Something has changed.
I was told on Twitter to engage on the issues, but ignore
the performance. Here is my
transcription of Dayton ’s
closing statement from the C-Span tape (it begins at the 55:00 mark). The ALL CAPS transcription is from the C-Span
closed captioning system. The other,
lowercase words are those that I filled in based on what I believe that Dayton actually said.
I WOULD SAY, parenthetically,
MS. NICOLLET, I think you
[unintelligible]—I don’t decide who is in the debates—I think you should be in
of the other debates. I think it is well-established
that the INDEPENDENCE
Mr. Horner participated on all of our
debates four years ago and I THINK YOU SHOULD
BE AFFORDED THE SAME OPPORTUNITY.
GOING
BACK TO THE QUESTION AT HAND -- [APPLAUSE] I WAS BORN AND RAISED IN MINNESOTA HAS BEEN very,
very GOOD TO MY FAMILY AND to MYSELF.
I
STARTED RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR IN 2009 BECAUSE I was convinced THE STATE
WAS HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. And
we had EVEN in the midst of ADMITTED THE NATIONAL RECESSION, THE
economic SLUMP IN MINNESOTA WAS GREATER THAN most OTHER STATES’.
THE
TAX SYSTEM WAS REGRESSIVE. And, uh, IT WAS NOT GENERATING ENOUGH REVENUEs TO MEET THE NEEDS OF OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD all the
way THROUGH HIGHER EDUCATION.
I CAME
IN IN JANUARY 2011. WE WERE IN A FISCAL
MESS. [unintelligible] We had A $6 BILLION budget DEFICIT FOR THE NEXT TWO
YEARS. We owed our schools $2.8 billion.
ALONG
WITH the A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN THE Minnesota LEGISLATURE, AND MYSELF, WE CUT
$2 BILLION OF SPENDING, PERMANENT [pause] CUTS IN THE STATE EXPENDITUREs. AND
WE PAID OFF THE SCHOOL DEBTS OVER TIME.
WE
RAISED TAXES only ON THE WEALTHIEST 2% income taxes. In fact 2 million Minnesota
WE
INVESTED THAT MONEY IN EDUCATION. Which,
in MINNESOTA IR NEEDS.
WE
INSTITUTED EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION. ALL-DAY
KINDERGARTEN. in the TWO of the most critical WAYS TO we can ADDRESS THE
disparity gap and the ACHIEVEMENT GAP AND THE ABILITY OF THE SCHOOLS AND of THE
SOCIETY TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE FROM THEIR EARLY area of BIRTH ALL
THE WAY UNTIL THEY CAN ENTER SOCIETY AS PRODUCTIVE ADULTS AND CITIZENS.
THAT
IS THE vision I have of the FUTURE I HAVE AN of the STATE. And THAT IS the
one WHY I WOULD LIKE wish TO CONTINUE AS GOVERNOR.
If I have misheard, or mis-transcribed something Dayton said, I would be
happy to correct the above transcript [Ed: two updates have been made].
The highly trained professionals [or well-programmed computer] at C-Span did a heroic job of catching
the gist of what Dayton
said in the first pass. In assembling
the transcript I pieced together, I spend an hour and a half trying to decipher
a two-minute statement.
In the end, what we have from Dayton is literal nonsense. As for taking on the issues, I can only
address what Dayton
actually said. I am unable to address
what he should have said, or what he meant to say, or what the post-debate
press release claims he said.
In a little more than a month, we will be electing a
governor, presumably one to serve in office for the next four years. I happen to believe that the ability to speak
in public, the ability to engage in public debate on issues, is a critical
skill that any chief executive should possess.
[Update: Perhaps related, Twyla Brase posted a link on Twitter to a controversy over the medical records of a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor in Texas.]
I was there in Rochester, front row center. I thought Dayton did OK until near the end, delivering well-rehearsed lines. Many of those lines were used on Almanac recently, almost word for word I think. But yes, by the end, his speech became increasingly garbled, running sentences together, the result as you've transcribed.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I would give Johnson the victory on points, but certainly no knockout. He'll need at least a TKO in the next debate in Moorhead and should now be able to hit hard on the phony 4.5% MnSure increase. Education should be the focus, it being held at a MnSCU campus.
One final thought: can we have debates with a game clock? The hour went by far too quickly, partly because of TV, but also the explaining and re-explaining of the rules. And also, time lost to the IP candidate. An hour debate should be an hour of major party questions, answers, and rebuttals. Let the moderator and minor party candidates babble on their own time.