Like viewers at home, Nat Glover was more of a spectator to a contentious back-and-forth debate in 1995.
Leading up to that televised debate, Glover’s two front-runner opponents were heavily financed and more widely endorsed in the Jacksonville sheriff’s race.
“I think it was a general feeling that one of them would eventually be sheriff,” Glover said this week.
Like they’d done at previous forums, W.C. Brown and Joe Stelma were sniping at each other that evening as a television audience across Jacksonville watched.
This time, though, Glover interrupted.
Guys, he said, let’s use the energy you have going at each other in the fight against crime.
That changed the race.
“That was a moment many people remember today,” Glover said
John Delaney is one of them, recalling Glover’s performance as a statesman on stage as dominant.
The momentum, he said, helped Glover win the election in the first election — no runoff needed.
“It was absolutely stunning,” Delaney said recently.
It was a candidate seizing a televised debate as an opportunity and running with it.
Twenty years later, debates still matter. Just how much, though, depends on who you ask.
Glover will tell you it helped him win.
Delaney, an enjoyable exercise that still means something to voters.
Media outlets say it’s a way to offer issues and straight answers.
And to academics, debates still mean something — but maybe not as much as some perceive.
In recent weeks, debates have emerged as a hot topic. Mayor Alvin Brown and challenger Lenny Curry are committed to two televised sparring sessions. Brown has rejected a third televised debate opportunity, while Curry publicly has sought 14 town hall meetings across the city.
Sheriff candidates Ken Jefferson and Mike Williams are slated for three debates for audiences across Northeast Florida TVs.
Rick Mullaney contends debates are important when it comes to local elections. But the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute director also said people tend to overrate their impact when it comes to the outcome of elections.
“Often, for people watching it reinforces what they already think,” he said. “Debates don’t change as many minds as you think.”
Matthew Corrigan, University of North Florida Political Science and Public Administration chair, agrees about the impact. Performances don’t always relate to results, he said.
He uses examples of President Barack Obama’s lackluster performance in the first debate against Mitt Romney and Gov. Rick Scott’s “fangate” episode with Charlie Crist to illustrate that point.
But debates are “very important” when it comes to discussing issues, Corrigan said, especially those that candidates might not always want to talk about — such as the Human Rights Ordinance this year.
Mullaney believes there are a couple of areas where debates do weigh in as more of a factor.
The first, when a race is close — much like this year’s and the 2011 mayor’s races — and again when candidates aren’t particularly well-known.
The latter is an example of why a March 19 debate among seven candidates for sheriff was “very significant,” he said.
Just as it was for a relatively unknown Glover in 1995.
“I really saw it as an opportunity to showcase my knowledge on the issues and also connect with the community,” he said, calling it a “breakthrough.”
Delaney was in a race that year himself for mayor, going up against former Mayor Jake Godbold.
Delaney wasn’t a stranger to debates. He loved it, in fact, saying he took an “anybody, anytime, anywhere” approach when he ran for office.
There were dozens of opportunities back then, he said, and his preparation entailed reviewing up to 200 questions and answers at the outset of his campaign.
He remembers one weekend when his wife and children were out of town, he sprawled seven legal pads on the floor with information on key topics like crime, neighborhoods, taxes and the like.
Needless to say, Delaney said he believes the debate aspect of elections is important.
“I think the voters want to think the candidates are trying to earn their votes,” he said.
But, he said, he also understands the strategy of minimizing appearances — it’s a way for front-runners to minimize risk.
“Candidates skip them at their own peril,” he said.
During their race, Godbold skipped a couple of those opportunities and was replaced by an empty chair, Delaney said.
WJAX TV-47/WFOX TV-30, the duopoly pushing for a televised debate on its networks, is threatening the same treatment to Brown should he not accept.
Corrigan has a similar viewpoint when it comes to the risk involved with minimizing debates.
“I think you’ve got campaign consultants who have become good at advising candidates not to make news,” he said. “Candidates are more careful now.”
And incumbents, he agreed, don’t want to do too many — they’re often stuck on the defensive. Additionally, being on stage with an opponent can provide the viewing public a chance to visualize the challenger as sitting in office, he said.
Yet, presenting all the candidates and issues of the day still is critical.
“It’s part of our commitment to serving the viewer,” said Bob Ellis, WJXT TV-4 vice president and general manager. “People get a sense and can compare how the individuals see an issue, how they plan to particularly attack that issue … they are very valuable.”
Despite the loss of advertising revenue that comes with wiping out a bloc of uninterrupted content, debates still offer ratings boosts.
The March 18 debate the station hosted was seen in about 25,000 households, outperforming the normal rating the station would receive, Ellis said.
Like Ellis, Karen Feagins, WJCT vice president of content and operations, said the debates are important, especially for those undecided voters looking to see how candidates answer — or don’t answer — questions.
Such answers are unfiltered and longer than the typical soundbite, she said, and some voters wait to see how candidates perform before making that decision.
In the next five weeks, candidates for those races will have their chances to impress voters on the airwaves. But how much of an actual impact they actually have all depends on the vantage — and perhaps the performance.
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