When Tom Brokaw, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown meet for their three-way in Marin County tonight, we’re betting it will be a pretty tame affair, with NBC’s anchor emeritus setting the tone with genteel inquiries delivered with urbane civility as Meg and Krusty display their best behavior.
Or not.
In any case, while the candidates have been hunkered down boning up for tonight’s big event at Dominican University, political writers have been furiously trying to answer the crucial question of who played the opponent in debate prep for eMeg and Krusty.
Calbuzz hears eMeg was played by Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, in at least one debate prep session. We’ve been unable to unearth any more than that. So we decided to cast the sparring partners ourselves, as you can see above.
We’re also offering Calbuzz readers a look at the debate questions you won’t (and probably shouldn’t) hear as you’re deciding whom to support to lead the Great State of California.
With his Olympian air, Brokaw might turn to Brown and ask, for example: “Gov. Brown, what medication do you take for your ADD?” (For Bigfoot Tom this has the advantage of having no “ls” to swallow.)
Or, in his most resonant basso, he might look quizzically at eMeg and ask: “Ms Whitman, after not voting for 28 years, exactly when did you decide you wouldn’t let California fail?”
But really, since it’s not our debate – you may recall, Jerry accepted the invitation we proposed along with FlashReport and Calitics but Meg declined – we’d prefer to see the candidates question one another. To wit:
Meg: Who you calling a whore, bitch? It was Anne wasn’t it?
Jerry: Hey Meg, how come you never talk about those boys of yours?
Meg: Who does your eyebrows, anyway?
Jerry: Don’t they have any decent hairdressers down there around Atherton?
(For the record, we criticize ourselves severely).
Or on the slightly more serious side, how about this:
Meg: How come you didn’t fire Jacques Barzaghi the first time he sexually harassed a woman on the city staff?
Jerry: Why didn’t you hire Nicky Diaz an immigration lawyer ?
And if they want to get really nasty:
Meg: Mr. Brown, why don’t you just come out now and admit you’d like to put a measure on the ballot to overturn Proposition 13’s requirement for a 2/3 vote for tax increases?
Jerry: Ms Whitman, what are you going to do when an assemblyman from Firebaugh tells you he’ll vote for your budget as soon as you put a $4 million swimming pool in his district?
Meg: Would you appoint anyone to the bench who doesn’t support the death penalty?
Jerry: Would you appoint anyone to the bench who doesn’t support a woman’s right to choose?
Here’s what we don’t want to hear, yet again: talking points from their respective web sites – positions honed and polished by their advisers and allies – brought to life as a filibuster.
Which is what we’re likely to get if Brokaw doesn’t force Whitman and Brown to explain their reasoning, to get beyond the simple-minded superficialities they’ve resorted to in the campaign to date.
Well actually, Krusty hasn’t even offered too many of those.
What the hell, we’ll live blog it anyway. Sure you can watch it live on your local NBC affiliate, but you’ll be much better off coming back to Calbuzz around 6:15 p.m. Plenty of free parking.
