A fair and balanced candidate forum?

Iwas deeply dismayed by the manner in which the Taos News editor took up her role as host and moderator of last week’s (Sept. 24) District 42 candidate forum. I had expected to see a fair and balanced approach to questioning the candidates for this important office.

Much to my surprise, the moderator’s thumb seemed decidedly placed on the scale for the exclusive benefit of one of the candidates, Linda Calhoun, the Republican Party candidate to represent our district. For all intents and purposes, it looked like the host was trying to shield and protect Calhoun from the political consequences of her choice to remain a Republican and to be that party’s candidate for elective office.

While some may wish to sidestep or minimize the implications of party affiliation, many of us see this as a telling piece of data, deeply reflective of values held and future judgments likely to be rendered. Close to 90 minutes of the forum had elapsed, under repeated pressure from within the viewing audience, the moderator at long last and somewhat apologetically consented to raise the issue of party affiliation. But she did not stop there. Instead, she simultaneously stated the need to have the other candidate, Democrat Kristina Ortez, face a comparably difficult question. Where is the logic in that? Not every story has another side to it.

Nevertheless, the obvious question for Kristina Ortez, paralleling Calhoun’s charge to explain and justify her Republican Party membership would have been, “Why are you a Democrat?” However, instead of doing the obvious, the host inserted a Republican shibboleth regarding so-called “tax and spend Democrats.” A bit later, the presumed neutral moderator took it upon herself to expound on Republican talking points as to whose money the U.S. runs on.

Then comes John Miller’s piece in this week’s Taos News (”N.M. House 42 candidates answer questions in forum,” Oct. 1), offering Linda Calhoun a second bite at the Republican Party affiliation apple and an opportunity to rehabilitate herself. Wouldn’t the moderator having advised Calhoun in advance of the candidate forum that she would likely be asked to explain and justify her party affiliation have been warning enough? Assuming some editorial review of the Miller piece, how in the world could the editor have permitted the purely subjective insertion that Calhoun had “diplomatically stepped around answering” to her party affiliation? She did indeed step around it, but many would have perceived it as dissembling and self-serving, not diplomatic.

Taos News candidate forums are a genuine community service, but only if they are truly fair and balanced. In the midst of the current tense political climate, it is easy to see how a generally fair, balanced, neutral moderator could temporarily lose her way and her objectivity. Let’s hope that the Taos News editor quickly recovers her evenhandedness.