Tonight's Meet the Candidates Event

I attended tonight's downtown "Meet the Candidates" event, at the Marshall White Center.

I'll give you my intitial impressions.

This was a first-time event for the downtown group, "Ogdenites In Search of Information;" and it went off without a hitch.

Unlike previous Ogden candidate events, this one was top-notch.

Cris Rodriguez, a newcomer to political event moderating, performed like a seasoned pro.

The League of Women Voters, who staged the last public format, and treated it like some kind of local comedy show, should cry in shame, and talk to Cris Rodriguez about how to run a legitimate political event.

Here are my initial impressions:

Steve Larson is a "rambling" sort of guy. You never know what he's going to say next as he waves his arms around and expands on whatever comes into his mind at any particular moment; and neither does he. It's all impromtu, and even he can't quite predict what's going to fly out of his mouth from any moment to the next.

By contrast, his opponent, Doug Stephens, is constantly on message, methodical, sensible and entirely businesslike.

Jesse Garcia displayed his deep knowledge of Ogden city business, while his opponent with the BIG RED PERMED HAIR punctuated her message many times on the microphone with "valley girl" ums and ahs, tediously demonstrating she had no idea at all what she was talking about.

Jeske came off great tonight, too, thanks to a decent microphone. Dorrene wasn't designed for public speaking, but her voice finally came through tonight, when she told the audience steadfastly what she stands for, unlike her rubber stamp, stern school-marm opponent.

Bill Glasmann scored a major KO, when he made an impassioned plea to support the Marshall White Center as a city institution, and the downtown families who rely upon it.

And tears welled up in my eyes when Mr. Glasmann mentioned his boxing promotion background, pointed to the blue curtain on the west side of the gymnasium, and referred to the boxing ring that's hidden there, amidst the cheers of the crowd of about 75. He mentioned the Ogden "Hepcats Club" fighters he'd promoted, like Cookie Valencia, Ricus Daniels, Terry Lasalle, and my old running-mate, Donny Greenfield. They were all Ogden friends of mine.

Meanwhile, the Davis County-reared Kent Jorgenson and Donna Burdett just sat at the table like a couple of dull lumps, blinking like a pair of wooden dolls. These people have no idea of Ogden culture and tradition. These two dopes are totally out of the Ogden loop!

Speaking of Burdett, she went totally haywire tonight. For some reason she got pissed off, and started launching on the crowd and the other candidates. People in the audience were open-mouthed, when her face suddenly contorted demonically, and turned beet-red and sneering. She berated the audience, and informed them that the 6,000 citizens who signed the spring anti-mall bond petition, seeking a vote on the mall project, didn't have any idea what they were signing. Donna knows best, says the halloween mask-faced, ranting neoCON Donna Burdett.

When one citizen from the crowd yelled, "We the people," Burdett just sneered, glared and hissed.

Another one in the crowd to my left whispered to me, "What a bitch." "Oh, Yeah, I said." It was really quite startling.

That was an impression shared by most of the crowd in attendence too, I'll venture. It really was quite ghastly.

Burdett pretty much shut her up after that, after finally realizing that she'd completely lost her composure, and had inadvertantly revealed her true evil and malignant self to the crowd.

The "Home Ec" major from BYU wife-of-a-dentist actually thinks she's smarter than everybody else. How scary is that, anyway?

So what you say, gentle readers?

Does anyone else have comments about tonight's most excellent political event?

Is there anyone who'd like to comment on tonight's downtown Meet the Candidates Night?