League Political? YES! League Biased? YES! League Cheating? NO
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The Hudson school board candidate forum was run by the League of Women Voters and by Hudson public school parent groups. It is not widely understood that the League of Women Voters has a liberal political slant. Parent groups can also be expected to have a bias toward more school spending and building more schools. Candidates who recognize this can effectively “game” their system by planting questions the moderators are likely to choose. This doesn’t imply a conspiracy to cheat. It merely demonstrates the advantage a liberal candidate has at a forum run by liberals.
From the LMV website:
The League of Women Voters is strictly nonpartisan; it neither supports nor opposes candidates for office at any level of government. At the same time, the League is wholeheartedly political and works to influence policy through advocacy. It is the original grassroots citizen network, directed by the consensus of its members nationwide. The 900 state and local Leagues ” comprising a vast grassroots lobby corps that can be mobilized when necessary.
Conservative candidates should be aware of their political perspective which includes official positions on a wide-range of issues. LWV actively lobbies in Washington for their pet issues and has official positions on many issues, including:
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (opposes drilling in Alaska)
Clean Air (opposes Bush environmental policies)
Arms Control
Military Policy
Health Care (favors socialized medicine)
Gun Control (believes the 2nd amendment only applies to the National Guard)
School Choice, Vouchers & Tuition Tax Credits for eduction (opposed)
The list goes on and on… On each of these issues the League takes a liberal position, often working side-by-side with Democrats in attempts to craft legislation. On the political spectrum LWV would be to the left of John Kerry or Hilliary Clinton, real close to ultra-liberal congressman Dennis Kucinich.
YES, League of Women Voters is political. They proudly proclaim this fact. YES, the League has a political slant. This is apparent to anyone who reads their position papers. These two facts do not create a conspiracy to aid the most liberal candidate in the Hudson school board race. Instead, Tracy Ahlin and her supporters seem to have outsmarted the others by working within the LWV/parent group’s debate format very effectively. Coming to a debate with prepared answers on likely questions isn’t cheating— it’s just smart. Sending your supporters to submit questions that you have prepared to answer is also within the rules.
Where Ahlin had an advantage is in the liberal slant of the forum’s moderators. Simply put, her questions were more likely to be chosen than those with a conservative slant. Here’s an example. Suppose these questions were submitted to the LWV and the Parents group.
“List three things the Hudson School District does well”
“Did you approve of the board policy moving citizen comments to the end of the school board meetings?”
“List three reasons that school choice initiatives could improve educational quality”
The League & public school parents chose the softball question of course.
This isn’t rocket science. And by the way, when the Chamber of Commerce runs a forum, ultra-liberal candidates like James Mayer are also up against a slant. The closest thing Wisconsin has to a political counter-weight to the 800 pound gorilla (WEAC) is the state Chamber of Commerce (WMC). The business community obviously has a dog in the hunt when one of the candidates has anti-growth, pro-public employee union, environmental extremist positions like Mayer does. He will know this going in and deal with it. Just for reference, our former ultra-liberal state senator Alice Clausing refused all debate invitations from Chambers. Our congressman Ron Kind has refused debate invitations from Chambers as well.
Tracy Ahlin is the most liberal candidate in this race. She performed well in a forum run by an ultra-liberal political lobbying organization. She anticipated the questions extremely well and read most of her answers from prepared text. This is neither a surprise or a conspiracy. Just like the liberal bias of the mainstream media is a fact of life, so is the LWV/parent group’s political slant. Don’t whine about it. Don’t conjure up conspiracy theories about cheating. Get used to it and move on.
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Thank for the time and info Keenan, very educational and interesting. My only thought is that I’d been to LMV forums where I felt they did do a good job, this deal is just kind of disappointing but I’ll still respect LWV and move on. Luke brought up a good point about them being moderators, what would be nice but won’t happen is that somebody could come out and say how the question selection process was performed and by whom.
I don’t even consider the city/country club deal a forum or debate, when you charge for lunch and the sponsor benefits from the office the candidates are running for, its another stacked deck.
I no longer live in the city, I am a partner in one piece of property and hardly one that is considered a big piece of Hudson’s tax base. I did live in the city, saw and experienced some interesting things. IF I still resided there, and could vote, I could harldy endorse the existing mayor, but also could not endorse Mr. Mayer. If Mr. Mayer wants any chance to win he needs to dig in, research , and come up with facts. He will not do this, he is too passive.
Anyways thanks again for your work, I found it interesting and it provided some new insight I hadn’t seen.
The LWV set themselves up by joining with the parent group. They have acted on their own for several year’s and this has never happened until they joined forces. They are responsible because of how they aligned themselves. It was by not coincidence alone that Tracy had the questions not only written, but actually numbered as well. I blame both groups equally and have nothing to give to the LWV when it comes to respect. They are patially to blame , in my opinion, if we go to referendum.