As a candidate for any elected office you’ll be asked to participate in public forums and debates.
This is a part of the political process that in America dates back to the colonial days.
While attendance may not be as robust today, your participation in candidate forums and debates is required if you’re serious about participating.
Now this might surprise you, but the most important thing about debates and forums to your candidacy isn’t necessarily your answers to the questions thrown your way.
The most important aspect of a debate or forum is actually your attendance.
You don’t have to have the best answers for questions.
The event does not need to be in a friendly environment.
The room does not need to be packed.
You just need to be there and participate.
This is a lesson I unfortunately learned the hard way.
In 2010 I was working for the re-election campaign of Rod Pacheco, the District Attorney of Riverside County, California.
Rod had been an extremely successful and aggressive district attorney in his quest to reduce crime and make the communities he served safer.
This of course made him a polarizing figure and center for a great deal of controversy.
During his re-election campaign, he did not want to participate in many forums with his opponent, a sitting judge and a former homicide prosecutor named Paul Zellerbach.
Rod believed, and I concurred with this at the time, that most of the forums and debates held in the contest would be controlled by his opposition.
Given that Rod’s four years of success in lowering violent crime by targeting street gangs was highly publicized, we didn’t believe Rod had anything to gain by going to the forums and getting beat up by people who would not be voting for him anyway.
While it was true that Rod had nothing to gain by participating in such forums and debates, he had plenty to lose.
The media in Riverside County at the time was very much anti-Rod Pacheco.
The Zellerbach campaign framed Rod’s absence from the forums to portray him as ducking the hard questions he’d be asked if he participated.
Having known and worked for Rod Pacheco since 1997, I knew this was 100% untrue.
Like Andrew Jackson, Rod was born for the storm. The calm does not suit him.
But with the media’s megaphone claiming he was ducking the debate, the voters who didn’t know Rod that well were turned off when he didn’t show up to debate.
The claims that Pacheco was “ducking Judge Zellerbach” became the news and Rod finally agreed to a debate.
And on one day in Banning, California, Rod Pacheco went toe-to-toe with Paul Zellerbach in a candidate forum.
By all accounts Rod won the show down and humiliated his challenger.
Even one of Zellerbach’s biggest media supporters reported that Rod easily bested his opponent.
This columnist who frequently used his pen to stab at Pacheco wrote:
Zellerbach rarely missed a chance to rip DA Rod Pacheco for not showing up to debates. When Pacheco and Zellerbach finally did square off – near a wedding canopy in a Banning restaurant – Pacheco cleaned Zellerbach’s wonky clock.
But even though Rod had man-handled Zellerbach that day, the damage to his candidacy had already been done.
A few weeks later, the voters of Riverside County removed Rod Pacheco as their District Attorney.
In our post-election analysis, my former business partner and I reviewed the race in its entirety.
We came to the conclusion that the failure to participate in the majority of debates and forums had handed the Zellerbach campaign an issue they used to effectively portray our candidate as arrogant and elitist.
That’s branding nearly impossible for any candidate to overcome, even one with a stellar record in reducing crime like Rod Pacheco.
That’s why to this day I advise all candidates to participate in nearly all of the forums and the debates they are invited to.
There may only be a handful of people there. You may be nervous speaking to a crowd of strangers. The questions and the audience may be stacked against you.
None of that matters. It’s all part of the job as a candidate and an elected official.
What matters most of all is showing up to the forum and doing your best.
Why?
Because the voters need to believe you want the office you are seeking.
Not being part of forums and debates is like refusing to show up for an interview for a job you’ve applied for.
When this happens, the voters look up and see an empty chair on the stage instead of the candidate. This is a horrible look that leaves a deep mental impression.
Being labeled as a candidate who “ducks debates” is a label that is nearly impossible to overcome once it sticks.
Sure you may be the best-qualified person. Maybe you don’t interview all that well.
But if you show up and are sincere and honest in your answers to the questions asked of you, there’s a good chance you’ll get the position you’re after.