Politifest Live Blog: The Other Debate Night

From the Voice of San Diego:

Voice of San Diego
September 30, 2020

It may be too late to get tickets to your favorite sessions in this week’s extraordinary political online gathering.

Just kidding. It’s the internet and there’s a lot of room. This week, the biggest, most diverse Politifest since we launched the event in 2011 begins. Normally it’s just one day but now there are dozens of sessions held over several days.

Here is a video we put together to get you situated on some of the biggest questions voters will have to grapple with:

But there are going to be many more conversations.

Wednesday, for example, will feature several City Council debates.

We’ll have debates about everything from Chula Vista City Council to the Oceanside mayoral race. (There are so many candidates in that race we had to break it into two sessions. Someone could win with a very small percentage of the vote, it’s wild.) Our staff is mobilized. Maya Srikrishnan, Will Huntsberry, Lisa Halverstadt, Kayla Jimenez and I will also run panels. This is MacKenzie Elmer’s first Politifest and she gets to manage a debate about the 53rd congressional race featuring Georgette Gómez and Sara Jacobs. No problem!

We have an array of local media partners: Journalists like Andrew Bowen and Claire Trageser, Max Rivlin-Nadler and John Carroll from KPBS will moderate debates. Gustavo Solis from the Union-Tribune will handle the Chula Vista candidates.

Danny Freeman from NBC 7 San Diego will moderate the county supervisor District 2 debate between Joel Anderson and Steve Vaus, two Republicans. One of the toughest places for small town politics right now is Encinitas, where the arguments are deep and tensions are high. Caitlin Steinberg from The Coast News will handle that one.

And then there’s the brawl in East County for the congressional seat vacated by Duncan Hunter. Ammar Campa-Najjar and Darrell Issa’s debate is on. Jack Cronin from AM 600 KOGO will moderate, and the station is carrying it live.

Alain Stephens, from The Trace, will interview Attorney General Xavier Becerra about policing in California.

I know I have a way of exaggerating or at least saying often that something is a really big deal. But I’ve never seen or been a part of a local event like this. This is a really big deal, and we have worked hard to build a special program.

Here’s the schedule and registration information. Many of the panels are free with registration and several are being translated in real time into Spanish. I recommend you download the app to pick all the discussions you want to watch and see who else is attending.

There are so many great debates to be had about the future of San Diego. Let’s have them.

— Scott Lewis

Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit news organization supported by our members. We reveal why things are the way they are and expose facts that people in power might not want out there and explain complex local public policy issues so you can be engaged and make good decisions. Sign up for our newsletters at voiceofsandiego.org/newsletters/.