PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

Spread the word, PDH & ADA/H are hosting a “political speed dating” candidate forum for the 2nd CD race! Event will be held on Wednesday July 26th at McCoy Pavilion from 6:30-9pm. Press release went out today and is linked to our homepage.

Initially, we considered hosting a more traditional style debate and were going to use it as part of an endorsement process. The more we discussed potential formats for both the debate and an endorsement, the more we realized how difficult it would be with 10 or more candidates. We ended up abandoning the idea of an endorsement, in part because we knew that multiple candidates had support from significant numbers of our members. We might have given up on the forum as well, until one of our members came up with the novel “political speed dating” idea. While this format may have its drawbacks as well, we think it will give voters a chance to get to know these candidates much better than they would in a more standard format.

We have firm commitments from 7 8 of the 10 democratic candidates invited. One candidate will be on the mainland; we are awaiting word on the other two one. Assuming 8 candidates attend, the audience will be divided into six equally sized groups, seated in clusters around the room. Six candidates will be speaking at a time, one to each group, for about 10 minutes. At the end of the time period, a bell will ring and each candidate rotates to the next group. With eight speakers, but only six groups, two candidates will have time to collect their thoughts, or listen in on the speeches of the other candidates. There will be eight rounds so that each candidate will get a chance to speak with each group.

We have provided the candidates with a questionnaire containing issues of interest to our members. This document can be viewed on our website, http://pd-hawaii.com. Once all the candidates have had a chance to respond to the questions, we will post their answers on our website where people can compare them as a part of their decision making process.
This event is free and open to the public.