KDH and the Election

In my line of work (and probably in most other people's) the idea of the Elevator Speech is important.  It's what you say to a person who may be important to your business when you've just met them and you have only a minute or two to interest him or her.  Businesses have thrived or been broken on the strength of an elevator speech.

Today's article (http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=64882) in the Killeen Daily Herald introducing the five people who are running for City Council in districts 1 and 2, was not quite sufficient to allow the candidates to give their elevator speeches.  It certainly was better than yesterday's article, in which the 16 candidates for at-large places introduced themselves in a sentence or less, but today's article fails an important Elevator Speech test: it doesn't provide enough information for readers to know what questions to ask next.

You can make the case the KDH plays an important part in Killeen city politics: the paper has a series of articles (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) on the candidates.  They are co-sponsoring the Exchange Club candidate forum.  You can also make the case that KDH isn't very interested in Killeen city politics:  they prefer to buy editorials from a syndicate for $10 rather than write about what's happening here; they budget about a column inch per candidate when they're writing about the election; they publish letters to the editor infrequently; and over the course of a year, they switch city beat reporters five or six times.

Unless things change, I'm pretty sure citizens won't be able to make a good decision about electing a new  city council by reading the newspaper.  Fortunately, there are some other ways to find out about candidates (besides this blog, of course):

On April 9, KDH and the Exchange Club will sponsor a candidate forum at the Civic Center beginning at 1800.  Unfortunately, the Exchange Club has a nearly-useless web site, so I can't provide any more information.  Inn the past, the Exchange Club forum has been a tepid affair, but  I expect more animation at this year's edition.

April 13, NAACP and LULAC will co-sponsor a forum at the Community Center.  That one also begins at 1800.  Both those organizations also have weak web presences, so there's nothing to point to.

I'll provide more information about the two April forums, as well as events planned by individual candidates, as I find out about them.  You'll do a lot better attending one or more of these meetings than relying on KDH for candidates's views.  At least you'll get the Elevator Speech.