The “debate” takes place next Wednesday (25 Oct) on public TV and radio in Anchorage. The candidates for Congress (all five) will be on from 7:00 pm to 7:48 pm, local time. It should be carried around the state, and I’m sure it will be available on-line. More on that later.
Each candidate makes an opening statement and a closing statement of one minute each. I have to try to condense my worldview – the speech I’ve been planning all my life – into two one minute segments! Oh well, if this lousy tooth can hang on, we’ll have some fun.
In between, there are questions and answers. The moderator gets one round and then the candidates take over, for one or more rounds. The format there is you choose a candidate, ask him/her a question in thirty seconds, there’s one minute to answer, one minute for rebuttal, and thirty seconds to respond.
If all goes well, and the host is reasonably unobtrusive, I’ll get two questions. Naturally, Don Young is the Man.
I have several “candidate questions”, and I’ll mention three here. I invite audience participation, on this and general strategy. One thing I’ve already discovered is that the initial question, especially given its limited time, should be a jab. Save the haymaker for the minute and leave him clinging to the ropes in the final thirty.

My first brainstorm went like this: “Last month, the American Embassy in Damascus was attacked by terrorists. The attack was repulsed by Syrian forces, but suppose it had succeeded, and suppose that President Bush had declared, “That’s it, we have to take out this regime that harbors terrorists,” and he had called a joint session of Congress to get approval to attack Syria. How would you have voted?”
I thought this was quite brilliant, and I even planned to keep it under wraps to ensure the element of surprise, but examining it in the cold light of day I find it seriously deficient because of its too speculative nature. (Perry Mason: “It calls for speculation on the part of the witness.”) So, while it may be brilliant and a tough one for Don Young – it challenges the whole foundation of the bogus “war on terror” – it would probably go over the heads of much of the audience. “Focus, Bill. Meat and potatoes.”

I will just outline my other two ideas, which I think are much better. I’m not worried about Don getting advance warning, since I don’t think it would help much, and I doubt any of his people bother to scout the opposition anyway.
The first would be on the Military Commissions Act, highlighting the fact that the military’s top lawyers, the judge advocates general, all vigorously opposed the law. “Why did the Republicans, including Don Young, reject this unanimous legal advice?”

The second question also deals with military. Beyond the 2800 servicemen killed and 20,000 plus wounded (the rate for both accelerates practically daily) there are tens of thousands who suffer from serious mental illness, many of whom are undiagnosed and discharged into society without help. Others are given prescriptions for Zoloft, Prozac, etc. and returned to the front lines. Of course, no self-respecting psychiatrist with an ounce of medical ethics would approve this treatment, but the Army Medical Corps also finds doctors to help in its torture program.