Yesterday, the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities hosted debates between the candidates for Auditor and Governor. I was able to watch the auditorial(?) debate, and I wanted to share a few thoughts.

In their first debate this year, Rebecca Otto absolutely destroyed Pat Anderson. Now, those of you who read the blog regularly will hopefully agree that I usually tend to be fairly mild and non-committal about debates. I highlight a few points, but I rarely claim that one candidate was the absolute winner. But in this case, Anderson was completely overmatched. Unfortunately, I don’t think a replay video is available; if one becomes available, I’ll definitely post it. [Ed: watch video here]

I had a couple of favorite moments from the debate. The first was a discussion of Local Government Aid, which Otto was obviously prepared for, because she jumped up and grabbed a chart she had pre-printed. The chart showed how property taxes have soared as LGA has been cut. I don’t remember exactly what the chart looked like, but it was something like my own (at right), although with more official numbers.

The second was a discussion about what constitutes essential government services. Otto said that was for cities to decide when crafting their budgets, but said that if you talk to people using libraries as a resource for their job search, they would certainly view libraries as essential.

Anderson said that libraries were not essential services, and mentioned that they were outside the scope of the debate because they were a county issue. Judging by the shocked reaction of the audience of city administrators, and several people yelling “No!”, it looks like she was wrong about that.

Those are only two anecdotes, but they capture the feeling of the whole: Otto came off as impressive, knowledgeable, and professional, while Anderson came off as ideologically-driven, misinformed, and inceasingly peevish as the debate wore on.