Fleeing the Interview, and Other Highlights of Tuesday's Senate Debate

We in public media are really smart. You can tell by our tone of voice when we're delivering our stories on the air. Also, if you meet us on the street, we're very polite. And erudite, if you ask us directions to the local drip coffee spa or to name every state capital or tell you what President Grant's original first name was.

But here's a confession: I sat down to watch Tuesday night's public media-sponsored U.S. Senate debate -- broadcast live from San Diego State University on KQED and streamed live on several fine outlets California-wide -- as underinformed as I imagine many of my fellow voters, focused on our next paycheck, the NBA playoffs, "Game of Thrones" and Donald Trump's hair, might be.

To me, Attorney General Kamala Harris is the death penalty opponent who used to be San Francisco's district attorney. As a candidate to fill the seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Boxer, she's tried to make the most of her efforts to wring justice out of big banks after the Mortgage Unpleasantness of years past. The big banks still seem to be having things their own way.

Loretta Sanchez, Harris' principal opponent so far in California's whacked-out top-two primary system is a Democratic congresswoman from über-Republican Orange County -- that's the way über was spelled before it was trademarked by a firm that launched a blitzkrieg on the taxi industry -- whose singular claim to fame is that once upon a time she knocked off archconservative Rep. Robert "B-1 Bob" Dornan.

The Republican candidates on the stage Tuesday night?

Ron Unz, self-described theoretical physicist, financial software developer, entrepreneur, writer and publisher, is perhaps best known for Proposition 227, the successful 1998 initiative that scuttled most bilingual education for limited-English-proficiency students in California's public schools. A more recent Unz brainchild: a proposed initiative that would have raised the state's minimum wage to $12 by this year. His conservative reasoning: Pay the working poor more so they'll need less government aid. Unz bailed on that campaign when it failed to draw significant support or funding.

The two other GOP candidates who appeared on the San Diego stage Tuesday night, Duf Sundheim and Tom Del Beccaro, are both Bay Area attorneys and former chairs of the state Republican Party. The GOP's last statewide victories -- for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner -- came on Sundheim's watch a decade ago. Del Beccaro's brief tenure, from 2011 to 2013, was marked by the state party's financial meltdown and its unsuccessful attempt to block Democrats from gaining two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

Such were the Chosen Five deemed serious enough -- meaning they had perceptible support in a Field Poll last month -- to rate an invite. And those poll results, for what it's worth, showed Harris with 27 percent voter support, Sanchez with 14, Unz with 5, Beccaro with 4 and Sundheim with 2. The most telling number of all: 48 percent of those surveyed said they were still undecided.

So what did those undecideds see? Here are a few of the highlights, and otherwise, on our scorecard:

The Calm Before ... : Perhaps the best moment for Kamala Harris, and certainly the most relaxed one, came in the moments before the debate started. During the candidates' mic check, Del Beccaro and Sanchez recited snatches of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," Unz intoned, "Testing one, two, three," and Harris -- Harris began singing "Kumbaya." That left Sundheim, who responded, "There's no way I can follow that."

You Want Life Experience? The opening softball thrown to the five candidates was: "What is it about your life experience that makes you the best person for this job?" Duf "2 Percent" Sundheim led off. As he enumerated it, his key life experience included never holding elective office, getting Gov. Gray Davis recalled and passing San Jose's now-dead pension reform measure. In fact, Sundheim used most of his 60 seconds to attack Harris and her life experience, branding her a life-long politician and one who is "in the pocket of her donors."

More Life Experience: Del Beccaro, who was born in 1961 but whose campaign biography calls him a product of 1950s Chicago, said growing up in a big family taught him how to work with others. "I'm one of eight children," he said. "When you're the sixth child, you learn to share, although I must admit that with five older brothers and sisters, it felt more like taking."

She's Fleeing the Interview: There's a great scene in the movie "Fargo" where the small-town police chief played by Frances McDormand goes to talk to car salesman William H. Macy, whose story about his wife's kidnapping is starting to unravel. Flustered, Macy gets up in the middle of the conversation and says he'll be right back. Then McDormand looks out the window, only to see him driving away. "Oh, for Pete's sake. He's fleeing the interview!" she cries.

Something like that happened when KQED's Scott Shafer asked Attorney General Harris about her apparent standoffishness when it comes to investigating allegations of police wrongdoing. "Why do you refuse to open civil rights investigations of police departments, as Jerry Brown and Bill Lockyer did when they were attorney general?" Shafer inquired.

"That's actually inaccurate," Harris said. "We have actually been providing oversight on the cases that are going on not only in San Francisco but other counties in the state. I've been very open about that. In fact, I've indicated I've assigned the head of my civil rights division to work and oversee the work that is happening with the United States Department of Justice in San Francisco."

No, that wasn't exactly responsive. The question, after all, was about opening civil rights investigations, not "providing oversight," whatever that means. But the rest of her answer, focusing on the need for sweeping criminal justice reform and her sterling record in San Francisco, amounted to hiding behind talking points -- or fleeing the interview.

Oh, for Pete's Sake: Rep. Sanchez, whose public appearances I have not before had the pleasure of scrutinizing, also had an early "fleeing the interview" moment under Shafer's questioning. He asked why she had voted for a bill granting gunmakers broad immunity from product liability. She never got around to saying why she had cast the vote. But she offered that she supported the bill, even though the Brady Center on Gun Violence opposed it, and suggested that was a sign of her independence. Plus, she said, she also voted against the war on Iraq despite disagreements with some. And now the Brady Center likes her and the National Rifle Association hates her, she said, and that's OK because she has protected Americans from gun violence.

San Onofre Nuclear Waste: Amita Sharma of KPBS, the debate moderator, asked Harris why her office is defending a California Coastal Commission decision to allow more than 1 million pounds of nuclear waste to be buried near the now-closed San Onofre Nuclear Plant in San Diego County. Harris deflected the question, saying that she couldn't discuss the issue because the commission is her client. Changing the subject, she added: "I have spent my entire career as attorney general protecting the consumers of California -- against big oil, against the five big banks of the United States when I brought back $20 billion, students against Corinthian Colleges and predatory lending practices for the students of California." When Sharma asked again about the San Onofre nuclear waste, Harris repeated that she couldn't talk about that but allowed that nuclear waste is bad and should be cleaned up wherever it is.

Worse Than Nuclear Waste: Sharma asked the other panelists what they thought ought to be done with the San Onofre nuclear waste. Sanchez said nuclear waste is bad but that no one wants it except maybe someone in Texas. Del Beccaro said a study should be done to expedite the waste's removal. Sundheim didn't have anything to say about the waste but opined Harris is doing a lousy job investigating apparently illegal contacts between state utility regulators and one of the utilities that owned San Onofre.

Unz, the theoretical physicist, had the most interesting answer. He said he'd need to study the problem, then decide what to do about it. But then he added that the San Onofre nuclear waste is an example of "how the media distracts us from issues that are significant to issues that are peripheral." After all, he said, there's no evidence that the nuclear waste on the San Diego County coast has killed anyone yet. Much worse, he said, was Vioxx -- the anti-inflammatory drug implicated in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans after it was approved in 1999. Unz said the media ignored the story. He didn't say what he'd do about any of that if he were elected to the Senate.

Look! There's a Student! The debate featured a single student question. It happened to be on the cost of higher education, which of course students care about more than just about anyone except maybe their parents and whoever is holding the mortgage on their future. But really? Only one audience question in a debate held on a college campus?

And the Winner Is ...: Amita Sharma, the KPBS moderator, who cut short the candidates' every attempt to filibuster or go wandering through their talking points. As for the office-seekers themselves: Well, we'll have an idea how the show played to that big group of undecided voters pretty soon.