It started out slowly.
What looked to be a quiet and genteel candidate forum at Orlando’s Jones High School began with the predictable pleasantries. The “Meet the Candidate Political Forum” sponsored by the venerable Orlando Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta and the Psi Theta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha replete with pinks and purples seemed like a perfect setting at the Jones HS auditorium with its slate of candidates: Teresa Jacobs, Bill Segal, Lawanna Gelzer and a rag tag pack of Tea Party hopefuls.
Don Miller, of The Don Miller Show, which is aired on 1680 WOKB, was the moderator. Mr. Miller, well known for his no nonsense, cut to the quick manner, began with an opening statement and quickly moved to a polite yet succinct series of questions, allowing each candidate to introduce themselves.
And then it started. The tension.
The Tea Party hopefuls squirmed as the Black moderator, Don Miller asked pointed questions about race. Black unemployment, Black poverty, crime in Black neighborhoods and much more. Moving from left to right, the Tea Party hopefuls all seemed to respond with their usual cut spending and reduce big government diatribes. Also present were attacks on school board pay, laments on the dying American Dream and of course, the “we need to take our country back” hymnals, code language for taking back the country from this Black president.
Some of the Glenn Beck soldiers were actually stuttering and visibly intimidated by the sea of Black faces in the audience as they attempted to boldly whitewash their disdain for African Americans. Almost accommodatingly, the audience was tolerant, if not polite as they waited for the main event, the Jacobs and Segal show. This is, after all the biggest race in Orange County in years.
Bill Segal, the rustic and down to earth County Commissioner for District 3 appeared calm, connected and comfortable. He would have been even more comfortable in the audience, except for the fact that he had to sit next to his 2010 nemesis, Teresa Jacobs, Orlando’s own Katherine Harris.
Teresa Jacobs, always sincere, yet distant, had an entourage in the audience of loyal black friends and supporters who sat separately from the other Blacks. After all, the Black soccer moms, and PTA ladies were there to ‘represent’ and demonstrate their allegiance to Jacobs, the sincere one.
After delivering a few low ball questions to Jacobs and Segal, Miller abandoned the sanitized format and resorted to his true inner self. With shock and awe accuracy, Miller trounced expectations and asked in your face questions of Bill and Teresa, almost menacingly and forced a spontaneity that finally gave the audience what they looking for: who to vote for and why.
When asked about Pine Hills, Holden Heights, Segal got it perfectly right when he decried the neglect experienced in Orange County’s urban core, telling the audience, “We can restore Pine Hills and we can do it quickly”, while Jacobs tiptoed around the issue, with platitudes on fiscal responsibility and, “We’ll take a look” drabness.
Of course, the tragedy in this year’s Orange County Mayoral Race is that both candidates are immensely talented and capable. If anything, its a shame they are running against one another because they would be great together as Co-Mayors.
Alas, Orange County would be a much better place if only Segal and Jacobs were on the same team!
