City of St. Augustine Mayor's Race -- Let There Be Great Debates (And We Don't Need to Write Questions on any Silly Cards)

In a real debate, candidates can ask each other questions. Citizens can ask candidates questions, and followup their answers (or non-answers).
Accept no substitute.
In St. Augustine and St. Johns County, our local policy and election fora -- sponsored by Flagler College the St. Augustine Record, League of Women Voters and St. Augustine Beach Civic League -- are dull.
Deadly dull.
Put them to sleep dull.
The schoolmarms in charge demand that you write your questions on a card.
Someone else decides if it gets asked.
Why?
There's no followup.
Why?
There's no information exchanged.
Why?
No one is held accountable.
Why?
"That's the way things have been run" in these parts in St. Johns County, Florida for years (even including the Flagler College Forum).
There's an alternative -- the one our Founding Fathers had in mind.
"We ask questions, and we trip them up." That is the essence of debates and journalism in an election in a democracy. The line happens to be from "Murphy Brown" (played by actress Candace Bergen, whom Vice President J. Danforth Quayle evidently thought was a real person).
Why no public asking of questions here in St. Augustine and St. Johns County?
Authoritarianism?
Fear of dissent?
Distrust?
Fear of embarrassing questions?
All of the above.
Blackstone said that cross-examination is the greatest engine for the discovery of truth ever invented.
I will ask my own questions, thank you.
I've been doing it for years.
At Georgetown University and other places (unlike Flagler College and other local fora), people ask their own questions.
I fondly remember my freshman year, during 1974-75, when several of us went to nearby George Washington University and sat on a ballroom floor to hear former Democratic presidential candidate Eugene J. McCarthy speak.
I raised my hand and asked my question.
McCarthy said in Oregon during 1968 that the rich and smart people were supporting him and the dumb and poor people were supporting RFK.
I asked if that wasn't smug and elitist, or something like that.
McCarthy stammered an inarticulate answer.
If I can't dance, don't invite me to your party, Emma Goldman said.
If I can't ask questions, don't call your aspiring public forum a "debate."
If politicians don't get to answer live questions, don't call it a "debate."
It's a seance.
A Joint Press Conference.
A Sham.
A Shame.
The debates need to be open, robust and uninhibited.
Televised on GTV.
Televised on live and tape streaming video.
Enough canned answers.
Enough manufactured consent.
Enough manipulation by campaign consultants.
What do y'all reckon?

Footnote: The Flagler College Forum recently heard from Leonard Pitts, Jr., and we were allowed to ask questions.