00:00We've just watched the final debate of the race for mayor in L.A., and incumbent Karen Bass and
00:06socialist challenger Nithya Raman went at each other for an hour. For the most part, the debate
00:11was negative, each candidate attacking the other. Nithya Raman quoted Ronald Reagan asking the
00:16famous question, are you better off than you were four years ago? And she made the case that L.A.
00:22has
00:22in fact declined under Bass's leadership. Karen Bass countered by saying that Raman was, quote,
00:27not ready for prime time, and she cited many examples of Raman's failures on the city council.
00:33But you're not ready for prime time.
00:35The real story in this debate was the moderators. They seemed to have a thumb firmly on the scale
00:40against Raman, and you could tell because they asked her very pointed questions about her rhetoric
00:46and about her record, especially about the video that the California Post unearthed where Raman
00:51appeared to call the mayor and the LAPD chief fascists. Raman struggled to explain that she
00:59was really talking about ICE, but then the moderators followed up by asking her, well, why didn't
01:03you vet the social media influencer that you made the video with? And that was the pattern
01:08the entire evening. The moderators would ask Raman a question she would struggle to answer,
01:12and then they would try to pin her down with a follow-up question. Was it fair? No. Was it
01:17informative? Yes. So if I were a staffer on the Raman campaign, I would probably be pretty upset.
01:23But as a voter in Los Angeles, you might find it quite informative. Whether the voters agree
01:28with the moderators on election day, we'll have to see.
