The Great Lerner-Abutbul Debate

Insomniac post follows.  Since my thoughts on the hastily (and very well) organized debate between Shalom Lerner and Moshe Abutbul at Beis Tefilla last night are keeping me awake anyway, I may as well share them with you...

• Overall I have been very impressed with the decorum and civility between two serious candidates in a very close contest for the mayorship of Beit Shemesh.  At least these two appear to be keeping themselves above the disgraceful smear campaigns that have been conducted by some other interested parties, some of whom I would have expected to know and observe a little bit more about hilchos loshon hora.  'Nuff said.
• The candidates had to field some very tough questions, and well done to the organizers for not pulling any punches!
• On the qualifications for mayor, I scored a tie.  Both men have a long and impressive track record of public service, and both were able to present adequate administrative resumes.
• On who will be able to unite the city more, I think Lerner got the edge.  True, Abutbul can point to his shadow coalition with Labor, Dor Acher, Gimmel and Shas, but that attests more to his ability to wheel and deal politically than his ability to reach out to people who are different to him.  I think Lerner is more accessible personally to more different types of people.  
• Abutbul played down the issue of the extremists, suggesting that the conflict has been largely instigated by the outgoing mayor for political reasons, and with him (Abutbul) as mayor, he would be able to ease the tensions significantly.  My concern is that he intends to do so by conceding to the biryonim and gently persuading the others that it's all in their best interests.  Lerner is much more aggressive on this point; he made it clear that while everyone's views will be respected and taken into consideration, there will be zero tolerance for violence.  I made that a big score for Lerner.
• Abutbul's idea of a separate minhelet for RBS is interesting, though not compelling.  I like the idea of having a more personal branch of the iriya, but I'm not hung up on it.  I don't think Lerner had given it much thought; he dissed it by presenting himself as the person to speak to, rather than a decentralized call center of sorts.  Abutbul was very quick to point out that this is exactly what Vaknin did with his "mayor's open line", but  I didn't catch exactly why this was a bad thing.
• On the youth - well, everyone agreed that it was a high priority, and the debate was more of a "your word against mine" as to who had been more involved and effective in dealing with youth at risk.  Here the debate got a bit caustic from both sides, which I thought was uncalled for.  I have no idea who really has a better track record here, but I thought Abutbul sounded more sincere on this point.  Put it this way: if I was a teenager having an existential crisis and I could choose who to go to for a warm embrace, I'd choose Abutbul.
• There was a little exchange where Lerner criticized Abutbul for having dished out jobs in return for political support, to such an extent that he had nothing left to offer the Gerrer Chassidim.  Lerner, by contrast, has a practically clean slate, and will be able to appoint people on merit.  Abutbul retorted by saying, "Whoever gets on the bus last has to stand."  This elicited a spontaneous round of laughter and applause from his supporters, but in retrospect it left me cold.  That was basically a public admission that he's planning to be running the same kind of gravy train that Vaknin did.  You support me, I give you a job.  That's pretty cynical, and I thought it was a major gaffe on his part.
• "Where's the money going to come from?"  Lerner disappointed me here.  While he said all the right things about fiscal responsibility, he came down hard on Abutbul for promising a hospital in Beit Shemesh, which he said was unrealistic given the budget constraints.  That, IMHO, displayed a scarcity mentality and a lack of imagination.  Abutbul responded by citing the example of Teddy Kollek, who supported Jerusalem's budget by fundraising overseas (though I can't remember the figures he quoted).  I don't know if he's right about Kollek, and I don't care if the world is in financial crisis - what struck me here is that Abutbul appears to have vision, creativity and the will to achieve, and all Lerner could do was nay-say it.  Analogies to Obama came to my mind here.  Big score for Abutbul.
• There were a list of smaller issues, like the Ma"ar, Route 10, techonological development, parking, etc. on which the candidates basically agreed with each other on all points.
• Abutbul's closing remarks were ordinary to positive; Lerner's were a shocker.  Up until then, the debate had been basically respectful - then Lerner played the race card.  Basically he said that we cannot elect Abutbul - because what will everyone say if a Shasnik becomes mayor?  I actually physically squirmed, because I could not believe he had said that - and nor could a large portion of the audience, who started clicking their tongues disapprovingly.  His intention was to say that it's bad PR for a city to get a Charedi mayor, because non-charedim will get scared off and either move out or not move in.  And you know what - he may be right, but to say it outright like that was in despicably bad taste.  Can you imagine John McCain telling people that they shouldn't vote Obama because a black man is too scary a thought for some people to countenance?  By me, that ranked as the dirtiest comment of the evening - far worse than Abutbul's self-incriminating comment about the first-come-first-served, seats-for-supporters gravy train.  

Overall, I'm now thrown into confusion.  I walked in a Lerner supporter and I walked out undecided.  I guess that means Abutbul won the debate as far as I was concerned.

In summary: Lerner wins on the tough stuff, like dealing with miscreant biryonim and clean governance.  I think he would serve my personal interests better, being that I believe he would develop Beit Shemesh a lot more aggressively in the direction that I envision it - plus he has a strong pro-Eretz Yisrael record and deserves recognition for that.  OTOH, Abutbul is a more  inspiring candidate, who seems to have a lot more of a personal touch, charisma and creativity.  I like the fact that he is willing to dream a bit, because those kinds of visions can become reality.

Right now, I'm still inclined to vote Lerner, despite his closing remarks, and despite his lack of creativity.  I think he'll be a competent mayor, certainly better than the current one, though I have no great expectations of him.  While Abutbul is the more exciting of the two, I'm not comfortable with the company he keeps, and I don't have the warm, fuzzy feeling that his vision for Beit Shemesh and mine are fully aligned.

At the very least, what this debate has done is persuade me that having Abutbul as mayor would not be the worst thing in the world.  I'm voting Lerner, but if Abutbul wins, I won't be too upset, and I'll be watching with great interest to see how he performs.