Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/733188
With an anticipated audience of Super Bowl size, I waited for 6 p.m. on Tuesday for what I thought was going to be 90 minutes of po- litical blood-letting between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I was not disappointed. Thisfirstdebatewaslike the recall debate I had the privilege of moderating from Sacramento be- tween Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arianna Huff- ington, Tom Mc- Clintock, Peter Camejo and Cruz Bustamante in 2003. On Tuesday I anticipated more of what I call "infotainment." I even felt a lot of empathy for NBC's mod- erator Lester Holt. As a mat- ter of fact, this 2016 Presiden- tial race has already given all Americans much information and entertainment. Hillary already has the ex- perience of 34 debates un- der her belt and The Donald 11. Each is basically tied in the polls. Each still has a chance of becoming the most impor- tant person on earth. I won- dered whether their debate de- meanor would be presidential or personal. My take is that Hillary won this first debate and beat Mr. Trump in both tempera- ment and intelligence. It did not take more than 15-20 min- utes before The Donald start- ing losing his cool. Trump's demeanor eventually even dis- pleased the audience. A cou- ple of times he could not stop himself from even rudely speaking to Lester Holt. I began to think about how he might deal in that fashion with Russian President Vlad- imir Putin if he did become our Commander in Chief. I even thought those two might actually be clones since they are so similar in style. Then, I even fantasized. If I were a candidate debat- ing Mr. Trump I would have enjoyed finding somewhere to say "Mr. Trump, I have per- sonally met and know Ron- ald Reagan. And you, my bil- lionaire friend, are no Ronald Reagan." I have come to the conclu- sion, after loving politics for 40 years, running for office is a pure and simple popular- ity contest. As human beings, I often believe we are guided by too much emotion when we vote. If you watched this de- bate, who do you think has the best control over themselves? It ain't Trump, my Tehama County friends. I personally ran for elec- tion to California's Assembly nine times. I sometimes miss that today. Unfortunately, I cannot run for the Assembly anymore because of Califor- nia's term limits law that was passed in 1990. Now, just 42 days before we choose Mr. Obama's replace- ment, I have decided not to vote for Donald Trump. However, I am not ready to vote for Hillary Clinton either. And, it is probably irrele- vant now, but why did Hill- ary "stand by her man" when she knew he cheated with so many other women — Monica Lewinski, Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, et al. I always thought Hillary should have divorced Bill. Apparently she has also contracted his politi- cal power virus. What a Presidential elec- tion 2016 has become. Please let me know what you think, especially if you saw Tues- day's debate. While I was in office, I memorized and used one line frequently, "Politics is the only profession I know where peo- ple don't stab each other in the back. They actually stab each other in the front." Well, in Tuesday's debate it was The Donald who did the stabbing. Now we can all get ready for the Vice Presidential nom- inees when they face off on Oct. 4. By the way, I had so much fun writing today's col- umn that I have no movie re- view this week. Most importantly, don't forget to vote. StanStathamserved1976- 1994 in the California Assembly and was a television news anchor at KHSL-TV in Chico 1965-1975. He is past president of the California Broadcasters Association and can be reached at StanStatham@gmail.com. StanStatham My take on Tuesday's big presidential debate If I were a candidate debating Mr. Trump I would have enjoyed finding somewhere to say "Mr. Trump, I have personally met and know Ronald Reagan. And you, my billionaire friend, are no Ronald Reagan." Gratefulforemergency services Editor: I'm the son of Georgette To- mooka, who wandered out of the Robin's Nest care facility in Los Molinos on Sept. 16. We would like to thank the Tehama County Sherriff's De- partment for the great commu- nication and updates with our family and finding our mother and also thank the Search and Rescue, Highway Patrol and the volunteers that took time to search and the ones from all the other counties. And let's not forget the nursing staff that took care of our mother. Georgette was released from the hospital Wednesday, Sept. 21, at which time my four sis- ters and I took our mother back home to Utah with us in a two- car convoy, 13-hour journey to the University of Utah Hospi- tal Burn Unit for treatment of wounds on her legs. Thank you. — Richard Lasserre, Salt Lake City Donald and Hillary Editor: It's getting very close to the time we vote for the next leader of the free world. Will it be Hill- ary Clinton or Donald Trump? Left-wing voters and the Washington establishment Re- publicans hate Trump because he threatens to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. As a result they paint him a bigot, a racist, a homophobe, Islamo- phobe or any other phobia you can think of as well as being politically incorrect. I believe the biggest rea- son for their dislike is that he boasts that he is going to do something, like win the Repub- lican nomination, then he does it. The ruling class of Republi- cans didn't believe Trump had a chance to win that's why they conjured up the idea of signing an agreement to support the winner, the honest ones are en- dorsing Trump, the rest can go to hell. Polls now show Trump rising and Hillary falling with Trump either ahead or even in some polls and the Democrats are in a panic. Any person with a decent mind would know why conser- vative voters dislike and dis- trust Hillary Clinton. The Clin- tons are the sleaziest peo- ple ever to occupy the White House, they treated it like a two-bit sporting establishment. The Clintons made lying ac- ceptable to the main stream media and proved if they tell a lie enough times liberals will believe it to be a documented fact. She brags about having more experience than Trump and that is the only honest statement she has made. She has more experience in lying, cheating and stealing. She has more experience how to sac- rifice our national security by sending top secret information on private e-mail server that was probably hacked. More ex- perience in how to sacrifice an ambassador, a state department employee and two former Navy Seals by denying the necessary security they were begging for, while the necessary men were ready ,willing and able, yet were told to stand down and her re- sponse was "What difference does it make?" She has more experience in milking money out of foreign countries like setting up the sale of 20 percent of our ura- nium supply to Russians so Russians could sell it to Iran while she was Secretary of State. Who would have guessed that the Clinton Foundation would receive a very large do- nation of millions of dollars af- ter the sale? The Clintons have become among the richest peo- ple in America and done so by dispensing influence and in- formation from being the first family and Hillary's position as Secretary of State. Trump is politically incor- rect and my guess is he learned it when his father put him to work on a construction crew when he was a kid so he could learn the family business from the bottom up. Anybody who has worked as a laborer, skilled laborer, equipment operator or any job that required muscle as well as brains knows the blue collar book of etiquette is a lit- tle different than the one used by the white collar worker or the professionals. Trump is also considered to be among the richest peo- ple in America. Unlike the Clin- tons Trump gained his wealth by constructing many magnifi- cent high-rise buildings and golf courses around the world, put- ting thousands of people to work. Trump also has experience in creating jobs and getting things done. A good example is in 1980 the Wollman Ice Skating Rink in New York was set to be re- stored at a cost of $4.7 million, the rink by 1985 was $12 mil- lion over budget and still not ready. In 1986 Trump makes an offer to fix the ice rink for $3 million. He not only finished it on schedule but came in under budget at $2.25 million. Trump brags about what he can do, then does it. Hillary can only lie about her failures enough times until she can claim them as accomplishments. The Democrats claim to be the party of educated peo- ple, the problem with that is a higher education doesn't al- ways indicate intelligence in the person holding the di- ploma. Not everybody with a higher education is smart and not everybody without a higher education is dumb. — Les Wolfe, Red Bluff Your opinions Cartoonist's take I heard the other day that the federal government published regulatory guidelines for driv- erless cars. So it looks like this will really happen, and pretty soon too. The story referred to the number of traffic fatalities that occur every year — over 36,000 in 2015, and how this number should virtually dis- appear with driverless cars. The number of traffic deaths was over 50,000 back in the Viet- nam era. I had always wondered why people weren't more con- cerned about car safety with deaths about the same as the to- tal we lost in Vietnam. But I guess the automobile companies paid some attention, since the fatali- ties significantly declined due to ever increasing safety measures. I think most of the improvements were driven by litigation, but maybe I'm just being cynical. I remember when I first learned that cars might be able to drive themselves. That was before GPS satellite technology, so they would have to bury a ca- ble in every road for the cars to follow. Satellite GPS has now made that unnecessary. I told my wife that I thought I might live long enough to ex- perience a world of driverless cars. My grandkids are young, and some even unborn, so I could imagine us having this discussion in the future. "You drove your own car almost your whole life, huh Grandpa? Weren't you scared? I just can't imagine all those cars on the freeway with peo- ple being able to steer wher- ever they wanted." "Yup. Everything was in the hands of the driver." "They had automatic brakes though, didn't they?" "Nope. They could even crash into someone deliberately if they wanted to." "No way." We could also talk about what it was like before cell phones. Be- fore GPS. Before computers. If I had a question about something back then, I would go to the dic- tionary or my trusty encyclopedia. The only other place to get infor- mation was the library. No inter- net to get an immediate answer. I used to regale my younger colleagues with stories about life before fax machines and copiers. And no overnight mail. Rotary dials and expen- sive long distance calls are now hard to believe. When I first worked for the government, I had to rotary dial a long access code before dialing the actual number. And then it would of- ten be busy or just ring. There was no such thing as voicemail, or even answering machines. You just had to keep trying. We used to have vent win- dows on our cars called "wings." I think my mother thought they were for getting rid of tissues. You see, no one thought about lit- ter when I was a kid. Telephone poles were targets for empty pop bottles from moving cars. Every- body did it. Eventually we be- came conscious of what we were doing to the landscape, and litter- ing became illegal. I'm not going to say much about smoking, other than I grew up inside a constant cloud. There were no "non-smoking" areas since virtually everyone did it. In restaurants, offices, even in college classrooms. The professors often smoked while teaching. Your doctor might even smoke during your exam. They also did cigarette commer- cials, telling us which brand was smoother — and while wearing their white coat. Yup, a whole different world back then. Who knows what the future might hold, especially consider- ing the exponential growth of human knowledge? I have a feel- ing the world of our grandchil- dren is going to be a very inter- esting place. So get ready for the ride — but I'm not going any- where in a driverless car when there are sunspots. Corky Pickering and his wife relocated from the Bay Area to Cottonwood in 2014. He recently retired from the federal government as an attorney advising law enforcement. He has been a rock and roll bass player and a Marine JAG. He can be reached at thecork6@gmail.com. Corky Pickering Was it really like that back then Grandpa? GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Corky Pickering Stan Statham OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, September 29, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4