Chabot/Driehaus debate liveblog

Update: I've had about a half-hour to digest the debate, or lack thereof, between the Steve's, I have some additional thoughts.

1. I did my best to keep up with all the discussions on taxes, but I know I missed details and/or got some of them wrong. All parties on the topic were extremely knowledgeable and hit on a great many points that were pretty tough to keep straight.
2. Maybe I'm just not familiar with how local politics work, and hopefully there was no major personal or family injury or illness that kept Steve Chabot from attending...but if there wasn't a good reason, then I just don't know how you can miss a scheduled event, never mind sending one of your surrogates to cover.
3. At first I was thinking I was a bit harsh towards Chabot's representative - she may have just got thrust into this position on a moment's notice. And maybe it was the fault of the campaign for sending someone that was simply unprepared to answer some of the questions about her candidate. But, she signed on for it the moment she walked in.
4. Something that didn't make it into the live blog, but irritated me afterwards, was how Chabot's representative interrputed a statement Driehaus was making on reviewing tax credits, challenging which ones he would eliminate. Given that this was someone who was having a hard time straying far from the campaign talking points, I thought it was pretty bush league for her to start questioning Driehaus' policy specifics when she knew damned well that he couldn't do the same, since she likely could provide no real response. Not that Steve can't handle a little heat, but it's kind of weak to dish it out when you know you won't have to take it.
5. Honestly, when Chabot's representative showed up, they should have simply continued the debate from there, and told her it wasn't their fault that she was late. It was silly that Driehaus had to be interrupted twice (once by Bill Seitz, once by Chabot) by candidates that simply didn't show up on time. It's really not hard to show up on time in life; Chris Dole and Greg Hartmann were there at 7:00. Commissioner Portune was there plenty early.

Maybe this is just par for the course around here, and I hope there wasn't any serious incident that caused Chabot to miss the event (though his representative didn't give any specifics regarding his absence), but that was just crap.