- All right, are we gonna do this all night?

Because I can be as rude as he's being right now.

- All right, Mr.

Block, answer the question.

Mr.

Guckian, hang on.

- Oh, I thought it was awful.

It was more of a comedy show between Aaron and Block, back and forth.

Helena would come out with specific plans about what she was going to do, and it almost never got tested.

- When you don't have an opponent, and you really have no consequences, there's really no accountability, right?

So no one's really pushing back about the spending.

- Everybody needs more money.

Everything's important.

Of course, it's all important.

That's where leadership comes in, and it takes moxie.

(dramatic music) - And welcome into our latest episode of "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel, joined this week by former State Representative Mike Marcello and our political contributor, Eva Mancuso.

This week marked the last high-profile gathering in the race for governor as the three candidates appeared on stage at Rhode Island College for a debate sponsored by WPRI.

While there was some substance and policy differences on display, the forum at times went off the rails as Ken Block and Aaron Guckian sparred with frontrunner Helena Foulkes looking on.

Take it a look.

- I'm not calling for Aaron to get out.

I think that that is a personal, please.

- You shouldn't have typed notes.

You're reading.

- So the... All right, are we gonna do this all night?

Because I can be as rude as he's being right now.

- Ken Block does have notes, and we were told we couldn't bring pre-notes to the stage, so I just brought a sheet of paper.

I just wanna make sure.

- And so did I. He has typed notes, and this is what he does; he's a spoiler.

- We acknowledge Ken has notes.

He's flipping them over.

He's putting them away.

We are all now on the same page - Thank you.

Thank you.

- going forward.

I'm gonna wrap up this conversation.

- It's interesting, Aaron called me in January for my support.

And he talked to me- - That's absolutely a- - [Ted] Mr.

Guckian, we'll let you respond.

- That is a lie.

- He talked to me about saving $400 million.

And I was interested, and I said, "Aaron, how are you gonna do that?"

- What a liar.

- And he said, "Well, I was hoping you would tell me."

- That is such - So, - a preposterous lie.

- do I think one and a half million- - Mr.

Guckian, let Mr.

Block finish.

- He's lying.

- [Ted] You will have a- - Okay, so it got off to a bit of a rocky start.

Mike, what were your impressions?

That was a little bit of the off-the-rail parts, but they did talk about some substantive things.

- There was some good substantive discussions there.

I think they all held their own.

I don't think anyone really moved the needle that much.

You know, housing is an issue.

They're talking about affordability as the new issue that's been around since the primaries.

So I think they both, though, they all did a good job.

You know, the Republican seemed a little out of his element.

You know, I know him personally.

He's a nice guy, but you know, it got a little too personal, I think, in the beginning, and then that carried over.

But you know, I don't think anyone really hit a home run.

But I think it was a decent debate.

I don't think it was Lincoln Douglas caliber, but- - We haven't had Lincoln Douglas for a while, have we?

- Oh, I thought it was awful.

I just thought it was absolutely awful.

- [Jim] Why is that?

- Because it seemed like it was more of a comedy show between Aaron and Block, back and forth.

And it kept going on and on and on.

And then Helena would come out with specific plans about what she was going to do, and it almost never got tested, you know?

I mean, she just laid it out there, everything, and then you went, the two buffoons, going back and forth against each other.

I just thought it was a waste of time.

- No rhythm.

- I watched it twice.

- No way you watched it twice?

- Right.

I watched it twice because of that piece.

I was looking for the rhythm.

At some point, did it ever continue on?

But it seemed like Aaron's job was just to be a big goof the whole time.

That's the only word I could think of.

And I don't like to call people names, but it was just, it wasn't that it wasn't even statesmen.

It wasn't even junior league debate, you know?

Junior level debate.

- You had mentioned that nobody really, you know, no huge gaps, but also no inroads.

This really was what Ken Block needed, right?

So he's closed the gap.

We've seen polls that have brought him closer, probably not surprising as the undecideds go down, but he needed to make a statement in this debate.

- [Eva] Right.

- He needed to make a statement.

He needed to show a difference on a policy issue or whatnot, and there wasn't really much of that.

I agree with that.

But again, you know, he comes across as competent.

But Helena, you know, had her policy issues, but again, there wasn't really much testing of it.

I agree with that.

There wasn't a lot of testing.

You know, these debates are kind of getting to be a little bit of a joke because of just the format, maybe, of them.

And you know, again, the way that they approached the issues, I think, could have been a little bit more back and forth, a little testing one another, but that wasn't really the format that was allowed.

- Right.

I like the idea of just introducing the topic, so let's talk about education.

- What's your plan?

- What's your plan?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- What's your plan?

So what do you think about that?

And back and forth rather than you have- - Have them go back and forth rather than interjecting with leading or, not leading questions, but you know, setting the table; just do it.

- [Eva] Right.

Right.

- Yeah, then, I'm sorry, then the yes-or-no questions, I don't think you get much out of that.

Like, you know, how do you feel this?

Yes, no, do you support this or that?

- When they actually answer yes or no, they're so surprised that they're not, you know, vamping.

We should disclose.

Look, you worked for Governor McKee at one point, and during the Democratic nominee endorsement, you voted for Helena Foulkes.

- I did.

I did.

- So you have been a supporter, and what brought you to her?

- Total supporter.

I think that she has a plan.

And she has a plan.

She has a record.

She has the intellect and also the willingness to really, I think, shake things up and move forward.

I like when she talks about what she's gonna do with housing, with education.

She understands what the problem is.

And really what we need in this state is leadership.

And I know we're gonna talk about the budget later, but it's really leadership that we need.

Everybody has a lot of good plans, but we need somebody that can put together a team that can carry out their plan.

And that was the problem with McKee.

He couldn't put people together to carry out what he wanted to do.

Did he have great ideas on education?

Yeah, he did, but it fell short because, again, he didn't have people that were able to execute and deliver the results after six years.

- Yeah, I thought the most important issue that I was interested in the line-item veto, right?

So Ken said, you know, I support the line-item veto.

Helena basically said the same thing.

Guckian said, "You'll never get it passed."

And then Ken says, "Well, you gotta be a bully pulpit.

I will use the bully pulpit of the governor's office if I get elected."

And that is very true.

We haven't had a governor in a while that has used the bully pulpit.

And whether Ken can do it or Helena can do it, I think she's certainly capable of doing it.

She is an outsider.

She's not from the political world.

She's from the corporate world, but so is Ken.

And I think they just had to try to make that a little bit.

But Ken does know how to use a bully pulpit absolutely.

- And I think that, well, not that I think, I heard.

I mean, the very first thing that came out of Helena's mouth the night of her acceptance speech when she won was that the line-item veto.

That that was something that was important to her.

So let's see if she can execute on that and move forward, and what's she gonna trade for it.

- Yeah, and she also indicated that she didn't want any lobbyists to be lobbying or donations happening when the legislature's in session.

That is gonna send shockwaves through the General Assembly.

But if she could actually get something like that passed, that'd be amazing.

- Well, that's not happening.

- Yeah, that's something you talk about that's like, what did you think, Miss former education chairman?

It was almost a throwaway line, and there was so much going on that she said, "I'd like to see the kids in school from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM."

There were kids with heads exploding all over Rhode Island.

- I know.

- I get what she was talking about.

We need more instruction time, but unions, pay, kids, craziness, right?

What do you think about that?

- Again, we're gonna talk about the budget in a little bit and everything else.

Her point, I think, was well taken, and without her saying that, you know, McKee's plan on, - After school.

- on not only after school, but also attendance matters, I mean, that was probably the best thing that he had done is to just talk about that.

And again, that's educating, especially first-generation parents.

They don't realize that when they go back to the home country for three months at a time, or two months, or two weeks - Over the holidays, yeah.

- over the holidays, what the interruption is in the child's learning.

Once you educate people on that, every parent wants their child to succeed.

So that's when people start coming to school.

You gotta show up.

You gotta be there.

So I think that's probably what she was trying to say.

I want kids in school more hours.

I want them more focused on what they're doing and moving forward.

So we'll see.

- Just last thing on the governor's race, 'cause we've got a couple other to talk about; by the time people watch this, we'll be a week and a half from elections.

We've obviously had early voting, which has become a thing for a lot of people.

Mail ballots have to be counted.

What does Ken Block need to do in the next week?

Is there anything that he can do to close the gap?

- He's gotta turn out his people, but I don't know if he has an organization to do that, right?

I think he's just kind of relying upon his name recognition and whatnot.

I think the Democrat probably has the ground game.

They're gonna turn out their people.

- That's the drawback of not having a party, right?

- Correct, correct.

He doesn't have the infrastructure to help him out.

But you know, more TV ads perhaps.

I don't know.

I think he has an opportunity to do so, but I don't think he has the ground game to get it out there done.

- And does Aaron Guckian come in lower than 10%?

- Did that debate help him or hurt him?

- Oh, it hurt him.

It hurt him.

I mean, anybody sitting there, you know, I mean, he sounded like Trump.

He sounded like that just obnoxious person who's gonna just stand there and you know, "He lied.

That's a lie," you know?

And it was just deplorable, you know?

And that was the word that came away the second time I watched it.

So, you know, what does Ken Block need to do?

Well, first of all, you know, Republicans get 35% just by waking up in the morning, so I don't know how much further he's gonna get than that, I think, when the last shot is fired.

Polls are fine.

They're a moment in time that happened, but I think Helena's gonna win again significantly.

- Do you think she's gonna get over 50%?

I think it's gonna be close.

- All right.

Lieutenant Governor's race is the one where Republicans might actually have a chance.

John Loughlin in the latest poll looks a little bit ahead of Sabina Matos.

But again, she's surprised people before.

Don't count her out.

What is your assessment on that race?

- I think she'll do well in Providence.

I think, you know, she's got a good base in Providence, so she's gonna rely on the InCorp.

No question, I think John Loughlin is probably more popular in the suburbs where I live in Scituate and those areas.

I mean, I've served with John.

He's certainly a credible candidate, but that race hasn't got a lot of attention either.

They're really not talking about much.

And John talked about the need for Inspector General; that's off the table now.

He's gonna turn that office into the Inspector General.

So you know, it's kind of like, I think if the Democrat is as strong on the governors that the coattails will probably, you know, bring Helena, I mean, bring Matos along.

- Sabina is talking about issues that really impact her base, right?

When she talks about what she's done with neighborhoods, - Grocery stores, yeah.

- neighborhood grocery stores and making sure that big corporations don't, you know, hold up space so that they can't use it again, like the Stop & Shops; they move out, and then they hold the lease for many years.

So those are issues that are resonating with their base.

And the whole point is who goes out to vote, right?

And so I think that in the end, I think it's gonna be a close race, but I think Sabina comes out on top.

- Yeah, I think the energy is with the Democratic Party nationally and probably locally right now, and that'll help her.

- One thing we were talking about earlier, 'cause we go back and forth on what we're gonna talk about, you're like, what happened to the Republican Party in Rhode Island?

Actually, you're in the one place where Republicans have been dominant over the years.

With the exception of Cranston and Scituate, it's been kind of a dumpster fire.

And I wonder whether that's a drag from the, I mean, there are no John Chafee Republicans anymore because it's so invested in the culture wars that are going on in Washington.

What is going on with the Republican Party in Rhode Island?

- I think part of it's the national politics, but they gotta figure out what they stand for too.

I got my start in politics with Claudine Schneider.

That's like 20 years ago, right?

Even 30 years ago.

- That might've been 40 years ago.

- Maybe 40 years ago.

You know, those type of Republicans are no longer here, right?

And so I think the Republican Party has a real issue about what they wanna be.

Do they wanna be a MAGA Trump Republican, or they wanna go back to the John Chafee, the Claudine Schneiders of the world, more moderate?

I mean, I believe that the state will benefit with a stronger Republican Party.

I do.

- I totally agree with that.

I totally agree with that.

I believe in the two-party system and the debate, you and I have had many of them over the years and respectfully.

That's what's different is that you don't have that level of respectful debate even within the Democrat Party with the different factions that are pulling off.

So I think when you sent out what should we talk about, I said, "You know, where is the Republican Party?"

'Cause I do believe there are Republicans in Rhode Island that would come out and vote, I mean, come out and run, but it's just so hard right now.

I mean, just think about what you have to do and what you're exposed to between social media and the other things.

You know, we're a part-time legislature, so you still have to work.

And what happens from there, Mike?

So I really do think that, you know, if you have people like the Ashley Kalus of the world that really wanna be leaders, get off the internet and get off the social media and put together some planning documents and really start to work.

- And recruiting.

- And recruit.

And recruit.

- You need to recruit.

It takes a long time to convince people to run, but you need to recruit.

And you need to raise money.

I mean, the fact that the Republican candidate for governor has $7,000 in his bank, that's deplorable.

- And I think that you said Trump, Trump, Trump, that Aaron Guckian seemed to be kind of a middle-of-the-road guy.

We've had him on "Lively," where he wasn't very conservative or moderate.

You didn't really kind of pin him down.

I think he realized I need a lane, and if I'm gonna be a Republican and try to get national support or whatever, I need to go that MAGA route.

And I think that was a critical mistake here in Rhode Island.

- Sure.

Sure.

Well, look at Vic Mellor.

I mean, he's gonna go down in flames.

And even his approach, I mean, you watch his TV commercials, and you almost get scared as he starts walking towards you.

It's like, oh my goodness.

- Well, all you have to say is if Allan Fung couldn't do it when it was gonna be the red wave.

I mean, what are Vic Mellor's chances?

- No, no.

I don't think so.

I mean, the January 6th thing is like an albatross around his neck, so I think even the people... I live in the second congressional district.

I believe that Seth will win that race.

And again, that's a district that Claudine Schneider used to hold, right?

For 10 years, she held that district.

Those separate Republicans are not here anymore, and they need to find them.

- Yep, I totally agree with you, Mike.

And you know, my family is from Cranston, who are all Republicans and I look at it and I say, "Where are those people, you know?"

But you have to go out and find them, and then you have to also put a platform together so they can do it.

And I can tell you, you know, pivoting to Liz Perik, one thing that she did do is she did unite and bring people together and be able to fundraise and offer something.

So you have the young people coming out, and you don't say, "Okay, go run and go do it on your own."

If you put together that infrastructure, then people will come and run 'cause I think people do wanna get involved in government.

- All right, we will see what happens in just a couple of weeks.

Rhode Island state budget is up 40% over the past seven years, now topping $15 billion.

A business watchdog group and a lot of taxpayers say our rate of spending is unsustainable, but no one seems inclined to rein it in.

Especially now, Eva, you have a House Speaker who's even a little bit to the left of where Joe Shekarchi was.

Where do we go?

- Well, my father would be rolling over in his grave because he called me a tax-and-spend liberal as a Democrat.

And I can tell you, I am done.

I am done.

Having sat through the putting together of two budgets, we need to rein things in.

It's all - - You did that in the governor's office when you were there with Governor McKee.

- And I did it for two years when I was chair of the Board of Education.

Everybody needs more money.

Everything's important.

Of course, it's all important.

That's where leadership comes in.

And I think that the speaker is going to really be tested on that because they are good programs.

The problem is there's too many of them, and they're too bifurcated.

We look at that, you know, everybody wants to be their own Scituate, right?

I love Scituate, but come on.

We have to start putting together our small cities and towns, regionalizing things, having the nonprofits join together, you know?

Why do we have like 17 nonprofits working on the homelessness issue?

We should coordinate together.

People can have their own boards, but they need to start sharing funding and backroom services.

It's not sustainable.

And so me, for the first time, I mean, I'm voting against bond issues, which was unheard of.

We talked about it in our family just last night, my husband and I, and I said, "You know," 'cause he said, "What are you gonna do?"

And I said, "I'm gonna vote against some of these bond issues because it's just not sustainable."

And that's one thing I agree with Helena on with what happened with housing, you know?

I mean, yeah, we have all these bondings on housing.

How many do we get?

- But what's happening?

- We get 600?

Are you kidding me?

Come on.

It's really time that we rein things in.

- I think they got a little drunk on the COVID money, right?

So when I left the legislature, the budget was $8.5 million.

Half of it was federal.

- What year was that?

'18?

- '16.

- Yeah.

- So I mean, it's now what?

15 million?

15 billion?

- Right.

Right.

- So we thought that COVID money was gonna flush out, and it got built in.

- They got built in, and they haven't cut back after that, but you know, they got used to it.

And so I think that some hard decisions are gonna be made.

I think the issue is really gonna be what's gonna happen in Providence, right?

Because Providence is going to be looking for, I think, some money from the state and, you know, with the new mayor coming in, you know, for education and whatnot.

And I don't know if the suburbs wanna support that.

So I do think that some hard decisions have to be made.

It has to be more transparent about it in how we post the budget and how we actually do the budget process.

But again, the line-item veto might help, but we're not gonna get that, you know, tomorrow.

And that's gonna take a lot of time, but programs are gonna have to be cut.

Where the cut to be made, no one knows.

I mean, I'm not at the governor's level.

- But that's the difficult one.

- Sure it is.

- The easy work is, and look, I sound like a broken record, but I've said many times in two budget cycles, the last one and the one two years ago, the governor presented his budget.

The legislature added a quarter of a billion dollars instead of put it in a rainy day fund 'cause you know the rainy day's coming.

And now that's built in for the next year.

And so I don't know, you know, when I interviewed Joe Shekarchi after one of those budget cycles, and he said, "Well, my membership wants all these things.

If you don't want a higher budget, vote people in who are gonna do that."

Somebody has to be the adult in the room and say, "Where are we gonna be two, three, four, five years from now?"

It really is unsustainable.

- Well, listen, Helena Foulkes is, to me, Helena Foulkes is your best choice to get that done.

And I can say one thing about Dan McKee: when we did get the COVID money, 'cause I was there during that period of time, a lot of it was one-time spending.

That's where the municipal centers came in.

There had to be some skin in the game for the local municipalities to get it.

- Investments rather than spending.

- Right.

Investments rather than new programs and spendings.

Having said that, it then creeped up, right?

So now you have those, well, we have a little extra here, we have a little extra there.

The other thing Helena's calling for is full transparency on where the money went and how we pull back on it.

So I think there's room there, but also, I would like to see the nonprofits get together and do it themselves rather than having a top-down approach.

They know that the work they do is important.

So we need to get rid of the middle managers.

We need to get rid of all the backroom work.

Start consolidating.

Same thing with the cities and towns, you know?

We can have regionalization, and we can do it by attrition.

We're an older working population, so it's not like we have to go in and cut young families.

As people retire, stop doing that backroom work together as municipalities.

- Well, I think you're seeing that.

At education, two communities are sharing a superintendent.

That's gonna start happening, I think.

- Right, because somebody's eventually gonna retire, so you don't, right?

- Correct.

- But isn't it a power dynamic?

People don't wanna give up those 39 municipalities, 36 school systems because it's all the infrastructure jobs and everything else.

But in the long run, again, that's gonna be tough to fund.

- Right.

And the issue is, too, again, getting back to these people not having opponents; when you don't have an opponent, and you can make these kind of choices, and you really have no consequences, there's really no accountability, right?

Especially even in the legislature, right?

So no one's really pushing back about the spending.

You don't really hear too much about it.

- And you can look at the opposite end too, Mike, is that maybe people agree with it, right?

So if I'm running for office... I live in East Greenwich, and our state rep and our state senator have no opponents.

And so if they're sitting there, they're saying, "Everybody must like what I'm doing because there's no opponents on the other side."

So that's another way.

It's almost like it's an invitation to say, "Keep doing what you're doing."

- Correct.

That's true.

- But that also goes back to something we were talking about earlier is why is it so difficult to get people to run at both the General Assembly and at the local level?

Now you're neck-deep in Scituate politics, and you see this.

You know, they have seven Republicans and one independent, but there are not a lot of people clamoring to get these jobs.

- No.

No, I think social media has really hurt a lot of people.

You have to have a thick skin to be in politics, right?

But then you have social media where you have these keyboard warriors who just go out and start criticizing you and making stuff that's not true.

And it's tough, definitely, but I mean, it's so important to get involved, especially at the local level.

I truly believe at the local level where you can make the most, most change and you know, get some real good policies and start looking at some of these budgets.

And local budgets are not immune to, you know, spending.

I mean, there's spending at the local level that needs to be cut and looked at 'cause the money is just not there.

The property taxes in this state are outrageous, and people are starting to realize that.

- I agree.

I think that you get to a point where... Remember, these are all part-time.

So if you're like Mike and I, both attorneys, right?

So if I'm practicing law and I'm serving on a board and then all of a sudden, you get some crazy in their basement that is saying all these bad things about you, how is that affecting your reputation?

And how do you fight against negatives?

I mean, just the level of discourse that Trump has introduced in our world and that has taken over is just wrong.

Like I said, Mike and I have done battle before; I mean, I can tell you, on issues back and forth.

We'd go out and have a beer together because that's just the way it is, right?

- It wasn't personal.

- It's never personal.

- It's political.

- It's never personal.

It's all about politics and about substance.

- You were former chair of the Board of Education.

I'm also curious about these communities, and I talked about this on a previous show.

Little Compton, Narragansett, you're not gonna get a lot of people in their 20s and 30s who can afford a house.

And so you're gonna see a declining school enrollment.

And I wonder how that's gonna affect budgets ultimately, because the money follows the kids, but if the kids aren't there... But when you have to start cutting teachers and buildings and everything else, that's a tough conversation to have.

- But what I'm saying is you do it by attrition.

We're also an older working population, so you do it by attrition, and you start combining things together.

I mean, we've done it so well in career and tech.

We really have.

I mean, by having the regionalization on certain things, I mean, it's really been the beginning of a model.

I mean, obviously everything can be worked on, but it's the same way, right?

You have specific things in specific buildings so that you're using them back and forth.

I was just driving through North Kingstown with my youngest daughter who went to school there, and she said, "Mom, those buildings are still empty from the old schools."

And I said, "Well, yeah, they haven't sold them.

Well, they don't want them."

I mean, that should be great housing.

Like, let's do- - Well, Woodford El, they're talking about- - That's it.

- They've been talking about that for years, about Woodford Elementary turning it into developer.

It's now doing it.

- Right.

And so you drive by some of these buildings and what have you.

They can be repurposed for other things, but again, it takes leadership, and it takes moxie.

And that's really what we need moving forward.

- I will say that career and tech, we really have introduced a school choice throughout Rhode Island 'cause you can go anywhere.

If you have a current CTE program, if you're a student, you can go anywhere in the state.

And that's been very, very popular.

And I think we're gonna see more of that.

And I think it's gonna probably lead to more regionalization because that's what's actually happening.

Kids in Scituate are going to Ponaganset.

That was never happening when I was in school 'cause Ponaganset was our rival.

But they have programs that the kids want; they go there.

We have people from Johnson moving to Scituate schools, and I'm sure it happens in South County.

So school population is down, and there's no question that we're gonna have to start, you know, looking at how we fund schools and, you know, consolidate it.

- The other thing that's happening too, which I've realized, you know, I went to Cranston East, and you didn't even talk to people from Cranston West.

Now they have joint teams.

And so that's another thing that's happening.

So you have an affinity now between East and West around a sports team.

- Mr.

Gorbachev tear down that wall between East and West.

- 'Cause they need the kids.

They need the kids to have the team.

- They need the kids to have the teams, so they're joining together.

So hopefully, this shows that the adults in the room that they can work together, and it can be one city.

- All right, let's go to outrageous and/or kudos.

Mike, I was remiss; you have had a little hiatus from "Lively."

People remember you.

You've left.

You've been doing some other things.

You're back.

It's nice to have you back.

- Thank you.

Appreciate it.

- Do you have an outrage or a kudo?

- So my kudo is to the League of Women Voters in Rhode Island, who have gone around, especially in the East Bay, and sponsoring debates amongst local candidates, school committee candidates, town council, that's been kind of falling under the radar over the last, from the papers anyway.

And I think it's a really great organization, and they're really doing hard.

And these are volunteers that are putting debates together.

So that's my kudos.

My outrage of the week goes back to Scituate, is that we have a we have a council president who is receiving a tax freeze, which he doesn't qualify for, and he won't answer any questions about it.

It's been the biggest scandal in Scituate probably in the last 10 to 15 years.

- But he's also on the ballot, is he, this year?

- He's up for reelection.

- So the people may ultimately speak.

- [Mike] We'll see what they have to say.

- You get the last minute.

- I have a very different kudos today.

After 17 years, we had to put our beautiful dog down.

- Oh, no.

- And so Russell Lorenzo, of course, he's a dachshund, but he has to have an Italian name too, so that's why he's Russell Lorenzo.

And the vet was so wonderful, and it's Greenwich Bay and West Warwick.

And Dr.

Nelson was just so wonderful working with us as a family and everything that they do.

And you really see that they do God's work, so that's my kudos.

My outrage is really the debate format.

We need to change the debate for both Channel 10 and Channel 12.

Those formats are more like a TV show than they are a real debate.

I like the way the League of Women Voters do it, and I'm glad you mentioned that.

Sit down, introduce the topic, and let's have at it.

- Okay.

Eva and Mike, thank you.

Quick half hour.

And thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel, and wherever you get your favorite podcast.

We'll see you next time right here on "Lively."

(dramatic music) "Lively" is generously supported in part by John Hazen White's "Lookout."