Letter: We left last week’s debate ‘in shock’

To the Editor:

There have been many times when I have been proud to be an American. Wednesday night at the Bishop/Zeldin “debate” was not one of them.

There have been many times when I told my child that the strength of our democracy is that people listen to each other in good faith. Last night I wondered why I’d bothered to tell him that.

There have been many times when I have seen candidates tell their supporters, with real seriousness, to stop interrupting their opponents so they could say their piece. That didn’t happen last Wednesday night.

There have been many occasions when I expected that my local government would protect me in a nonpartisan manner. That night night I was disillusioned.

The Bishop/Zeldin debate last Wednesday night was a sad day for Riverhead. The debate began with an urgent and obviously heartfelt request by Ms. Civiletti, as debate coordinator, that those in attendance behave in a respectful way and not interrupt the candidates while they were speaking. That entreaty was ignored from the start by the bused-in supporters of Mr. Zeldin. (I note that I speak primarily of the people bused in because, in addition to outraged Democrats, many Republicans from our town were themselves embarrassed by the behavior they saw.)

Catcalls and heckling by Zeldin supporters were the order of the night. Bishop’s responses to debate questions were repeatedly interrupted, sometimes so viciously that he lost his train of thought. Zeldin supporter “plants” in the audience repeatedly jumped up to call him names and at least one man stood up screeching at Bishop until he was ejected, only to be quickly let back in at the direction of our Town Supervisor Sean Walter, at which point the man promptly engaged in similar shenanigans again.

Where was Mr. Zeldin in all this? Did he instruct his supporters not to interrupt Bishop? No. When asked to do so, he merely said weakly that it was a “mixed crowd”. It was not surprising that he did not do more to protect the integrity of the debate, since he had a bus full of supporters who had been brought in just to engage in disruptive behavior. Indeed, while he had his issues pitch well down, he had not quite mastered avoiding a smirk when his people shouted down Bishop over and over again. And where were the Democrats in all this? They listened politely while Zeldin spoke, despite their amazement at some of his positions. This led to a very unequal feeling about who was supporting whom in the debate, although I was glad that the Democrats, and honorable Republicans, restrained themselves from getting down in the in the mud with the disruptive Zeldin supporters.

Many Riverhead residents left the debate in shock over what they had witnessed. I know I did. And as I pulled out of the Polish Hall parking lot to make a perfectly legal turn, I saw a police car waiting across the street and wondered if it was there at Mr. Walter’s direction to harass drivers who likely were Bishop supporters. I turned the other way, even though in over 40 years of driving I’d never been stopped for a moving violation. After two blocks, I was ashamed that I had let Mr. Walter’s partisan behavior at the back of the debate hall get to me. And I was more than a little distressed that the local government for which I pay taxes had behaved in such a partisan manner that I was made to feel that way.

The saddest thing of all to me was the contingent of high school students, seemingly there on a civics class assignment, who sat in the last row of the auditorium behind me. They were already cynical and anxious to leave the room as soon they could, but what did they see in the time they were there? Bused-in “adults” who tried hard not to let one candidate speak with the more than tacit approval of the other candidate. A total lack of civility. Not democracy at work. Not a good message to be sending our children.

Jeanne M. Luboja
South Jamesport

Editor’s note: Contacted for comment, Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter denied directing that the disruptive heckler be allowed back inside Polish Hall. He said he did ask the police officer to remain outside in case things inside got so unruly that police intervention became necessary. Having a police officer inside the hall could have escalated tensions, he said. RiverheadLOCAL co-publisher Peter Blasl had called police for assistance once the debate was underway.

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