Note: this post is still under construction- you can watch the video of the panel at: https://youtu.be/uLDU_uX9uhg
Last weekend was Comic-Con right here in my hometown, San Diego. It was the first year in many years that I didn’t have a pass to get in, so being the huge fan I am and necessity being the mother of invention, I decided to pitch a panel to Comic-Con. But what panel? Playing to my strengths seemed like the most logical idea which left me with the question, “how do I reconcile my two passions of politics with pop culture?” The concept just came together from that perspective. The battle between good and evil, superheroes and super villains as it is portrayed in many comic books and movies is fraught with massive property damage and destruction and except for the occasional superhero who has the power to move heavy objects (such as Magneto) we rarely ever see our superheroes stick around to fix what was broken during their battles with the forces of evil (and of course the villains won’t do it – they’re usually halfway to their evil ends by the time these battles are over). The question came up naturally from this perspective: who would clean up the mess if any of these battles happened in real life? And the idea for my panel was born. Get a panel of elected officials to watch some of these epic battle scenes and discuss the aftermath and what the process and procedure would be to fix these situations. So I pitched the idea to Comic-Con and they went for it.
The more I developed this concept the more it morphed for me. What started out as a way to just get a pass to Comic-Con became a passion for me. I didn’t care about the passes anymore I would have done this regardless. I spend hours and hours of watching scenes, developing talking points, coordinating panelists, working on logistics of the room and the show, finding a film crew to document it, etc. I realized that I had a real opportunity to educate and motivate people about politics and not the politics of getting elected, but the politics of serving the greater community. I had the opportunity to show the world of politics through my eyes and why I’m so passionate about it. I could show the public that beyond the “my side verses your side” there is an “our side” that works together for the benefit of the public good.
It became my mission to present a nonpartisan, completely civics oriented discussion of the policies and procedures my strict rule to all of my panelists was that there was to be NO CAMPAIGNING. I first reached out to my personal friends and contacts who are elected officials. My local San Diego electeds (Esther Sanchez from Oceanside, David Alvarez from San Diego, Racquel Vasquez Mayor of Lemon Grove and Nathan Fletcher Fmr. State Assembly member) all jumped at the opportunity, both sharing my passion and goal for this panel and knowing that Comic-Con has the potential to reach tens of thousands of people and educate them and while most of the EOs at the state and federal level were also enthusiastic about the idea, most of them had scheduling conflicts and weren’t able to attend (and perhaps didn’t understand how big Comic-Con is). However, California State Treasurer John Chiang enthusiastically jumped at the idea. He was a total rock star and his staff (especially Audrey Noda and John Wark) were very helpful to me during the planning of this panel. It turns out that he’s a huge fan of Game of Thrones and other fan fiction. My panel was complete at that point, but I was so disappointed that Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones had a scheduling conflict when I first approached him about this panel. Lo and behold, the week of Comic-Con his prior engagement got cancelled. The dilemma I had was that my panel was full at that point and I really didn’t want to bump anyone. But I only had a certain amount of passes and they were all used. Well wouldn’t you know that Comic-Con graciously allowed me to add him, literally the day before the panel, and boy am I glad they did. I couldn’t have put together a more perfect panel in a million years.
The interplay of the local elected officials included talking about how they would be dealing with the department heads securing public safety first and foremost as well as public works and the department(s) of transportations. Sanchez and Alvarez stressed the importance of public safety first and foremost. Vasquez concurred and also stressed the need to get back to a “normal state of life” as soon as possible. Treasurer Chiang stressed that the state and local entities must work together in order to alleviate housing shortages. In addition, besides the dollars and cents costs of these types of disasters, there are also preventative strategies that would need to be thought of immediately to prevent businesses from leaving the state as a result of these actions. Nathan Fletcher, sporting a Wonder Woman T-shirt (and looking really hot in it as well) added his wit as well as his knowledge of these situations from his firsthand experience serving in the military as well as his governmental experience serving in the California State Assembly. Both he and Insurance Commissioner Jones were able to add their wit and knowledge to the panel. Jones though, as to be expected of an insurance commissioner added the most information to this panel about the real world applications of these situations. With an awesome humor he outlined how the insurance companies would likely be able to get out of paying for these types of battles between superheroes and super villains. I don’t want to go into too much detail about who said what on the panel as ALL of the panelists were brilliant and I strongly urge you to watch the video. You won’t regret it.
What was the biggest surprise to me was how popular this panel was. When I pitched it, I thought that I’d be lucky to get 50 people to show up. The room (29AB at the Convention Center- a smaller room at the far end of the Convention Center) seated 200, with a maximum capacity of 300 people. We had 225 attendees at our panel (standing room only), and not a single person walked out during the panel. After the panel, we were swamped by attendees wanting to talk to us. Many said this was the best panel that they had been to at the Con and that they had learned so much that they did not know before. I have to say that this has truly been one of the greatest honors of my life and I truly hope Comic-Con will allow me to do this next year and the year after, too.
The Liberal Diva 