Park fails to impress voters at 'solo' debate By Jung Min-ho The ruling Saenuri party presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye failed to impress voters Monday night during a 70-minute talk show her campaign officials attempted to sell as a “debate.” During her television appearance, the conservative candidate squandered a valuable opportunity by taking advantage of panelists, the host and the format, which were selected and orchestrated by her party, offering abstract answers to questions that needed specific responses. It’s questionable as to why her party wanted to refer to the program as a debate in the first place. The word ``debate’’ is defined as:  “a discussion about a subject on which people have different views,” according to the Collins Cobuild Advanced Dictionary. Park’s appearance was more like a solo concert minus the music. Nevertheless, good questions were brought up covering important issues such as the rising unemployment rate, mounting household debt and ridiculously expensive college tuition fees, which have dominated political discourse for a number of years. But her answers were unsatisfactory and incomplete. For example, when one of the panelists asked Park about her job creation plans, Park said she would create organizations that would provide mentors to help job-seekers polish their practical skills, leaving the panelists confused. She showed she is either without a solution to the problem or she doesn’t know what “job creation” means. Either way, it is worrisome. Moreover, when asked about the national predicament of ever-mounting expenditure on private education, Park just threw out abstract solutions such as saying she would “reinforce the public education” and “revolutionize textbooks” to tackle the issue, regurgitating old promises made by former presidents who failed to fulfill them. Her answer also indicated that she doesn’t understand that the problem lies within the ruthlessly competitive nature of society not in the inferior quality of textbooks. Every time she was asked a question, Park spent much more time explaining why benefits were needed instead of articulating how she would provide those benefits without seriously damaging the government’s finances. As a result, as the forum proceeded, more questions concerning raising the necessary money were made as she emphasized that her plans would barely burden taxpayers. The panelists, including professors Seo Mi-ah of Dankook University and Lee Eun-joo of Seoul National University, didn’t seem to be avid supporters for Park, but the questions from them appeared to be prearranged because, without hesitation, Park read relevant numbers to each question from a piece of paper in front of her. However, she still failed to deliver them with great clarity. About economic democratization – a euphemism for taming chaebol, Park offered empty rhetoric about household debt without commenting on her revised plan after she scrapped an initial plan to penalize existing circular shareholdings two weeks ago. Overall, her pledges and plans resembled a familiar mirage, the incumbent president Lee Myung-bak’s “747” plan in which he promised an average 7 percent growth in yearly output and $40,000 gross domestic product (GDP) per capita while becoming the world’s seventh largest economy before he was elected. mj6c2@koreatimes.co.kr,