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Maybe it would have been more interesting if Mayor Healy had been there. But he skipped this debate — the first of election season and likely the only one that will be televised — citing moderator bias and lack of audience. The other four mayoral candidates were all present: One Jersey City’s Dan Levin; Lou Manzo; L. Harvey Smith; and independent candidate Phil Webb.

As it was, yesterday’s debate, hosted by Hudson Media Group’s Pat O’Melia at the Loew’s Theatre in Journal Square, was a rather tame affair. The four moderators were O’Melia, the Jersey Journal‘s Agustin Torres and Earl Morgan and the Jersey City Reporter‘s Ricardo Kaulessar.

The thirty or so audience members, including a handful of City Council meeting regulars and a relatively large number of L. Harvey Smith supporters, were treated to a behind-the-scenes view of the taping of one of Pat’s shows. O’Melia said that the debate, which will be split into two hour-long episodes, will air in the next couple of weeks.

Each candidate led with an opening statement that highlighted his experience and some of the problems he sees with the current administration. Following these pleasantries, each of the moderators took turns asking questions of the candidates, which the candidates answered in turn. After five questions had been asked, the candidates were given the opportunity to make closing statements. Then, the whole process was repeated, with the addition of three questions, for the second half of the debate.

The focus of most of the questions was, appropriately, policy, touching on the municipal budget, quality of life, small business viability, the Journal Square Redevelopment Plan, police chief hiring practices, the restoration of the Loew’s, mayoral term limits and — from the out-of-nowhere file — same-sex marriage. Other questions regarded the relative cleanliness of the campaign, the ability of the candidates to work with others and standards of public conduct.

The candidates offered slightly different policy solutions to the issues that were brought up in the questions. For example, when asked how to cut the municipal budget ten percent, Webb proposed an efficiency audit for all city departments and divisions, Smith said he would take a harder line with the unions, Manzo called for better enforcement of abatement provisions and Levin suggested eliminating city-provided cars for elected officials. All agreed that the budget must be drafted and approved at the start of the fiscal year, rather than near its end, as was the case once again this year. Levin and Manzo were most specific on this point, with Levin saying he would create a financial master plan for the city and Manzo saying he would draft a three-year budget projection.

Despite differences like these over specifics, the character of all the candidates’ responses to all of the questions was very similar. There was no opportunity for direct exchange between the candidates, unfortunately, and so everyone stuck closely to their talking points. All the candidates expressed concerns about the record of the Healy administration, making this reporter look forward to future debates where the mayor is present to respond. As expected, Manzo was the most straightforward about his issues with Healy, calling this election “a referendum on the current administration.”

All in all then, the debate held very few surprises. This is not to say that it wasn’t interesting: yesterday was the first opportunity for voters to see (almost) all the candidates together, talking issues. But the moderators’ personalities were much more room-filling than the candidates’.

Morgan chided the candidates for not answering questions directly. Torres half-jokingly called himself “proudly biased.” And O’Melia, with his usual impetuous charm, broadcasted his opinion of the two candidates without office-holding experience to the entire theater just after the cameras finished rolling. Approaching Levin, he asked if this had been his first debate. Levin said it had, and O’Melia congratulated him on a good showing, saying that he’d expected Levin and Webb “to stumble around” up against campaign veterans Manzo and Smith.

Well, they didn’t. For the sake of the voters, though, let’s hope there’s a lot more stumbling around between now and election day. Often it’s only when candidates come off-message and show us a bit of their personality and passion that we’re able to see what kind of office-holder they’d really make.