Medical marijuana question for Doug Linkhart at mayoral debate a coincidence — I swear!

It was the 41st, or maybe the 42nd, possibly the 43rd, mayoral debate of the endless 2011 campaign season. Last night, I moderated a forum featuring all nine remaining mayoral candidates sponsored by a group of downtown/central Denver organizations at Coors Field, which was remarkable for two things: how very civil, and well-spoken, most of those candidates were — and how very undecided many voters in Denver still are.

Their indecision is the reason these candidates have continued on their Bataan Death March of a schedule, sometimes doing two or three debates a day (they’d already debated earlier that day at the NORML convention, moderated by Montel Williams).

In this race to the inevitable runoff, every vote will count — and if they can pick up two or three new fans at one of these debates, word of mouth will multiply that support.

Some favorite moments from last night:

Danny Lopez’s excellent yellow alligator cowboy boots; he wore white at a panel I’d moderated the week before. (By the way, the red one in the photo above is mine.)

Thomas Wolf revealing that each prisoner at the new Denver Justice Center gets a roll of toilet paper each day.

Michael Hancock giving a name-check to Kenny Be for his “Swagger” cartoon.

Putting my hand into the bowl of questions provided by the sponsors and, completely at random, pulling out a question about medical marijuana dispensaries… and then, completely at random, pulling out Doug Linkhart’s name.

Want to see the candidates in action? They’ll be debating again today… and in the meantime, Denver’s Channel 8 has taped eight of the debates, including last night’s, for its Denver Decides partnership.

More from our Calhoun: Wake-Up Call archive: “Bill Vidal makes good on his promise to clean up the Denver Police Department.”