. >>> california secretary of state debra bowen is not making a particular prediction about voter turnout but it seems that people are talking about the issue. >> they are hot topics on campaigns an excellent time for people to take advantage of rights that they have in a democracy to determine their own futures. >> voter turnout for gubernatorial year is usually around 60%. >>> former bart police officer johannes mehserle will be sentenced one week from friday. he could receive as much as 14 years in prison for killing oscar grant. grant family plans to speak during the hearing and claudine wong sat down with them to learn what they plan to say. >> reporter: the family of oscar grant just finished writing letters to the probation department. now they plan to address the judge. >> there is a host of things we want to tell him. oscar lost his life senselessly. it was the reason, it was not necessary for the actions that were taken to be taken. >> i will tell him how oscar and i were connected. we have a really special connection, you know, he was the best man in my wedding. >> grants fianc

bowen, secretary of state, john chambers is the ceo of cisco, and nbc bay area's garvin thomas is on the ground floor with backstage details for us. >> reporter: jess and tom, one of the interesting thing about the debate is they asked the audience here to be in their seats by 5:30. an hour before the debate began. so what you have are some heavy hitters in california politics sitting around for an hour, waiting around with nothing to do but talk to each other. could be as entertaining as the debate. now as to what folks want to hear about, we have a gentleman here, director of the field hall. mark, we've heard a lot from these candidates about each other on tv. what does the voter want to hear now? >> well, they'd like to know how the state's going to get out of the budget mess that we're in. and neither candidate really has fully addressed that. they're dancing around the issue. it's a hard one to address because really it's really administering pain. whether you're going to make budget cuts or tax increases, not something voters really like to hear. so the candidates are avoiding