There was a point in last night’s debate when Andy Spano fell face first into a “Neville Chamberlain Moment.” That is never a good thing in politics.

Chamberlain was the British prime minister who famously waved a piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler in 1938 that basically said Germany had no intention of invading Czechoslovakia. And we all know what happened, don’t we? That’s right—the opposite of “peace in our time.”

The incumbent county executive’s moment came midway through the debate when he was forced, once again, to defend his settlement of a federal lawsuit that will require Westchester to build, lease or acquire 750 affordable housing units to be spread over 31 communities with mostly white populations. The settlement calls for the expenditure of $52 million, a cost that Spano claims will not be exceeded.

“We don’t see any additional impact on our budget because of the spending, ” he said. “The money that we have to spend is capped. What that means is we have capped the amount of money we should spend, and will spend—and that’s all the housing we have to do, is that amount of money.”

So far so vague. But then Spano walked into it when he said the following. I’ll put it in bold print. “We have a letter from the Justice Department indicating that and I’m confident that everything stands in that vein.”

He should’ve waved the letter aloft. See, peace in our time!

Rob Astorino, the Republican challenger, had a pretty effective rejoinder.

“Well, let’s just do the math,” he began. “He wants you to say it’s a $52 million cap and he has a letter from the Justice Department that says that. The letter is just that. It’s not part of the binding agreement and that is very specific if you read this settlement.”

Astorino said Spano wants people to believe that the cost will be contained. But 750 units divided into $52 million comes out to $68,000 per unit. No way does housing come out that cheap. Not here. And not Aberdeen, South Dakota for that matter.

“By Mr. Spano’s  own estimation in our last debate he said it’s going to be about $400,000 a unit. So if you do 750 times $400,000 you’re going to come out to much more than $52 million. You’re  going to come out to  hundreds of millions of dollars.”

In other words, look out Czechoslovakia. Hello Poland. So long France.

Now, this may be true. Or maybe not. The problem for Spano was that he had no answer to this. At least not a convincing one. This was true pretty much throughout the debate. Politics is about persuasion. And last night Spano left his powers of persuasion at home.

Fines.