Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, both took a civil tone in the first debate of their hotly contested Arkansas Senate primary.
While Halter and Lincoln traded a few shots over the health care bill and Wall Street reform, their face-off was broken up by the presence of a third candidate, businessman D.C. Morrison, whose conservative views on issues including taxes, border security and global warming didn’t mesh with typical Democratic positions.
While Halter and Lincoln traded a few shots over the health care bill and Wall Street reform, their face-off was broken up by the presence of a third candidate, businessman D.C. Morrison, whose conservative views on issues including taxes, border security and global warming didn’t mesh with typical Democratic positions.
The Friday evening debate at University of Arkansas-Little Rock was sponsored by local ABC affiliate KATV, along with partners POLITICO and KHSB in Fayetteville.
Through the hour-long questioning, Lincoln stressed the influence her perch as Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman has brought the state, while criticizing Halter, whose challenge to the moderate two-term senator has been bolstered by national progressive groups such as MoveOn.org and labor organizations including the AFL-CIO.
“I’m being outspent three-to-one by outside groups,” said Lincoln. When it was suggested the ads between the two had become too negative, Lincoln replied that “one-sixth of the ads are mine, I’m just trying to get my message out.”
Halter jabbed back that Lincoln should stop referring to him as “Dollar Bill,” and suggested her ads tying him to outsourced jobs have been misleading.
Acknowledging she faces a tough primary and, if she wins, what could be a tougher general election fight as polls show her trailing all of her likely GOP opponents, Lincoln said the pressure from the left and the right keeps her accountable.
“Yes, I’ve been taking fire from both extremes, but that’s what you sent me to Washington to do — to do what is good and right for Arkansas,” she said.
One of Halter’s most pointed criticisms came when he hit her for votes in favor of the Wall Street bailout, which he said he would have opposed, and for later accepting a $4,500 campaign contribution from Goldman Sachs, the financial lender now facing civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“I also would not be simultaneously regulating an industry and then soliciting campaign contributions from them,” said Halter.
Lincoln responded that she had pledged earlier this week to not accept further donations from Goldman Sachs and had canceled a planned fundraiser with firm executives, but also said the money they’d already given her made hadn’t influenced her votes.
She touted legislation she pushed through her Agriculture Committee to regulate the $450 trillion derivates market, saying it would be a more sweeping push than even the White House has asked for.
“This is the toughest reform vote on Wall Street that anyone has seen,” Lincoln said of her bill.
Halter derided Lincoln for not being decisive enough on the health care bill passed earlier this year, saying she first supported, then opposed, the inclusion of a public option.
“You can’t really lead on this issue unless you’re clear in which direction you’re going,” Halter jabbed.
While Lincoln eventually supported the Senate bill, Halter faulted her for voting against the reconciliation package passed in the House.
The senator explained her vote against the spending provisions the House has tacked on, and said the final version signed by President Obama would greatly help the uninsured, children, and those with preexisting conditions in the state.
“It’s going to help our economy and the quality of life for Americans, and particularly Arkansans,” said Lincoln.
On cap-and trade-legislation, Lincoln argued she had not switched her position since co-sponsoring a bill last year with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to cap emissions, saying she opposed the legislation now in play because it wouldn’t do enough to help Arkansas’s agriculture and energy industries.
Halter also said he wouldn’t support the current proposal, which he said would funnel more jobs to India and China, but added that he did back the reform’s goals of lowering reliance on foreign oil.
But it was Morrison who interjected that his opposition to the cap-and-trade was because “global warming is a hoax perpetrated on a gullible public.”
Halter repeatedly stressed his resume working under former President Bill Clinton, the state’s popular former governor. In his six years working in the Clinton budget office, Halter said he was “proud to be part of a team that balanced that budget and left a surplus at the end of his administration,” adding that the Bush administration and Washington politicians had undone that work.
Lincoln shot back: “My opponent takes credit for balancing the budget under President Clinton, but I’ll tell you, I took the tough vote in 1993 that actually passed that budget and made it a reality and made certainly those savings as well as those deficits go away.”
While Lincoln has led Halter by comfortable margins in several public polls, the most recent survey conducted last week by the Arkansas newsmagazine Talk Business showed the lieutenant governor down just 7 points, 31 percent to 38 percent, with Morrison capturing 10 percent, which raised the specter of a June runoff.
Morrison’s presence in the debate and seemingly conservative positions prompted one questioner to ask why he was a Democrat, to which he said that he was “born a Democrat” and would remain a Democrat, but wasn’t happy with either political party. Throughout the debate he continued to stress the Fair Tax, which would abolish the income tax and replace it with a consumption tax, and also pushed for tougher border security sanctions.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36292.html
Through the hour-long questioning, Lincoln stressed the influence her perch as Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman has brought the state, while criticizing Halter, whose challenge to the moderate two-term senator has been bolstered by national progressive groups such as MoveOn.org and labor organizations including the AFL-CIO.
“I’m being outspent three-to-one by outside groups,” said Lincoln. When it was suggested the ads between the two had become too negative, Lincoln replied that “one-sixth of the ads are mine, I’m just trying to get my message out.”
Halter jabbed back that Lincoln should stop referring to him as “Dollar Bill,” and suggested her ads tying him to outsourced jobs have been misleading.
Acknowledging she faces a tough primary and, if she wins, what could be a tougher general election fight as polls show her trailing all of her likely GOP opponents, Lincoln said the pressure from the left and the right keeps her accountable.
“Yes, I’ve been taking fire from both extremes, but that’s what you sent me to Washington to do — to do what is good and right for Arkansas,” she said.
One of Halter’s most pointed criticisms came when he hit her for votes in favor of the Wall Street bailout, which he said he would have opposed, and for later accepting a $4,500 campaign contribution from Goldman Sachs, the financial lender now facing civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“I also would not be simultaneously regulating an industry and then soliciting campaign contributions from them,” said Halter.
Lincoln responded that she had pledged earlier this week to not accept further donations from Goldman Sachs and had canceled a planned fundraiser with firm executives, but also said the money they’d already given her made hadn’t influenced her votes.
She touted legislation she pushed through her Agriculture Committee to regulate the $450 trillion derivates market, saying it would be a more sweeping push than even the White House has asked for.
“This is the toughest reform vote on Wall Street that anyone has seen,” Lincoln said of her bill.
Halter derided Lincoln for not being decisive enough on the health care bill passed earlier this year, saying she first supported, then opposed, the inclusion of a public option.
“You can’t really lead on this issue unless you’re clear in which direction you’re going,” Halter jabbed.
While Lincoln eventually supported the Senate bill, Halter faulted her for voting against the reconciliation package passed in the House.
The senator explained her vote against the spending provisions the House has tacked on, and said the final version signed by President Obama would greatly help the uninsured, children, and those with preexisting conditions in the state.
“It’s going to help our economy and the quality of life for Americans, and particularly Arkansans,” said Lincoln.
On cap-and trade-legislation, Lincoln argued she had not switched her position since co-sponsoring a bill last year with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to cap emissions, saying she opposed the legislation now in play because it wouldn’t do enough to help Arkansas’s agriculture and energy industries.
Halter also said he wouldn’t support the current proposal, which he said would funnel more jobs to India and China, but added that he did back the reform’s goals of lowering reliance on foreign oil.
But it was Morrison who interjected that his opposition to the cap-and-trade was because “global warming is a hoax perpetrated on a gullible public.”
Halter repeatedly stressed his resume working under former President Bill Clinton, the state’s popular former governor. In his six years working in the Clinton budget office, Halter said he was “proud to be part of a team that balanced that budget and left a surplus at the end of his administration,” adding that the Bush administration and Washington politicians had undone that work.
Lincoln shot back: “My opponent takes credit for balancing the budget under President Clinton, but I’ll tell you, I took the tough vote in 1993 that actually passed that budget and made it a reality and made certainly those savings as well as those deficits go away.”
While Lincoln has led Halter by comfortable margins in several public polls, the most recent survey conducted last week by the Arkansas newsmagazine Talk Business showed the lieutenant governor down just 7 points, 31 percent to 38 percent, with Morrison capturing 10 percent, which raised the specter of a June runoff.
Morrison’s presence in the debate and seemingly conservative positions prompted one questioner to ask why he was a Democrat, to which he said that he was “born a Democrat” and would remain a Democrat, but wasn’t happy with either political party. Throughout the debate he continued to stress the Fair Tax, which would abolish the income tax and replace it with a consumption tax, and also pushed for tougher border security sanctions.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36292.html