10/12/2010 - Senate Hopefuls Play Usual Roles in Debate (Indy Star)

By Mary Beth Schneider and Bill Ruthhart

From the moment Monday's debate among the three candidates for U.S. Senate began to the moment it ended, Hoosier voters were handed a trifecta of almost invariably different views.

In his first sentence, U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, a Democrat, reminded Hoosiers that he's a former sheriff and said Hoosiers need to ask which candidate will be working for them and which for the special interests. And in case that wasn't clear, Ellsworth used every question he could -- whether it was about jobs or term limits -- to make sure people knew the last job his Republican opponent, former Sen. Dan Coats, had was being a lobbyist.

Coats returned the favor, using as many questions as he could to make sure voters knew that Ellsworth voted "nearly 90 percent of the time" with President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And he used the last question -- about finding ways to reduce partisan sniping in Washington -- to stress that he didn't want to return to the Senate "to sing Kumbaya across the aisle."

Libertarian Rebecca Sink-Burris -- aptly positioned between Ellsworth and Coats like a demilitarized zone -- stressed to voters that they had a third choice. If they wanted change in Washington, she said, voters should first try changing the way they vote and break the Democratic or Republican lock.

The three candidates, meeting in Indianapolis for the first of three debates, agreed on little during the one hour in which they took questions from the public -- some submitted in writing, others asked in person at the University Place Conference Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

That came as no surprise in a campaign that has been marked by sharp words for months. The debate, though, is the first time the exchanges have been delivered candidate to candidate.

That turned at least one voter off.

"I thought the back and forth was good, but I think it got a little personal from both of them," said Paulette Vandegriff, a 66-year-old retired federal government employee from Greenfield. "I was actually impressed by the Libertarian candidate who could just speak straight out, and she has no political baggage, so I thought her answers were on-spot."

Two issues have dominated the national debate: Jobs and health care. That was true in this Senate debate as well.

John Thompson, a Hartsville utility worker, wanted to know what effect this year's health-care reforms will have on Indiana and what the candidates would do to possibly change the plan.

Ellsworth, answering first, got to stress the good points: coverage of pre-existing conditions for ill children, tax breaks to help small businesses cover their employees and closure of the so-called "doughnut hole" that leaves some senior citizens without prescription drug coverage.

But both Coats and Sink-Burris argued the plan is a disaster that will raise costs. And, Coats said, pushing for it took Washington's eye off of what should have been the priority: putting people back to work.

"At a time of economic stress, now moving into its third year, people out of work, the Obama administration, Nancy Pelosi and supported by my opponent, thought that forcing through a 2,000-page, trillion-dollar health-care reform plan for this country rather than focusing on getting Americans back to work" was the right thing, Coats said. "This was a pent-up, 25-year liberal wish dream."

Ellsworth argued that if Coats had dealt with health care in his 18 years in Congress it wouldn't have still been a festering problem when he came to Congress in 2007. He voted for it, he said, because Hoosiers told him "we have to do something, little girls that had juvenile diabetes, nurses that had crippling arthritis saying they couldn't get insurance. I'm proud that we took it on."

And he repeated that Coats had "18 years in Congress," followed by two stints as a Washington lobbyist.

Coats, answering a question from Indianapolis retiree Paul Morgan about what the candidates would do to address unemployment, instead used his tight 90-second allotment to defend his own employment record. It was, he said, a "privilege" to be asked to join two former Senate leaders, Democrat George Mitchell and Republican Bob Dole in a lobbying firm.

Ellsworth, saying that Washington had to give permanent tax breaks to businesses to create jobs and close loopholes that allow jobs to be shipped overseas, used the question to take another swing at Coats. He'd been to Wabash, he said, where 800 jobs had been outsourced to Mexico and, "by the way," Coats had been a lobbyist and consultant for the firm that moved those jobs.

Coats never responded during the debate but complained afterward that Ellsworth is wrongly holding him responsible for the act of every client at a lobbying firm that has 850 lawyers on staff. That, he said, is like holding Ellsworth responsible for the actions of every member of Congress.

Coats later used a question on tax cuts as a chance to fire back on stage at Ellsworth, managing to get into a single sentence just about everything he finds objectionable about him.

"Getting Americans back to work requires ending this job-killing, massive tax-and-spend big government effort coming out of the Obama administration, supported by Mrs. Pelosi, who has authored many of these bills, and supported nearly 90 percent of the time, both health care and a stimulus that didn't stimulate, by Congressman Ellsworth," he said.

Asked whether she had anything to add to the back-biting between her opponents, Sink-Burris declared she is not beholden to any special interest.

"I take the Constitution seriously and would govern from that, using the free market to build prosperity for Indiana's citizens," she said.

After the debate, Ellsworth insisted he didn't vote to support Obama's legislative agenda as much as Coats portrayed, highlighting his vote against the president's cap-and-trade energy policy.

And, he said, Coats' lobbying ties are fair game.

"These are not attacks. This is pointing out facts," he said.

Coats lamented the debate did not allow for more time to focus on jobs and the economy. But he said it was no surprise that he had to spend time refuting criticism about his six years of work as a lobbyist.

"Look, if you don't want to talk about what you voted for or you don't want to take responsibility for the Obama-Pelosi agenda that's not popular, you try to change the subject," he said.

Hoosiers, though, may be hoping to hear about other issues in the remaining two debates, in Fort Wayne on Oct. 22 and Vincennes on Oct. 25.

Vandegriff, who came undecided and left that way, said she's hoping to hear more from the candidates on "some real proposals" and that they'll "actually state a position and stick with it.

What she doesn't need to hear more of, she said, is that Coats used to be a lobbyist and Ellsworth has supported Obama.

"We already know all that," she said.