In a one-hour debate Monday evening addressing everything from job creation to the upcoming Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine and former Republican Sen. George Allen hardly paused to catch their breaths between attack lines.
The debate was the second of Kaine and Allen’s highly contested Senate contest. A survey of likely voters by the conservative-leaning polling firm Rasmussen released last week showed Kaine possessing a seven-point lead, with a 4.5 percent margin of error.
“My opponent when he was governor said his job was to stuff Democrats’ soft teeth down their whiney throats,” Kaine said in his opening statement.
Although Kaine said he had one of his best years as Governor while serving as Democratic National Committee Chairman, Allen said Kaine’s position distracted attention from his governorship. “If Tim had given his governorship his full attention, he might have avoided some mistakes,” he said.
Kaine tried the first joke of the night, when he said he would pledge not to cut Big Bird, in reference to Mitt Romney’s discussion of cuts he proposed to public broadcasting during the first presidential debate. The moderators seemed to also learn from the first presidential debate, turning off the candidates’ microphones when they were not speaking. Kaine was stuck offering at least two inaudible rebuttals.
The two sparred over bipartisanship, each holding up his own track records of working across party lines while ripping into his opponent’s.
The debate then moved to women’s issues, where Kaine said Allen supported taking away women’s choices because he did not speak out against a bill that required women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion in Virginia. The bill passed earlier this year. The League of Women Voters co-sponsored the debate.
Allen later said he would support a “Personhood” bill in Virginia, mostly to bring criminals who attacked pregnant women to justice.
“I would never prohibit contraceptives,” Allen said. “We can have religious liberty and [let] women have access to contraceptives.”
The two opponents did find some common ground on the topic of immigration reform, where both support offering more visas to enable workers to come to the United States.
In addressing the expected Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in college admissions both candidates said they supported the continuation of affirmative action policies, although Allen took a somewhat ambiguous position, referring to an amorphous “affirmative recruitment” instead.
Kaine said he hoped the Court “would affirm that it is okay for a public institution… to make sure that their student body looks like the state looks.”
“While affirmative recruitment I think makes good sense, I don’t want people who are better qualified to be denied,” Allen responded.
During closing statements, Allen said Kaine would continue to support the people he has campaigned for in Washington, and Kaine said Allen did not have a positive record when it came to spending as governor.
The two will square off for the last debate in the Senate race before Election Day in Blacksburg on October 18.
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