The five Democratic Party candidates faced off in a debate last night on Boston’s WB56 to discuss the issues facing the state, including education, Clean Elections, legalized marijuana and same-sex marriage.
Although the debate was originally set to feature six candidates, Secretary of State William Galvin dropped out of the race yesterday, saying he would be unable to win because of the outdated election process.
The candidates agreed on the majority of the issues raised last night, with the only real conflict resting over the allocation of Big Dig funds.
While all five candidates agreed there were internal problems with the Big Dig, there was no agreement as to how to solve these problems.
“I can really take credit for blowing the whistle on the Big Dig,” said State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien, who voted in the Legislature to stop allocating funds to the project.
While Senate President Thomas Birmingham agreed the project needs work, he was not in favor of raising tolls or taxes, as his opponents were. He said he believe the government was misdirected in the uses of the funds.
Birmingham accused present state leaders of failing to take charge of the situation.
“With regard to the Big Dig, they haven’t steered, they rowed,” he said.
Former Democratic National Committee leader Steve Grossman emphasized his outsider status in the race.
“I have a different approach than my opponents, maybe because I’ve spent my career in the real world, not in the world of Beacon Hill or academia,” Grossman said.
Grossman said adding tolls on state borders would help solve the financial difficulties of the Big Dig.
The candidates also addressed the problems facing Massachusetts Port Authority, agreeing the Big Dig scandals and those at Massport are related. Massport has been awash in scandal since Sept. 11, including controversy over a substantial severance payment presented to former Massport director Virginia Buckingham.
“We have a state government that’s become an embarrassment,” said former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
“If two planes hadn’t hit the World Trade Center, we wouldn’t have known what was wrong at Massport,” said former state Sen. Warren Tolman.
Tolman said “big money” had to be removed from politics, claiming the second-biggest contributor to former Gov. Paul Cellucci’s campaign was the Big Dig contractors.
All five candidates said they approved of the state’s Clean Elections law.
“I’m proud to stand behind with 66 percent of the people on this,” said Tolman, who plans to run under the recently reinstated law. Tolman also brought a petition for the candidates to sign that would have them all accept the terms of Clean Elections.
O’Brien said she had previously run on a Clean Elections bid but said she could not support the funds to run that way in the gubernatorial race.
All candidates also expressed interest in taking the referendum against same-sex marriage off the ballot, and O’Brien, Grossman and Reich said they would consider legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes.
The candidates also agreed a tax rollback would not be helpful this year because of the pending recession and the scandals surrounding groups such as Massport.
When asked about past political blunders, Birmingham said he regretted the late budget this year, but at the same time, he said because he did so much for social programs, he believed he did the right thing.
WB56 anchorman Jon Keller moderated the debate, and each candidate was allowed a minute to answer each question.
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