Kerry defends record at debate

The economy took center stage at the only televised debate between incumbent U.S. Sen. John Kerry and his Republican opponent, Jeff Beatty, in the chaotic first meeting between the Bay State candidates for the Senate.
Former CIA and FBI agent Jeff Beatty criticized Kerry for his role in the passage of the recent economic rescue plan, a plan Beatty said American people are not happy with and he would not have approved.
‘I’m doing this for the $7,000 per family that is now your burden as a result of this bailout that Sen. Kerry pushed,’ Beatty said.
Beatty said Kerry worked with and voted for the bailout plan because it protected the interests of special interest groups that have pledged millions of dollars to Kerry’s campaign. He said he would have stayed in Washington to work on a better bill if he had been in Kerry’s position.
Kerry connected Beatty to the current administration, calling President Bush Beatty’s ‘Republican president’ and accusing Beatty of using language similar to that of Bush’s former adviser, Karl Rove.
Beatty responded by saying Kerry is running for a spot in Barack Obama’s cabinet.
As Kerry’s primary opponent, Gloucester attorney Ed O’Reilly, did in their September debate, Beatty attacked the senator’s vote to authorize the Iraq War. Beatty said Kerry cast the 2003 vote without ‘due diligence’ to further his political career.
Every premise of the vote that authorized the Iraq War was broken after Kerry cast his vote, according to the senator. Kerry said he currently supports handing the war over to the Iraqis, a position he shares with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
‘It’s unacceptable that he would vote for a war and put the young men and women of Massachusetts in harm’s way,’ Beatty said. ‘We have 500 families in Massachusetts who have had a loved one killed or injured.’
The candidates also split on Question 1 of the state ballot, a proposition that if passed would remove the state income tax. Kerry called the potential passage of Question 1 ‘calamitous,’ arguing it would harm education and jobs in the state.
Beatty said removing the income tax was just the economic stimulus that middle-class families in Massachusetts need.
The president’s removal of the ban on offshore drilling has helped lower gas prices, said Beatty, who attributed Kerry’s objection to lifting the ban to the rise in gas prices above $4 per gallon.
‘Our future is not in oil and gas,’ Kerry said. ‘Our future is at MIT and University of Massachusetts-Lowell and other places where we are going to find the new fuel sources of the future.’
The debate followed a loose set of rules allowing equal time for the candidates to answer the moderators’ questions, respond to one another and ask each other questions. When Kerry asked Beatty a question, the Republican looked to the moderators for order or a rule classification.
Beatty also said Kerry’s personal connection to American International Group amounted to a conflict of interest during the recent economic rescue plan proceedings. State legislators often remove themselves from proceedings for projects as small as road paving contracts due to possible conflicts of interest, he said.
Kerry told reporters that a company that was managing some of his wife’s assets owned AIG stock and that she has not owned any AIG since the winter of 2007. He also pointed out that the Federal Reserve, not the Senate, decided to bail out the financial giant.
‘The reason that you know anything about it is because we disclosed it,’ Kerry said. ‘We did what the law requires.’
Kerry accused Beatty afterward of always being negative and not having a plan for healthcare, the war or the economy.