U.S. Senate candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Rick Lazio pummeled each other for an hour Wednesday night in their first face-to-face debate. They did not shake hands at the end and neither came away without bruises, but Lazio’s may be deeper.
The debate made clear the issues and themes likely to dominate a race that has been characterized as a battle between Lazio, the Republicans’ young and little-known David, and Clinton, the Democrats’ well-known but newly transplanted Goliath.
Though Lazio, a boyish-looking 42, aimed to present himself as someone weighty enough to fill retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s shoes, he often came across more adversarial than senatorial.
Continually on the offensive, he took Clinton to task for not improving education as first lady of Arkansas, for not influencing President Clinton’s administration in matters such as Medicaid reimbursement for states like New York and, in general, for not having a record as an elected official.
The first lady, who has stubbornly battled her image as a political carpetbagger, portrayed herself as having more than a passing knowledge of the state, peppering her answers with some of the state’s most arcane town names.
Though she appeared a bit stiff, she deflected most of Lazio’s attacks and disparaged him for suggesting that upstate New York, which has not shared as much in the economic boom as elsewhere in the state, is not really in severe financial straits. Quoting the Buffalo News, she said anyone who believed such a thing must be “orbiting another planet.”
That the debate was held here, in the state’s second-largest city, was no accident. Most analysts expect the Senate race to turn on voters in western New York state and in the New York City suburbs. Lazio has been leading Clinton, ten years his senior, in both these areas, though she holds a narrow statewide lead in the latest polls.
The candidates met before 240 invited guests in the studios of public broadcasting station WNED-TV. Televised live by NBC stations in New York State, it was later broadcast nationally by MSNBC.
Clinton already had made a bit of history Tuesday, when she became the first sitting first lady to win an election. Though she had the blessing of the state Democratic Party, Clinton still had to run in the party’s primary against Manhattan surgeon Dr. Mark McMahon, and defeated him 82 percent to 18 percent.
Lazio, a four-term congressman from suburban Long Island, spent most of the night in an attempt to depict himself as a mainstream Republican, not the foot soldier of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as Clinton tried to portray him.
“Listening to the congressman’s responses reminds me of a word I’ve heard a lot this year: chutzpah,” said Clinton, using the Yiddish word for having a lot of nerve. “… He stands there and tells us that he’s a moderate, mainstream, independent member of Congress.
“But, in fact, he was a deputy whip to Newt Gingrich, he voted to shut the government down. … Time and time again, when he had a choice to make, particularly at a critical turning point when our country was really on the line with Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, he stood with the Republican leadership and Newt Gingrich.”
Facing Clinton directly, Lazio responded: “You, of all people, shouldn’t try to make guilt by association. Newt Gingrich isn’t running in this race. I’m running in this race. Let’s talk about my record.”
While Lazio highlighted Clinton’s lack of a voting record, he also criticized her attempts at policy, such as her failed health-care reform initiative and her influence on education while first lady of Arkansas, a state with notoriously poor school scores.
“I agree that Mrs. Clinton has a record in education and it’s a disaster,” Lazio said. “I don’t think we need that Little Rock record in the Big Apple.”
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Moreover, he lambasted aspects of Clinton’s health-care proposal, which would have cut back on some funding for teaching hospitals, of which New York state has 57. “You know, a New Yorker would never have made that proposal. In New York, we say you’ve got to tell it like it is,” he said.
While most of the night featured a give-and-take of scripted positions on issues ranging from the environment to Medicaid reimbursement, there was one moment from the past that provoked a more spontaneous response to a question Clinton has been answering for two years.
Shown a clip of the now-famous interview in which she blamed her husband’s travails on a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” and defending as honest his handling of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, she was asked by moderator Tim Russert if she regretted “misleading the American people.”
Speaking slowly and in measured tones, Clinton said: “Obviously I didn’t mislead anyone. I didn’t know the truth. There is a great deal of pain associated with that.”
Clinton then spun back on the attack, criticizing Lazio for voting with Gingrich and supporting his conservative agenda.
Lazio hit back. “It’s beyond shameless, I guess. … This is positively Clintonesque,” he said, with a smile. “If you had a record, I suppose you wouldn’t have to bring up Newt Gingrich.”
On other issues, Clinton reiterated her opposition to using federal money for school vouchers and her support for abortion rights, which otherwise did not come up at all during the debate.
Lazio supports a form of vouchers, which he calls scholarship money, and generally is in favor of abortion rights but opposes federal funding for abortions and a form of late-term abortion.
One of the most theatrical moments in the debate came 49 minutes into the debate when Lazio produced a contract from his breast pocket and asked Clinton to sign it with him, promising to renounce all raising and spending of so-called soft money.
“I admire that. That was a wonderful performance,” Clinton said, but declined to sign.
“Sign it now. … Why don’t you stand up and do something important for America?” asked Lazio, brandishing the document in her face.
Clinton closed by saying: “There may be some who say that the most important issue is who has lived here the longest. If that’s the test, I can’t pass that test. But if you want someone who will get up every day and be on your side and fight for better schools, health care and jobs, I can pass that test,” she said.
Lazio dwelled on his record in his closing remarks. “You’ve got to decide in this campaign how you define character and trust. My opponent has talked and talked, but she’s done nothing for New York. I’ve delivered for New York. As the old Yankees manager Casey Stengel used to say, `You can check it out.'”
Clinton and Lazio have been neck-and-neck in polls virtually since Lazio stepped into the race last May, succeeding New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who withdrew after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Two polls released this week show Clinton with a slight edge, though still within the polls’ margin of error. According to the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, Clinton leads Lazio 48 percent to 46 percent among likely voters, with a margin of error of 4.5 points. The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found Clinton ahead 49 to 44 percent.