Democratic Primary Debate at WGBH: Transcript Time!

Bostonist was there for the taping of the debate between Democratic primary candidates competing for the chance to get Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat in the upcoming January special election. Here’s our record of what happened, in case you didn’t get to watch for yourself. We weren’t supposed to post before the thing actually aired. This is unedited, uncut, so forgive errors–will correct as soon as possible! The scene starts out with a bunch of bloggers at tables equipped with power strips and wireless access. We’re not actually in the room with ‘em (though we did walk by Capuano in the hallway), just next to a screen with Emily Rooney and everyone else’s faces on it. Now Rooney launches the conversation… with the most relevant question of all! ER: Martha Coakley, are you “stiff”? Coakley: No, I’m not. I’ve taken chances, stuck my neck out. “The giraffe is my favorite animal.” ER: Capuano, are you fueled by anger? Capuano: It’s not a temper, I would describe myself as a very passionate person… I actually think that’s one of the things that’s missing from politics these days. [Good appeal to Kennedy legacy?] ER: AK, the senate isn’t a place that welcomes hellraisers unless you’re Teddy Kennedy. Will it welcome you? AK: I am a reformer, I started my career on Mission Hill. I have a track record of getting things done. First National Service Commission. City Year model… The way you get change in Washington is to get citizens involved. I’ve worked with more senators or as many senators as anyone onstage but you also need citizens. ER: How has the recession changed you? [Good question! Will there be honest answers?] SP: I’ve been very lucky and I’d like everybody to have the same chances I do [except your chances are built on others not having 'em...]. Bring investments back, public/private partnerships, only way to get out. “I’ve felt it through other people” — aka not personally. I have lent money to others. ER: Capuano, how do you handle tenants in trouble? [Is this relevant?!] Capuano: We’ve actually helped people in the past, yes. [Who cares? Does this suggest that Capuano would let people off the hook when it comes to taxes?] ER: AK, you position yourself as a good guy. Why are you running dead last? AK: Only poll that matters is the poll on election day. I haven’t been in politics, I don’t have a big name, I haven’t raised as much money because I’m not taking special interest money. I have grassroots support [sound familiar ?]. ER: Deval Patrick, Barack Obama came from nowhere and got a lot of money faster. AK: People are undecided, people are leaning toward me. ER: I thought you didn’t believe in polls. AK: This isn’t polls, this is talking directly to people. It’s different from polls. ER: SP, you hold Celtics ownership. If elected will you put ownership on hold? SP: I’ve already resigned off all the boards I’ve been on… I have to check on the Celtics, they don’t pose a lot of conflict with the government. ER: Coakley, why haven’t you saved more money? Coakley: I’ve worked as a public servant for a long time now. I put money into a house, sold it to run for office. State pension, money in home, insurance. Husband has assets. “I think we’ve focused on what’s important to us…. I’ve never made a big salary.” ER: Is it a point of pride not to have money? Coakley: It’s neither here nor there. [Again, is this relevant? Shouldn't we be focusing on issues, not candidates' personal lives? Their individual financial habits don't necessarily relate] ER: RI bishop asked Patrick Kennedy not to take communion because of his position on abortion. How do you reconcile your religious POV? AK: I’m Catholic, I take communion, I’m pro-choice, I would keep taking communion even if asked not to by a bishop. I follow Jesus. We need to take care of the poor. “My whole career has been about bringing people in who aren’t heard.” Capuano: I consider myself a Catholic but I disagree with the church on many issues: abortion, gay marriage, women priests. I think it’s good for the church to have a position. I think the bishop crossed the line by telling Kennedy not to take communion. Religion is between you and god. [Hear hear!] SP: God shouldn’t be an issue in any elections, I think we’ve gone way beyond that at this point. [Oh snap! My vote is trending Steve.] People have to live by their own beliefs. Coakley: I grew up Catholic. Faith is personal but you make decisions about the community you worship with. I think this is a rogue bishop [phrase of the day!] Capuano: This has happened to others, this is not new [being refused communion]. ER: Lots of action in the senate over the weekend. Some say we need tort reform to reform health care. Would you eliminate malpractice suits to make health care affordable? SP: We need to pass health care reform. I would pass the health care bill. We need malpractice reform. Protect patients and bring costs down. I think evidence-based care you don’t need caps. AK: I’ve put out a comprehensive health care plan , I’m the only one. Mediation first. I propose a health fund. Dollar of federal money, dollar of matching funds. SP: Evidence-based care! Coakley: [Coming off as very smooth so far.] Judgments have been vastly overstated. Capuano: There’s plenty of middle ground here. We should review punitive damages, not compensation. Defensive medicine is an issue. We can’t make it so doctors are never sued. Anyone who says we can’t pass this bill without tort reform is wrong. AK: We can’t take just one piece of the system. We need comprehensive reform. Defensive medicine costs too much, it’s real. Coakley: I’ve talked to doctors who feel they’re being left out of the discussion, but the cost driver is the lack of competition. ER: Taxes! Bush tax cuts will expire. Would you extend them? Coakley: No. I think those tax cuts were primarily helpful to the top end of the spectrum. They should expire. They did not appear to stimulate the economy. Capuano: I would not extend them. I would love to rewrite the entire tax code. We’re in the worst recession in the world and have a huge deficit due in part to the tax cuts. Almost nobody said to me they wanted those cuts. We need the things that taxes pay for. As long as people feel government is providing them a service they appreciate, they’ll be okay. SP: We can’t extend these cuts due to the deficit. [Score thus far: the MCs seem the most relaxed and political. No one has gotten in a killer point yet.] AK: The real economic issue is jobs, we need jobs. I was the only candidate who would support a second stimulus. We need to put money in it. 22 months of job losses. ER: Would anybody now support a second stimulus? Coakley: We still need to see if the first one’s effective, I want to make sure it’s focused. We need to focus on other pieces besides stimulus. SP: Debts paid back by job growths. We cannot tax enough to pay these deficits

back. The stimulus has to be for long-term productive jobs. Capuano: When we did the last stimulus, I didn’t hear from anybody. I was the only one on stage fighting for more jobs. Now, people are demanding them. Money can be used for jobs. I’ve already asked the president to use money for jobs, so we don’t have to go back for another stimulus. [Everyone is talking over everyone else. Capuano/AK spat!] ER: We need to pay for this health care bit. Should there be a tax on the rich? AK: I would tax the gold-plated health care plans. Now we not only don’t tax that, we subsidize it. If you want a $40k health care plan, okay, but I will tax it. I wouldn’t have a general tax on rich people, but excessive health care plans. We should tax health care. Capuano: House bill has provision to tax couples earning over a million. This would create a surplus. The senate bill has other provisions, but I prefer the house bill. Senate has nickel and dime provisions. I would prefer tax on degree of income. Coakley: We’ll figure out a way to pay for it. Cut costs. SP: We gotta get everyone in the system to reform it. Coakley and Capuano will not vote for health care. Capuano: I’m only one who voted to advance HC bill. You can buy ads and misrepresent me all you want. I’ve said when the bill is done I will read it and make my decision then. How do you feel about the provision that lets people opt out? I don’t like it because I think it undermines the serious ability to have a public option. Learn what’s in the bills. SP keeps spouting numbers. Capuano is agitated! The house bill is not coming back. AK: I’m for the public option. I’m against the senate bill. Coakley: There was never any need to surrender women’s rights for health care. Capuano: We should have the option to make this bill a better bill, the kind we can all support. If we can merge the best of both bills, we can all support it. SP: I’d support either bill. The MCs won’t. Capuano: That means you would have voted for the Patriot Act. Read the bills. Know what’s int he bills. ER: Let’s move on. Deficit! Jobs! Capuano: We need to protect jobs, help Mass. grow. Our senators have done well by us. ER: You talk about creating jobs but your business has been about personal profit, not creating jobs. How is it relevant? SP: I’m a venture capitalist as well. 61,000 jobs in MA trace back to VC. I actually got into this because I was going to be a teacher, I did well at growing a company, so I specialized in that… We need more investment, not less investment. ER: Companies are in debt for as much as 80% of worth of own company. Coakley: I’m concerned about lack of Wall Street regulation. This is not the time to pull back on regulation. We need to make sure businesses are sound. SP: The real crisis is in mortgages, trillions at risk. Coakley: States saw it coming first. SP: I want strong state laws but we have to have strong national laws and global coordination. Can’t jump from state to state to exploit people. ER: Stimulus for footbridge at Gillette. OK? Capuano: No federal directions on stimulus money so you can’t have it both ways. AK: I think we can use that money for other jobs. I think that money could go to better uses. SP: We had an emergency, a financial crisis, we still haven’t had regulations. We may have wasted some stimulus money but I’d rather have that than have nothing. ER: What about rolling back the state sales tax increase? AK: No, not now. The state is suffering. Maybe when we get out of the recession. Only national politics will get us out of the recession, not just local. Coakley: Are you giving us new senatorial powers? I think the state needs things now but I wouldn’t repeal the tax. Capuano: Sales tax is bad and regressive, but I am against it knowing that the state is in budget trouble. SP doesn’t support it either. ER: Eric Holder announced trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in NYC. Do you agree with this? SP: America is the best country in the world. We have to show that these people can get a fair trial. AK: We need to be able to uphold our values. Capuano: It’s been a long time coming, we need to give people a trial. “The fact that we have gone this long without a trial is a blemish on our reputation.” ER: Where do you stand on waterboarding? Should government agents be prosecuted? [What, is someone for it?] Coakley: That’s what’s under investigation. What are the facts? We had trials after WWII. It’s a disturbing chapter in our history as many other things have been in the last 10 years under the Bush administration. It’s good that Holder is running an investigation and I trust his decision on this as on the trials. Stark silence in response to ER question of whether anyone would support trials for agents who may have tortured. Capuano: It appears as though the order came directly from Cheney, if that’s the case he should be prosecuted. Torture is a violation of United States law. If it’s about prosecuting CIA agents as scapegoats, no. We should go up the chain to see who made the determination to violate the law. SP: Get the facts, I agree with Coakley. ER: Afghanistan. Capuano: What was the mission? To chase Al Qaeda out. There are more Al Qaeda in America than in Afghanistan. Are we supposed to occupy the US? Chase where the bad guys are, don’t go where they were yesterday. No reason for us to have so many troops in Afghanistan if mission is to get Al Qaeda. Coakley: Four soldiers killed today in Afghanistan. Staging ground for 9/11 was here. SP: I wouldn’t say it’s helpless. No good history of nation building since WWII. AK: Reevaluate priorities, set timeline, pressure Karzai. Focus on Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is. We need a new international version of NATO to fight terrorism, a new Marshall Plan. ER: Senators often have to take unpopular positions. Would anyone meet with Ahmadinejad? Coakley: Mistake we’ve always made in sending military forces is assuming other cultures will respond to these forces. ER: Running out of times. Capuano: I would assist on meeting with Ahmadinejad. If you won’t look evil in the eye and call its by its name, you can’t be a peacekeeper. SP: Thankful for the people of Massachusetts. Coakley: I’m thankful for Thanksgiving with my family even though I outsourced the turkey. Capuano: Thankful to be an American. ER: I thank you all! Immediate reaction: Coakley came off silky smooth, Capuano capable of being needled, Khazei as a little stiff, and Pagliuca as a number-spewer with not a lot to say about ‘em. We have to say our vote is still uncertain, and we’ll be tuning in for the final debate on NECN on December 2.

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Democratic Primary Debate at WGBH: Transcript Time!