Senate battle remains bitter

By Jeremy W. Peters

Daily Staff Reporter

DETROIT - Yesterday's second and final debate between Sen. Spence Abraham and U.S. Rep. Debbie Stabenow ended any hopes that the bitterly negative Senate campaign would turn civil in the remaining two weeks before Election Day.

The candidates sparred on issues ranging from the cost of health care to racial profiling and often expressed starkly differing views in their political philosophies.

Stabenow gave her opening statement first and didn't waste a minute taking the offensive.

"Six years ago Senator Abraham stood before you and said that he was going to work for the people's interests and not the special interests. I would argue in fact, that the opposite has been true," the Lansing Democrat said to an audience of the Economic Club of Detroit at Cobo Hall.

In response, Abraham turned to his tactic of painting Stabenow as a liberal proponent of big government.

"We do have a clear choice in this campaign between ... moving the country forward in the direction you asked me to or going back and turning the clock back to liberal alternatives of big spending government programs," the incumbent Republican senator said.

At one point in the debate, Guy Gordon of WXYZ-TV, one of the debate's moderators, asked both candidates if they would agree to end the barrage of negative ads during the past several months.

Stabenow did not commit to that, saying instead she saw a solution in the McCain-Finegold campaign finance reform bill.

"If Senator Abraham was not one of five senators holding it up in the senate, we would not be having this conversation. Campaign finance reform is what we need," she said.

Abraham responded with a jab at Stabenow.

"She didn't answer the question, so I won't either," the senator said.

One of the more heated exchanges of the afternoon took place over the candidates' plans to spend the projected budget surplus.

"Through an array of programs she backs, we literally will spend the entire surplus. There won't be one penny left for tax relief, for the hard working families that need that help," Abraham said.

"The last comments he made were just absolutely ridiculous," Stabenow responded. The surplus, she said, "I want to use to pay down the debt. I want to use to protect Social Security and Medicare. And frankly, his tax proposal is just too liberal for me," she said, using a phrase Abraham frequently uses to describe her.

An poll released last week by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA shows the race at 47 percent for Abraham and 40 percent for Stabenow. This is a slight loss of ground for Abraham, who was ahead by about 10 points in most independent polls conducted two weeks ago.

The closeness of the race could be one factor contributing to its caustic nature. The Michigan Democrats blame the immense amount of campaign spending for the behavior. Combined the candidates have raised about $13 million - more than any other previous Michigan campaign.

"It's negative in large part because of the endless flow of money," Rep. Sander Levin (D-Royal Oak) said after the debate. If you were to curtail soft money the last couple months of the campaign you would have less negativism."

"The demands of modern political campaigning cause the candidates to spend half their time raising money," said former Michigan governor James Blanchard, a Democrat.

Republicans at the debate had their own take on the tone of the race.

"I think what is happening is that Congresswoman Stabenow is looking at her numbers in the polls, and she's getting increasingly desperate," Michigan Secretary of State Candice Miller said.

Lieutenant Gov. Dick Posthumus likened Stabenow's ad campaign to the fourth quarter in a football game.

"It's like she's the quarterback for a losing team and she's throwing the bomb into the endzone," Posthumus said.

MARJORIE MARSHALL/Daily

U.S. Rep Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) and Republican Sen. Spence Abraham face off yesterday in their final debate before the Detroit Economic Club at Cobo Hall.