Republicans bring Senate race to Franklin
FRANKLIN, Ind. – All five candidates vying for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Sen. Evan Bayh attacked President Obama’s policies, especially on how he has dealt with health care and spending, during a debate at Franklin College on Monday.
“The next senator from Indiana, and we hope it is one of us [five], is going to have to deal with some difficult, difficult issues. First of all, the fiscal crisis of this country is still here,” former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats said. “There may have been a few pinpricks of light at the end of the tunnel but we still have some very, very tough decisions in order to address our deficit, in order to address our debt, in order to address our drastic spending. I think you have heard from all five of us that we take this very, very seriously.”
Businessman Don Bates, Jr., tea party activist Richard Behney, Coats, former U.S. Rep. John Hostettler and Indiana state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, R-Howe, faced questions from a panel of Franklin College student journalists on health care, the budget deficit, the military and President Barack Obama’s pending Supreme Court nomination to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. The five candidates also took two questions from an audience of about 250 people at the small college in Franklin, 20 miles south of Indianapolis.
Coats is the only one of the five candidates who has won a statewide election. Coats was appointed to the Senate to replace Dan Quayle when Quayle became George H.W. Bush’s vice president in 1988. He then won a special election two years later and was re-elected to a full six-year term in 1992. He chose not to seek re-election in 1998 – when Bayh won his first of two terms.
The primary marks the first political race on any level for both Bates and Behney. While running against Coats and Hostettler, they both spun that as a positive.
“I haven’t been part of the problem, but I will be part of the solution,” Bates said.
Coats and Hostettler tried to distance themselves from the current Washington atmosphere. Both said they never intended to get back into public office when they left Congress. Hostettler said he initially chose to become involved in politics when he was worried about the country’s direction after President Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, and he has the same feeling that the country is going in the wrong direction since Obama was elected in 2008.
“This will probably be the most important election of your life, unfortunately … We quite honestly have questions that face us that quite a few of us are willing to tackle,” Hostettler said.
All five candidates identified the national deficit, which now sits at $1.6 trillion, as a major problem facing not only the current generation but the future as well.
The first thing I would do is say ‘stop the bleeding.’ That’s what they tell you in first aid is stop the bleeding,” Coats said, “We can’t afford new programs. No matter how desirable they may sound, we cannot keep running this country into debt.”
Hostettler said that every program should be prepared to make cuts except for national defense and said that if these cuts aren’t made soon, changes will have to be forced on the future.
The Indiana law that requires the state Legislature to pass a balanced budget every year should be used as a standard, Stutzman and Coats said.
When asked about the two wars the country is still fighting in the Middle East, Hostettler stood by his vote against the resolution that gave President George W. Bush the power to send troops to Iraq. Hostettler was one of only six votes against the resolution.
However, the other four candidates said based on circumstances at the time, invading Iraq was the best option.
During the question-and-answer session, an eighth grader from Lebanon, Ind., asked how each candidate would approach reforming the No Child Left Behind legislation, and all five candidates said education should be an issue left to state government.
Although Behney gained political notoriety as the organizer of the Indianapolis tea party rally, all five candidates agreed that those who support such grassroots movements will be part of the future of the Republican Party.
“The tea party movement is mainly composed of disenfranchised Republicans who were disappointed with us when we lost our way. It’s really the Republican Party who needs to take a lot responsibility for us losing [Congress] in 2006 and then for the first time since 1964 losing the state of Indiana to a Democrat [in a presidential election],” Bates said.
The candidates will debate again Tuesday night at WFYI television studios in Indianapolis.
The winner of the May 4 primary will likely face current U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind., who represents the state’s 8th district, in November’s general election. Ellsworth defeated Hostettler in 2006. State Democratic Party officials will choose the party’s candidate because no one officially entered the primary. Bayh’s withdrawal came too close to the filing deadline for any other candidate to get on the ballot.
