RSS Feed MenuSneak-Peak at California’s GOP Senate Debate
Thursday night, the three candidates for the GOP’s senatorial nomination in California met for their final debate. Although it was taped for later broadcast, FrumForum can provide a sneak-peak of the debate, which will be aired on Sunday.
Positions Taken During the Debate
Based off of Twitter updates from journalists and political staffers, FrumForum pieced together this table of the candidates’ positions during the debate. This will be as accurate as the information on Twitter allows:
According to individuals on site, the first question of the evening is directed to Tom Campbell. The moderator, Mark Brown, asks him: ‘What are your conservative credentials’?
Tom Campbell replied that he served in the Reagan administration, has an PhD in economics, and has a conservative record as a congressman. In response, Chuck Devore retorted that he doesn’t believe there is a tax increase in history that Campbell hasn’t supported. Fiorina, on the other hand, pointed out her Palin endorsement, and called herself an outsider. Her campaign tweeted that Devore voted for the 2005 and 2008 California state budgets, which raised taxes.
Apparently, Devore went after Carly Fiorina pretty hard (as we predicted in our pre-debate analysis), accusing her and Hewlett-Packard of circumventing sanctions on Iran. Fiorina’s campaign reacted immediately, releasing a statement on the issue right after the debate. The statement read, in part:
Carly is a strong supporter of implementing tough, crippling sanctions on Iran to compel it to roll back its dangerous nuclear weapons development plan, which currently poses the most serious threat to Israel and to the stability of the Middle East region.
Furthermore, accusations about the legality of HP’s printer sales have never been supported by any federal investigation or report. In fact, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inquired about the matter, but the company has never been found in violation of U.S. trade embargoes.
Another development during the debate: both Josh Trevino, a spokesperson for Chuck Devore, and Jack Chang, a political writer for the Sacramento Bee, noted that Tom Campbell’s voice wavered at points during the debate.
Campbell spokesman James Fisfis told FrumForum that he wasn’t sure why or even if Campbell’s voice wavered, but that Campbell was “definitely in command” and that it was a “big win” for the campaign. Fisfis argued that Campbell got both candidates to agree that the economy was the top issue, which is his strength.
Fisfis also went after Fiorina’s conservative credentials, saying that “Carly can’t be the conservative in this race because she can’t escape [Chuck] Devore’s constant lances” and that she “ended up to Tom [Campbell]’s left on national security” because Fiorina argued that the U.S. was right to mirandize the Time Square bomber, a position that Campbell opposes.
Campbell’s campaign also released a statement before the event tonight saying that the debate was being taped, not live, at the Fiorina campaign’s request. If that’s true, we have them to thank for not being able to watch what sounds like a fantastic debate until Sunday.
Mark Rosenthal // May 7, 2010 at 9:48 am
The whole issue over Miranda rights is absolutely stupid and I expect politicians of both parties to at least be smart enough to know the law. Please, David Frum, set them right on this!
Regardless of whether or not you are an american citizen, if you are arrested on american soil or territory for a crime or the suspicion of a crime, the police are to read you your rights. This protects the prosecution more than the accused, for if the rights are not read, the accused can get off on a technicality.
And the case of the Times Square Bomber has once again shown that good old every day police work will do the job. The guy was questioned and he talked. Then he was read this Miranda rights and he kept talking. That’s how it works. If he clams up, the it is the job of the prosecution to get evidence through another (legal) channel.
Republicans should contact all three of these candidates and correct them on this. What utter stupidity!!! Good Lord, and these people want to be Senator from tha largest state in the Union?!?
Oy, vey!!
sinz54 // May 7, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Mark Rosenthal: Regardless of whether or not you are an american citizen, if you are arrested on american soil or territory for a crime or the suspicion of a crime, the police are to read you your rights. This protects the prosecution more than the accused, for if the rights are not read, the accused can get off on a technicality.
That’s not true.
In the case of Shahzad, they got a national-security waiver and Shahzad talked to authorities at length before being Mirandized. If you’ve got a good case against the suspect, you don’t need his confession to get a conviction; hence why bother Mirandizing him.
With terrorists, as with spies, convicting them in court is less important than interrogating them early to find out what they know before the enemy can react. In fact, if you can turn the suspect into a double agent secretly working for you, so much the better.
I’m not interested in what sentence Shahzad receives. I’m interested in what he knows about terrorism in Pakistan.
BoolaBoola // May 8, 2010 at 1:37 am
I’ll bet against Boxer, on the Republican to win, no matter who it is. But, I’ll also bet that he/she will be a one-term senator, replaced after six years by an up-and-coming Democrat leadership-type.