Politics & Government

'Open' Debate A Bit Fuzzy But Fifth Congressional Candidates Got Messages Across

Five candidates put their stakes in the ground during initial debate in the race for the Fifth Congressional District.

Written by Franklin Tucker 

The first debate between the five announced Democratic candidates for the 5th District Congressional district was unique in two ways: the first was that it began at 11 a.m. on a Saturday, a rather unusual time for the sponsor, the left-liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee, to conduct an event in which they were seeking to garner a large live audience.

The second was the more obvious and potentially revolutionary: the debate – the first between the candidates coming more than two months before the Oct. 15 Democratic primary – was conducted over the Internet using OpenDebateQuestions.com 

What really made Saturday's event standout was that the debate questions were not just submitted by citizens – more than a 1,000 at last count – from across the country but also about 30,000 voted on which of the questions would be asked to the participants: State Sen. Will Brownsberger (Belmont, Watertown, Boston), State Sen. Katherine Clark (Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield and Winchester), Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, State Rep. Carl Sciortino (Medford and Somerville) and State Sen. Karen Spilka (Ashland, Framingham, Franklin, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, Natick).

If you missed it, the entire debate is on YouTube, while a downloadable audio of the debate is available here.

The innovative online broadcast had its glitchy moments – the connection dropped a few times and the prepackaged questions to the candidates (including one read by MSNBC's host Steve Kornacki) were muddier than a greasy-spoon's cup of coffee – while visually the presentation had all the excitement of those dreadful workplace conference calls on Google Video Chat, with the candidates trying hard to look as natural as one can while speaking into a computer screen. 

Yet this attempt at public participation in the political conversation had less to do with technical wizardry – although the hosts did bring along a virtual cheering section – then the opportunity for the candidates to take questions from the public without the filter of the media or a non-profit like the League of Women Voters.

While the debate didn't include, as co-moderator and PCCC co-founder Adam Green described as "boxer or briefs" questions – famously asked of Bill Clinton by an audience member in 1992 – the debate was handicapped for having all the suspense of a open book, take-home exam from a favorite teacher. These were Democrats speaking to liberals through a progressive conduit; this was a  "happy" place for these candidates to be for an hour-and-a-half. 

And in some cases, the almost prepackaging of the candidate's answers resulted in somewhat calculated - and yes, even stiff - responses, serving up the sort of red meat (or sticky tofu for those anti-vivisection members online) rhetoric that the targeted progressive audience was aching to hear. 

On issues such as supporting US Sen. Elizabeth Warren's call for separating commercial banking and brokerage operations at large financial operation in a new Glass-Steagall law (yes), tightening controls on the National Security Agency's surveillance operations on US citizens (definitely) and reducing global warming (a priority), the five were happily singing in unison. 

"I absolutely agree with Elizabeth Warren and bringing back the new Glass-Steagall. This is a lesson we should have learned in 1933 when this act first came into place: Separating the investment part of banking from the commercial banking makes sense," said Clark, who is reportedly raised the most funds so far in the race. 

The debate was also a chance for the candidates – many introducing themselves for the first time to potential voters outside their home districts in their effort to replace now US Sen. Ed Markey – to stake out their political homestead. 

Sciortino spent the debate not about to allow anyone to outflank him on the left, fired off his very progressive positions. For example, he is the only candidate to sign a letter written by US Reps Alan Grayson and Mark Takano pledging to “vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need," a pledge that many members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have balked at joining.

While Sciortino – whose campaign literature calls himself the "Progressive Democrat for Congress" – placed himself on the left of debate field, Spilka was nudging up close to that same line. The candidate with significant union endorsements – more than 20 according to the candidate – Spilka noted her support for no interest higher education loans (defaulted loans - about $8 billion in 2012 – should be a "societal cost"), will move the country to a single-payer government health care system and will strive to prevent jobs from being sent overseas. 

"It is about justice"

Making an effective opening statement in retelling the story of this grandparents coming to the country, Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian spoke of the injustice of people or corporations with "big money" able to "buy themselves off" from being prosecuted for alleged misdeeds. 

"[I]t is about justice," said Koutoujian.

"We need to go back and take another look at how we treat those that are wealthy and those that are privileged, and those of the 99 percent, the rest of us, that don't have that much money, that we don't consider to be privileged. We all have our basic rights," he noted. 

But one candidate was willing to sail off on an independent tack from the rest. While each of the five candidates were eager to highlight their progressive street cred, Brownsberger veered from the pack on several issues; the most telling on social security and the controversial Citizens United decision by the US Supreme Court that recognized free speech rights for corporations. 

While his opponents said they would make a pledge not to cut benefits including making any changes to the cost-of-living calculations that determines the annual increases in social security payments, the Belmont resident said, while he would not cut Social Security benefits for existing retirees, "I think there's a whole lot of other things out there that I think fall well short of that people are calling cuts and are not cuts. ... I don't consider Chained CPI (a method of calculating the Consumer Price Index at a slightly lower rate) a cut in benefits. I want to be clear on that."

While most of his opponents disagreed with Brownberger's beliefs without naming him, Sciortino called Brownsberger out for not agreeing with the others that a slightly lower increase in the Social Security payments over time is, in fact, "cutting" retirement benefits. 

Continuing on Social Security, Brownsberger said while expanding benefits to recipents would be optimal, "honestly ... I don't think it's realistic to talk about it in the world we live in right now. It's not something I'd say I am going to go fight for because it's not something we can really do."

While Spilka and Sciortino said they would go to Washington with an agenda to increase benefits, Clark and Koutoujian were willing to take a hard look at that possibility.

At one point, Brownsberger – who worked hard for Warren during the 2012 Senatorial election against Scott Brown – said while he agreed with her call that the government should not make money on student loans (a call rejected by most Democrats in the Senate and House in compromise legislation which President Obama signed into law) "I don't agree with Sen. Warren on the economics of this. If you have a system where 13 percent of the people are not paying the loans back, you have to charge some interest to cover those default rates."

Spilka felt that Brownberger's stance was counter to the goals of providing an education to college and other students.

"Government should not be making a single penny off of our children," she said.

And while his colleagues were calling for the end of corporate speech with a bill to repeal the Citizens United ruling, Brownsberger again parsed his answer, agreeing that corporation's influence should be halted, but warning that a simple repeal of the law would leave open non-profit corporations such as Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club to similar free speech limitations down the road.

Despite the openings to question his responses, the four other candidates decided not to pounce on the Belmont resident's more nuanced answers, at least in this go around. 

In fact, Koutoujian and Brownsberger – who were state House members from neighboring districts for several years – took time to complimented the other for a their positions or placing website information on their own site. It was the closest to a "bro-hug" you could expect in an online debate. 

While there were no direct scathing attacks between the candidates on the level of Tea Party candidates against fellow Republicans, it was clear that Sciortino had Brownsberger in his sights and unlike Koutoujian, he was not about to join their mutual-admiration society. 

Without provocation, the Medford state rep brought up the topic of public union pensions, taking a direct swipe at Brownsberger's work on creating the state pension reform law, equating his actions to that of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker who stripped most public workers of their collective bargaining rights. 

"[W]e had Democrats in this state and in this race and in this state legislature that voted (against) the pension benefits and increase the retirement age for pensioners. I opposed that," said Sciortino.  

The debate did end a light note as Green advised everyone viewing and listening in to follow Brownsberger's advice and call his cell phone number – that would be 617-771-8274, really – that the candidate released "anytime day or night" if they wanted to discuss the debate. 


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