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3rd District candidates debate partisanship, bank bailout
The three candidates competing in one of the more closely watched congressional races in the country, Minnesota's 3rd District, squared off in Minnetonka Monday night. It was the third debate in a series of forums featuring the men who want to replace Rep. Jim Ramstad, a popular Republican who decided not to seek re-election after serving nine terms in Washington. Ramstad is widely seen as a moderate, and the race to succeed him is considered a tossup between three people who sought Monday to present themselves as bipartisan: DFLer Ashwin Madia, a lawyer and Iraq war veteran; Republican Erik Pauslen, a state representative and former House majority leader; and Independence Party candidate David Dillon, CEO of Meyers Printing. One of the testier exchanges came over religion and hot-button social issues, which permeated the last presidential election. Madia went after Paulsen for supporting the teaching of intelligent design, in public schools, as an alternative to evolution and for supporting a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. "There are so many things that we ought to be focusing on, I don't think we ought to be using public dollars or our constitution to try to impose our religious beliefs on other people," Madia said. Paulsen argued he didn't make those issues priorities in the legislature and Madia was characterizing him as a more ardent supporter than he really was. "Without a doubt I voted for the bill," Paulsen said. "But he's completely wrong in mischaracterizing my record in both those instances." Dillon, who was a Republican until recently, sided with Madia. "I've come to like both the guys sitting at the table with me," Dillon said. "The plain fact of the matter is that Erik has come out of the right wing of the Republican Party, and it's part of why I'm not a Republican anymore." The 90-minute debate at Congregation Bet Shalom was sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council and was wide ranging. Mary Lahammer, host of TPT's "Almanac" program, moderated the forum. In a sign of the changing times, perhaps, neither she nor the audience asked the candidates about the war in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the economy dominated much of the debate. On the issue of the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of the banking industry, Paulsen was the only one among the three who said he would not support it. But he blamed Congress for the financial system's problems. "Quite frankly, this is another example of how Congress is broken," Paulsen said. "If they would have tackled some of the issues that they had 18 months ago, with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, we wouldn't have had to submit this hundreds of billion dollar bailout." Dillon said he would vote to pass the package. "But what's missing is the teeth to push back," he said. He criticized Wall Street for benefitting from "capitalism on the way up (and) socialism on the way down." Madia said he also would support the bailout. "But I'm not happy about it," he said. "In terms of who to blame, I think there's enough blame to go around for both Republicans and Democrats on this issue." The next debate in the 3rd District is scheduled for Oct. 10.
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