Monday, July 17, 2000
Chabot, Cranley begin debates
By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer
U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (left) listens to challenger John Cranley.
(Brandi Stafford photo)
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Democrat John Cranley tried to paint U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot as the “super-friend” of special interest, while Mr. Chabot defended his six-year record of fighting for lower taxes and less government in a Green Township debate Sunday night.
“I wouldn't be running if I didn't believe Congressman Chabot was no longer work ing for you,” said Mr. Cranley, the 26-year-old Price Hill Democrat who is taking on a three-term incumbent in his first political race.
“If the distortions you've already heard tonight were true, I wouldn't vote for me,” said Mr. Chabot before a crowd of about 200 in Green Township's Nathanael Greene Lodge.
Sunday night's debate was the first of four debates between the candidates in the First Congressional District, which includes most of Cincinnati's west side and western suburbs.
The Cranley campaign saw it as their first opportunity to draw attention to their unknown candidate, who has a campaign fund about one-third the size of Mr. Chabot's.
Mr. Cranley accused Mr. Chabot of being “Congressman No,” saying he consistently “votes against the in terests of working families in the district.”
“You may think of Congressman Chabot as your friend in Cincinnati, but his friends in Washington are Big Tobacco, the gun industry and HMOs.”
Mr. Chabot dismissed his opponent's charge as “nonsense,” saying he has spent his six years in Congress “fighting for lower taxes, less government and more opportunities for people who should keep the money they earn and not send so much to Washington.”
When it comes to special-interest support, both candidates have it — Mr. Chabot from a number of business political action committees (PACs) and Mr. Cranley from organized labor.
Mr. Cranley said that while he supports campaign finance reform, he would not support legislation preventing labor union PACs from using members' dues for po litical purposes without their permission.
“Unions are democratic organizations,” Mr. Cranley said. “I don't think business PACs ask their employees before they spend money on political campaigns.”
By the end of March, 53 percent of Mr. Chabot's campaign money had come form PACs — including substantial amounts from the health care industry, insurance companies and oil companies.
Mr. Chabot insisted the money does not influence how he votes.
“I think they give it to me because I support less government interference,” Mr. Chabot said. “I also oppose government subsidies for private businesses; and they disagree with me on that.”
In Mr. Chabot's previous campaigns for re-election, the anti-abortion congressman has faced opponents who supported abortion rights, but, in this campaign, he and Mr. Cranley are on the same side of the issue.
Sunday night, when the subject turned to the recent wild fluctuations in gasoline prices, Mr. Cranley said he supported administration and congressional investigations into the early summer gas hike, and he accused the incumbent of “saying not a word about the oil companies' role in this and whether or not there was collusion.” Mr. Chabot said the principle blame for high gas prices rested with the Clinton administration, “which has had no coherent energy policy,” and has placed substantial oil fields in Alaska and off the shores of the United States out of the reach of oil explorers.
The two candidates will next debate Aug. 29 at the Urban League headquarters in Avondale.
Last month, the two campaigns worked out ground rules for a schedule of one debate a month, starting in July — two months earlier than the scheduled debates between Mr. Chabot and Demo cratic challenger Roxanne Qualls two years ago.
Ms. Qualls, then Cincinnati's mayor, was considered the strongest possible candidate the Democrats could have fielded against Mr. Chabot, a former city councilman and county commissioner who was first elected to Congress in the 1994 Republican congressional landslide.
But Ms. Qualls came up short with 47 percent of the vote, losing by a four-to-one margin in heavily Republican Green Township, where Sunday's Chabot-Cranley Debate was held.
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