Debate shows rivals ready to draw blood for 9th Congressional District

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The testy tone of the televised debate between three candidates for the Democratic nomination for the 9th Congressional District in Cleveland earlier this week revealed that whatever friendship there was between U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur isn’t going to stand in the way of them trying to win the election.

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And neither of the two veteran lawmakers can expect to be treated with any undue deference by upstart politician Graham Veysey of Cleveland.

All displayed a willingness to go for blood in the hour-long forum, which was taped for Time Warner Cable’s Northeast Ohio Network and its public affairs program In the Spotlight. It could not be viewed in Toledo.

However, a couple of Kaptur partisans thought she pulled her punches slightly.

The televised debate probably was seen by few in the western part of the 9th District because the cable channel serves primarily Cuyahoga and Lorain counties and part of Erie County.

This year’s primary contest for the 9th District is a rarity for Toledoans, who are used to seeing Miss Kaptur skate through the nomination process and occasionally face a serious contender from the GOP.

Voters are already casting early ballots in the election contest that wraps up on March 6.

The new district was drawn last year as part of the decennial redistricting. It reduced Ohio’s House delegation to 16 from 18 because of the state’s sluggish population growth in the 2010 Census. It has pitted colleagues Miss Kaptur and Mr. Kucinich against each other because both see the district as possible for them to win.

Veysey happy

Mr. Veysey, who may have been the most aggressive of the three candidates sitting at the table with moderator Bob Conklin during the Cleveland debate, said he was happy with his own performance.

He said he was shaking hands at the Ford assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, Tuesday morning and one worker said he saw the debate and thought Mr. Veysey did a great job. “So yes, people saw it,” Mr. Veysey said.

A video entrepreneur, Mr. Veysey quickly assembled a montage of what he considered his better moments on the debate and put it on YouTube and Facebook, where he added a comment, “I dominated yesterday in first televised debate in the new 9th district, check it out!”

Mr. Veysey found opportunities to attack both of his senior opponents. He said Toledo had earned the distinction of having the fastest rise of poverty in America last year from the U.S. Census while Miss Kaptur was its representative in Congress.

And he attacked Mr. Kucinich for meeting last year with Bashar Assad, the president of Syria who is under international condemnation for his violent put-down of a rebellion in that country.

However, Mr. Veysey had to apologize when he erroneously accused Mr. Kucinich of having gone to Libya to meet with former strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

To air 10 times

Miss Kaptur called the debate “a great opportunity to continue our efforts to get better acquainted with the people of the region who tuned in there.” She said she was told by Mr. Conklin that it would be aired 10 times.

“My effort was to at least let the voters know what I stand for,” Miss Kaptur said.

She said she was disappointed there wasn’t more discussion of the economy and adding jobs, and she said she would continue in the upcoming debates to try to make it clear that she is the candidate “who has been actually able to achieve real results across our region and frankly in our country.”

Mr. Kucinich declined to talk about the televised debate or how he did.

“I’m looking forward to the next debate, not looking back to the last one,” Mr. Kucinich said.

Wide-ranging sparring

The candidates sparred over a wide variety of subjects.

Miss Kaptur questioned Mr. Kucinich’s claims to have helped with steel-mill employment in Cleveland because, she said, the jobs were funded in a Pentagon budget bill that he opposed. Mr. Kucinich accused Miss Kaptur of failing to use her position of seniority on the House Appropriations Committee to stop $547 billion in funding for the war in Iraq.

Miss Kaptur also told Mr. Kucinich that he had announced funding for a new I-90 bridge in Cleveland but that the money hasn’t been allocated yet and had to come through her committee.

Throughout the combative exchanges, Mr. Kucinich referred to Miss Kaptur as “my friend from Toledo” and “the gentlelady from Toledo.”

Dennis Eckart, a former Cleveland-area congressman who supports Miss Kaptur, said Mr. Kucinich came across as a “cosmic visionary,” especially when he announced his support for a range of progressive ideals such as free college tuition, free health-care, and an end to wars, while Miss Kaptur was the “master mechanic” who knows how to get the job done.

“Marcy did come across as the librarian who tells the two noisy kids, ‘Sit down and be quiet and do your homework,’?” Mr. Eckart said.

‘Pretty good line’

But he said she needs to get more pointed in her remarks.

“She needs to say ‘Dennis Kucinich might be from Cleveland, but he has stopped long ago being for Cleveland,’? “ Mr. Eckart said.

Told later of Mr. Eckart’s suggestion, Miss Kaptur said, “that’s a pretty good line.”

Mr. Kucinich’s national reputation for opposition to the Iraq war and in support of the impeachments of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have won him the support of the national group Progressive Democrats of America, which is trying to raise money for him. Toledoan Mike Ferner. an anti-war activist who ran for mayor of Toledo in 1993, is a member of the organization supporting Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. Ferner said he didn’t see the debate. He said he’s supporting Mr. Kucinich for taking unpopular stands when it’s easier to support the status quo.

“I know standing up to conventional wisdom isn’t easy. But there’s one leader who’s always had the guts to call it for what it is, to ask the tough questions, to stand up for those who have no voice — Dennis Kucinich,” he said.

More debates set

Steve Fought, Miss Kaptur’s campaign manager, said he was “not unhappy” with the outcome.

“I thought Marcy had a couple of opportunities to put both of them away, but she wasn’t really trying to put them away. She’s still in the mode of trying to introduce herself to people, especially in Cleveland, and she got frustrated she wasn’t able to articulate her points,” Mr. Fought said.

The candidates are to meet Monday in front of the City Club of Cleveland and then that evening, from 6:15 to 7 p.m., on WTOL-TV, Channel 11, in Toledo for a debate that is co-sponsored by The Blade.

On Feb. 23, at 7:30 p.m., the candidates are to meet for a forum at the Bowling Green State University Firelands campus in Huron and sponsored by the Sandusky Register newspaper. On Feb. 24, WTVG-TV, Channel 13, of Toledo will host a live televised debate to take place from Woodward High School in Toledo, starting at 7 p.m. The candidates are to face off in a joint appearance on March 5 — the day before the election — in front of the Toledo Rotary Club.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face one of two Republican candidates in the November general election. Steven Kraus, a Huron, Ohio, auctioneer, is competing against Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher of Springfield Township for the GOP nomination.

Contact Tom Troy at: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058.