DLF challenger Jim Graves and Rep. Michele Bachmann from their first debate on Oct. 30 in St. Cloud.
Throughout the 6th District Congressional race, the battle on the airwaves and on the ground has been about what, exactly, each of these candidates stands for.
Republican incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann has pitched herself as an independent voice for fiscal sanity in Washington, D.C., while casting Democratic opponent Jim Graves as a big spending Nancy Pelosi disciple. Graves, meanwhile, says he’ll govern has a moderate and work to grow consensus in D.C., something he says Bachmann is incapable of doing.
Over the last week, the pair had three chances to elaborate face to face.
Bachmann and Graves spent two and a half hours debating three times over the last week, a last-second chance for both to try winning over whatever swing voters might be left in the 6th District.
The two covered a fairly wide swath of ground, so here’s a recap of what came up in the three debates, sponsored by the St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce (on Tuesday), Minnesota Public Radio (Thursday) and KSTP (Sunday) in the week before Election Day.
The Stillwater bridge
A good chunk of the first debate was spent discussing Bachmann’s signature legislative accomplishment of the last Congress: securing (along with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar) federal approval of a new $700 million bridge over the St. Croix River in Stillwater. Bachmann said the bridge was one of the 6th District’s constituents’ biggest needs. Graves, however, said he would have voted against the bridge because of its inflated price tag; Bachmann blamed it on delays forced by concerns raised by environmental groups.
“I think a Chevrolet would have done just fine,” Graves said. “I would not have voted for that. I would have not built the Rolls-Royce that’s being built over there.”
(For what it’s worth, Stillwater is no longer in the 6th District — redistricting moved it into the 4th District.)
Health-care reform
Bachmann reaffirmed her long-standing opposition to the Affordable Care Act, objecting to its mandates for coverage, increased taxes and overall expansion of government bureaucracy. Her alternative: repealing the law and allowing individuals to purchase health insurance plans across state lines.
“I saw ahead to how negatively this bill would affect the economy, how it would kill jobs, and that’s why I fought against it, and that’s why I embrace free markets in health care,” she said.
Graves said he found the law lacking, but supported it generally when compared to Republican alternatives. He said he supported several components of the law — the insurance exchanges, the end of the pre-existing condition ban and the ability for people to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until they turn 26 — but would vote for a different bill if it dealt with bringing down the cost of health care. He objected to Bachmann’s campaign ads that he said improperly characterized his support for the law.
“Michele, could you read my lips, please?” he said during the first debate. “I said there are some good things in the bill, but the heavy lifting hasn’t begun.”
Tax and spending provisions
On entitlement spending, Bachmann backed the House GOP budget plan to transition Medicare into a premium support system for people under 55. To balance the budget, she opposed new taxes and called for lower spending, while hitting Graves for supporting plans that bring with them new taxes — for example, the so-called Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan that closes tax loopholes, and when he called for ending the $100,000 cap on Social Security contributions.
“I think we’re taxed enough already,” she said during the St. Cloud debate. “I don’t want to increase taxes, I think that’s a clear line of distinction.”
Graves, meanwhile, tried tacking to the middle. While he said he opposed the GOP budget plan, like nearly every Democrat does, he called for means-testing Medicare, agreed with Bachmann on lowering the corporate tax rate, and called President Obama’s proposed “Buffett Rule,” a tax increase on millionaires, “class warfare.”
Financial collapse legislation
Graves sided with Obama on all the pieces of legislation enacted in response to the 2008 financial collapse: the Wall Street bailout, the automakers bailout and the stimulus legislation. Bachmann voted against the plans in 2008 and 2009, and said during the debates that the government will never recoup some of the bailout funds.
Graves’ take: “If we would have let the entire financial industry collapse, like Michele Bachmann wanted, you could not have taken your credit card and gone down and bought groceries at the grocery store. Everything would have frozen up, the largest economy in the world would have froze up.”
Abortion
Bachmann’s staunchly pro-life stance is well-established, but she faced a steady line of questioning on the issue on Minnesota Public Radio.
She said she opposed abortion in all instances except when the mother’s life is in danger, saying her support for life from “conception to natural death” tracked with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Bachmann defended her support for a personhood amendment to the Constitution, as well a bill she introduced to make women listen to the heartbeat of a fetus before receiving an abortion.
Graves, meanwhile, took a pro-choice approach, saying the decision to have an abortion is “between their family and their God.”
Muslim Brotherhood, threat of terrorism
In June, Bachmann sent letters to several government agencies asking them to investigate the threat of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the U.S. government. High-ranking Republicans like John McCain and John Boehner panned the accusations, but Bachmann defended them on KSTP on Sunday.
“I certainly do stand by those letters because what we know is that terrorism continues to remain a very real threat in the United States,” she said. “The Muslim Brotherhood is a violent organization and there is a spill-over effect between these various violent militia groups.”
Graves, as he did over the summer, criticized the statement.
“There is nothing more important in this country than [for] the federal government to protect its people,” he said. “But we don’t need to polarize, we don’t need to antagonize, we don’t need to throw mud, especially when it’s uncalled for.”
Expectation-setting for Tuesday
The Bachmann and Graves campaigns have noticeably different expectations for Tuesday night. Chase Kroll, Bachmann’s campaign manager, said straight up: “I think we’re going to win, I think it’s going to be a solid victory.”
Bachmann’s people are right to be confident: Public polling generally gives Bachmann a good-sized lead in the race. Bachmann has outspent Graves, by his count, by 12-to-1, and nearly every voter in the district knows who she is. And after redistricting, the 6th District is the most Republican-leaning district in the state.
For his part, Graves said his campaign has some benchmarks it needs to hit to pull an upset victory:
- Two weeks ago, internal polls showed 68 percent name ID for Graves. After the debates, Graves said he thinks that number will jump to about 80 percent on Election Day, which is around where the campaign wants it.
- Graves wants to pull about 7 or 8 percent of Republicans, and touts the endorsement of former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson (who has long been endorsing Democratic candidates and causes).
- And Graves disputes the public polls as undercounting voters who don’t use landline telephones — he polls well with younger voters, who tend to use only wireless phones, and he’s working to build turnout among those voters, appearing in St. Cloud last weekend with high-profile surrogates (including former President Bill Clinton on Sunday night).
“The best-case scenario is the people would elect me,” Graves said in a Saturday interview. “If the people decide otherwise, I respect that as well.”
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry