Kerry and Edwards Clash in Last Debate Before Key Votes
By KIRK SEMPLE - NYT
Senators John Kerry and John Edwards clashed over trade and experience, and grappled with such touchstone election issues as gay marriage and foreign policy in a rollicking debate in New York today, two days before the single biggest day of primary voting in the Democratic nomination contest.
The most feisty exchange came over the issue of trade. Mr. Kerry, as he has done in recent weeks, insisted that the two candidates have largely similar positions on the matter and that he has a long record that shows he has, as he said today, "consistently fought to put in the trade agreements enforceable measures that allow us to stand up and fight for workers."
But Mr. Edwards said his opponent's voting record reflected a candidate in favor of the kinds of international free trade agreements that Mr. Edwards says he opposes. He also ridiculed Mr. Kerry's promise to set up a commission that would review all trade agreements once he takes office. "What you're going to say to a family that's lost their job because of bad trade agreements is, `Don't worry, we've got a Washington committee that's studying this for you,' " Mr. Edwards said.
Mr. Kerry, in turn, said Mr. Edwards had only a short and recent record of being a protectionist. "He's talked more in the last five weeks about trade than he has in the entire five years" he has been in Congress, Mr. Kerry said of Mr. Edwards.
Mr. Edwards, who is in his first term as senator from North Carolina, also tried to draw a distinction between the candidates' approaches to dealing with the problems of ordinary Americans. He has often emphasized his background as the son of a millworker and accused Mr. Kerry of being a Washington insider detached from the travails of ordinary Americans.
Mr. Edwards said a central issue in the campaign was whether the United States will "get change that originates in Washington or change that has to come from out here in the real world."
"Do you believe we're going to change this country out of Washington, D.C.?" he asked Mr. Kerry, who is in his fourth term representing Massachusetts.
Mr. Kerry, taking Mr. Edwards's question literally, responded, "Yes, because that's where the Congress of the United States is, and that's where 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is. And the answer is, we're going to need a president who has the experience and the proven ability — proven ability — to be able to stand up and take on tough fights."
Then he added: "Last time I looked, John ran for the United States Senate, and he's been in the Senate for the last five years. That seems to me to be Washington, D.C."
The hourlong debate, which also included the other two remaining Democratic candidates, Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and the Rev. Al Sharpton, was considerably more boisterous than many of the other debates and forums that have populated this year's campaign calendar.
Mr. Edwards, in particular, was more aggressive than usual, perhaps in part because of his desire to cut into what many Democrats see as Mr. Kerry's powerful lead after winning 18 of 20 contests so far. In striking contrast to his usual sunny disposition on the campaign trail, Mr. Edwards went after Mr. Kerry at several points, once accusing him of "the same old Washington talk that people have been listening to for decades."
On Tuesday, voters in 10 states — including delegate-rich California, Ohio and New York — will go to the polls. Mr. Kerry now has 562 of the 2,162 delegates needed to win the Democratic presidential nomination, compared with 204 for Mr. Edwards. That disparity has fed optimism in the Kerry campaign that the lead is nearly insurmountable, and led Mr. Kerry to largely ignore his main rival and focus his attacks on President Bush as if he were already in the autumn race.
But Mr. Edwards said today that he would continue to run even if he won none of the 10 contests on Tuesday.
Asked by the moderator, Dan Rather, whether he was "pretty much playing for vice president," Mr. Edwards responded: "Oh, no. Oh, no, no. Far from it."
But even while they tried to describe their differences in their effort to cast themselves as the best candidate to oppose President Bush in November, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards at times ended up sounding very similar themes.
They both agreed that the Bush administration had demonstrated a flawed foreign policy regarding Haiti, where President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned today amid an armed rebellion. Mr. Kerry said the administration had "empowered" the insurgents by allowing them to veto an internationally drafted power-sharing agreement. Mr. Edwards, meanwhile, said President Bush had "ignored Haiti the same way he's ignored most of the countries in this hemisphere."
Mr. Edwards went on to say: "I think it is true that, at its best, for the president and the administration, this has been neglect. In other words, they've paid no attention, they haven't been engaged. At its worst, they have actually facilitated the ouster of Aristide."
Both of the candidates deflected direct questions about their opposition to gay marriages, saying they supported civil unions and equal rights for same-sex couples.
They also sidestepped a line of questioning about whether they were liberal, saying political labels were irrelevant.
Mr. Edwards said the American voters did not care about labels. "What they care about is: What are you values, where you come from, what do you believe in, and who are you fighting for," he said.
Mr. Kerry even tried to show how labels commonly attached to President Bush were misleading. "Is this president a legitimate Republican or conservative?" he asked. "Because there's nothing conservative about driving deficits up as far as the eye can see. There's nothing conservative about trampling on the line of division between church and state in America. There is nothing conservative about letting your attorney general trample on civil liberties and civil rights, and be twice cited by his own inspector general for doing so. This administration is extreme. And I believe we're offering America mainstream American values."
Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry agreed that military action against North Korea had to remain an option and said Israel had a right to secure its borders with a barrier.
The debate was sponsored by The New York Times and CBS News and held at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. The event, which followed a free-flowing format and was marked by many interruptions by questioners and candidates alike, only glanced at, or altogether ignored, several major domestic issues including education, abortion and the death penalty.
In one of the only exchanges involving the economy, Mr. Edwards asserted that Mr. Kerry's policies would run the country "deeper and deeper into deficit," a comment that provoked Mr. Kerry to suggest that Mr. Edwards "do his homework." Mr. Kerry insisted that he had a solid plan to reduce the deficit and spur the country's economy.
Early in the debate, after the questioners mostly focused on Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards, Mr. Sharpton protested that neither he nor Mr. Kucinich were being accorded the debate time they deserved.
Addressing Elisabeth Bumiller, one of the questioners, he said, "If we're going to have a discussion just between two, in your arrogance, you can try that, but that's one reason we're going to have delegates, so that you can't just limit the discussion. And I think your attempts to do this is blatant, and I'm going to call you out on it, because I'm not going to sit here and be window dressing."
Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic Party, said he hoped to have a presumptive nominee soon to enable the party to counter a large advertising campaign that President Bush's re-election campaign plans to launch on Thursday.
"We need, at some point, to be unified," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Mr. Edwards today received the endorsement of The Cincinnati Enquirer, one of Ohio's leading newspaper, while Mr. Kerry was endorsed by four newspapers in New York: The Buffalo News, The New York Daily News, Newsday and The Times Union of Albany.
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