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U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., lately keeping a low profile, has agreed to debate her Republican challenger, State Sen. Michael Baumgartner, at KCTS-TV on October 12.
It is the first debate to which Cantwell has agreed, and will be cosponsored by the public television station and the League of Women Voters. The debate will be telecast on public TV stations and made available to public radio stations in the state.
Baumgartner
Dan Bisbee, Baumgartner’s campaign manager, said the pending face o
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U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., lately keeping a low profile, has agreed to debate her Republican challenger, State Sen. Michael Baumgartner, at KCTS-TV on October 12.
It is the first debate to which Cantwell has agreed, and will be cosponsored by the public television station and the League of Women Voters. The debate will be telecast on public TV stations and made available to public radio stations in the state.
Baumgartner
Dan Bisbee, Baumgartner’s campaign manager, said the pending face off “sounds like a good opportunity” to display differences between the two-term U.S. Senator and the freshman State Senator from Spokane.
Cantwell has raised money and a $1 million-plus-per quarter rate over the past two years, and has been visible mainly in her TV spots. She is heavily favored for reelection, and has published few schedules listing where she will be and what she is doing. The state’s press has not called her on this.
She rolled up a handsome margin in the August 7 primary, and even carried both Spokane County and Baumgartner’s legislative district.
The debate provides an opportunity for voters to become acquainted with the challenger. Baumgartner is a Pullman native, has a masters degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
He has been in harm’s way the past decade. Baumgartner was an economics officer at the U.S. embassy in Iraq, and later served as an adviser to an Afghan counter narcotics team in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.
Baumgartner won election to the Legislature in 2010 by defeating Democratic State Sen. Chris Marr. He has proven somewhat moderate on environmental policy but a social conservative.
He has voiced frustration at the media’s failure to cover the war in Afghanistan.
Cantwell is the first Washington senator in 75 years to serve on the Senate Finance Committee. She was a tough advocate and architect of Wall Street reform legislation. She has championed the idea that the U.S. and China, as the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases, should cooperate in development of clean energy.
Lately, Cantwell has been a vocal fisheries advocate and opponent of a huge proposed open pit mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, the world’s most productive salmon fishery.
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