I realize many of you have no love for Hillary Clinton, but in the end we are all good Demcorats, and as such we LOVE when Republicans eat their own. Therefore, if any of you missed yesterday's debate between the two Republicans running to oppose Hillary Clinton, sit back and enjoy some highlights.
The fun started right from the first question from moderator Dominic Carter, which asked whether a candidate's personal life should be off-limits. Well, that opened an overstuffed can of worms for both candidates.
Let's start with the personal life of John Spencer, former mayor of Yonkers:
While married to another woman, Spencer fathered two children with his then-chief of staff and substantially raised her salary. He eventually divorced his first wife and married his chief of staff.
Whoa, Nelly! Talk about family values!
So what did K.T. McFarland, a former Ronald Reagan-era Pentagon official, have to say:
"That's something that, in 1998, the Republican Party impeached President Clinton for exactly the same behavior," McFarland said to gasps from the audience. "If you'd been in the military, you would have been court-martialed. If you worked in the federal government, you would have been subject to indictment."
OUCH!
But Spencer wouldn't be caught with his pants down, so speak:
"You have no way of knowing my private life," he said. "I say to you, Mrs. McFarland, shame on you. Shame on you as a mother of children and a woman yourself for talking about my wife and my family that way..."
"She's insulted my wife, she's insulted my children, she's insulted my military record, criticized my service in Vietnam," Mr. Spencer complained when he was asked about the tenor of the race. "I do not think that my personal life, or Mrs. McFarland's personal life, or problems that she may be having, are part of the dialogue that the state and the people of New York care about, or the nation."
To which McFarland responded:
"You brought up your wife, and I must tell you that that's not a personal issue," she said. "That's a professional issue. Because when you were mayor of Yonkers, you had an affair with your secretary while you were married to somebody else. You tripled her salary and made her your chief of staff. You were living with her. You doubled your own personal income. You got financial gain from that. And you had two children."
Later in the debate, after McFarland accused Spencer of not only raising taxes but employing numerous relatives on Yonkers payrolls, she got off the night's most memorable line:
"John, you are like the Clintons," she said. "You taxed and spent like Hillary and behaved like Bill."
Moderator Carter didn't want all the juicy family gossip to come from Spencer, so he asked McFarland whether disclosures of her messy past would have any bearing on her ability to serve. For those unfamiliar with McFarland's hectic family life, New York magazine had delved into it:
The eldest of four, KT had a brother here in New York City who had followed her to George Washington University and then worked as an analyst. "Ummmm. He was sick and then he died," is all she would say when pressed. Michael Troia had aids (sic); his obituary listed three "companions."
KT, the moderate in this race, couldn't abide his sexual orientation. Shortly after she discovered Mike had aids (sic), she wrote her parents lengthy, angry, almost Gothic letters in which she outed her brother, blamed her father for his troubles as well as those of her and her other siblings, and cut off contact with her parents. "Have you ever wondered why I have never had anything to do with Mike and have never let my daughters see him although we live only fifteen minutes away from each other?" she wrote. "He has been a lifelong homosexual, most of his relationships brief, fleeting one-night stands." The father's behavior had surfaced for McFarland as recovered memory. She said a shrink put her up to writing the letter; reached for comment, her mother, Edith Troia--KT has since made up with her parents--denied the account. "Wouldn't that make a great book?" she said. "Please be kind. You could be casting dark shadows on this whole race."
Unfortunately -- or perhaps fortunately, since this all seems quite unseemly -- Carter couldn't get much from McFarland:
"That was 50 years ago. I've addressed it. I have nothing further to add," McFarland said.
And Spencer himself showed some reserve, even class when asked to comment about McFarland's personal life:
Then came the night's one peaceful moment. Mr. Spencer had nothing to say either, except, " I wish her well, and guess what, at night I'll say a prayer for her."
Ms. McFarland said, "And for that I thank you."
Well, New York's political chattering classes sure had fun with this debate:
"This was more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon than a Senate debate," said Blake Zeff, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party...
"I don't think that anyone expected this to devolve into a cross between `Dr. Phil' and `Days of Our Lives,' " said Nelson Warfield, a Republican strategist working for the state's Conservative Party, which is backing Mr. Spencer.
Oh, did they talk about issues that matter to New Yorkers? Probably, but no one can remember. It seemed that every article I found highlighted all the points I gave you and made just passing mention of any substance.