Despite threatening to make himself scarce during tonight's debate, Austrian economics groupie Rand Paul has decided to show up at tonight's final televised debate his campaign against Jack Conway in Kentucky's U.S. Senate contest.
You can watch it live at KET.org (req. Microsoft Silverlight) or C-SPAN (req. Adobe Flash or watch it on TV) and join us here for the liveblogging action.
Help keep Rand Paul out of the U.S. Senate -- support send $5 or $10 Jack Conway's way.
:::
Update: Still waiting for the debate to get under way, but I don't think think Rand Paul will be able to get away with not shaking Jack Conway's hand at the end of this debate. Though I wouldn't put it past him to spit in it first.
Update: C-SPAN just noted the most recent Mason-Dixon poll showed a close race, with Paul narrowly leading Conway 48-43.
Update: The candidates are seated in comfortable arm chairs in front of a coffee table -- a warm setting. There doesn't appear to be an audience. The first question asks each candidate to make the positive case for their campaigns. Edit: The host is Bill Goodman of Lexington, Kentucky's KET public television.
Update: Conway starts out describing his family's long history in Kentucky. Rand Paul says he grew up in a small town and decided to move to Kentucky in his adulthood because he liked living in a small town as a kid. He also says he likes living in Bowling Green because it's university town.
Update: Candidates are asked to name their first great teacher. Rand Paul mentions Mrs. Ducet who helped him learn to read, but I'm not sure if he said she was his first "great" teacher or first "grade" teacher. Conway talks about a teacher named John Price who inspired him to live up to his potential.
Update: Question for each candidate is what their top priority would be. Paul says jobs and the recession would be his top priority and he'd address it by cutting taxes and reducing the size of the federal government, attacking Wall Street and health care reform. Paul says he thinks the federal government is the biggest threat to the economy. Conway says jobs are also his top priority. He says he'd offer a tax incentives to businesses to hire new workers and expand access to loans for small businesses and that he'd pay for his plan by shutting corporate tax loopholes.
Update: Rand Paul says Conway's plan is a bad idea because it doesn't include repealing either health care or Wall Street reform. Conway says Paul doesn't understand the facts and that in the wake of the bailouts, we need prudent regulation to reign in Wall Street's activities. Rand Paul doesn't address Conway's retort and instead talks about the stimulus, saying once again that he believes that the federal government is the cause of all our economic problems. The moderator says the stimulus has created some jobs and asks about the argument that the stimulus should have been bigger. Rand Paul says he thinks we'd be in better shape today if the stimulus hadn't been enacted and we'd just done nothing. The moderator then challenges Conway's tax credit proposal. Conway says Moody's has reviewed the ideas in his proposal that it would work. Paul interrupts Conway for supporting "government run amok" because there was some waste in the stimulus plan. The debate enters a short break.
Update: Next up: TARP. Conway says it wasn't effective because it didn't have enough accountability. Paul says it was "absolutely" a failure, though he concedes Republicans initially supported the bailout. Paul says it would have been better to allow companies like AIG to enter bankruptcy, but instead, he says, it became a slush fund for Goldman Sachs executives. Paul says any remaining TARP funds should be returned the treasury to reduce deficit. Paul opposes using any of those funds to help people stuck with bad mortgages. He acknowledges that his plan will cause people to lose their homes, but says it would be a tragedy to help save their homes. Paul says the housing crisis was created by the government, blaming Barney Frank. Conway disputes Paul's indifference to the plight of people about to lose their home, and points to unscrupulous actions by lenders like Countrywide. He says he believes there needs to be stronger consumer protections from such lenders.
Update: The debate shifts to foreign policy. Conway expresses concern about Pakistan and Iran, particularly on the question of nuclear proliferation. Paul offers a bizarre monologue on his standards for going to war, but eventually gets around to the question of Afghanistan and suggests (without explicitly saying so) that we should end the war. On Iran, he says he is against them getting nuclear weapons.
Update: A caller asks Rand Paul why he keeps on switching his views on things like Social Security and civil rights, both of which he opposed before his positions became a political liability. Rand Paul doesn't answer the question. The moderator asks him to clarify his old views. Rand Paul says his his views have been mischaracterized and that Conway has been lying about his views. Conway steps in and calls bullshit on Paul, pointing to his statements against the lunch counter provisions of the civil rights act, his characterization of Social Security as a "ponzi scheme", and his opposition to the ADA. The moderator asks Paul whether he believes Social Security is a ponzi scheme. Rand Paul doesn't directly answer, but cites bogus statistics claiming that we're on a path to having only one worker per Social Security recipient. On the civil rights question, Paul claims Conway was lying about his statements on the lunch counter provision of the civil rights act. Conway tells viewers they can go and watch the video and decide for themselves, but that it was clear Paul said he'd have voted against the provision if he'd been in the U.S. Senate.
Update: This one stunned me. Rand Paul says Conway is lying when Conway says Rand Paul is against the Americans with Disabilities Act. That's complete bullshit.
Update: On the topic of health care reform, Conway says he wants to mend it, not end it, and slams Paul for wanting to repeal it while proposing a $2,000 Medicare deductible. What would Conway fix about reform? He points to things like barring Medicare from negotiating for lower drug pricing. If that were lifted, he says $200 billion could be saved. Rand Paul is asked if there is anything in the bill that he supports. He doesn't answer the question, instead talking about Medicare deductible, claiming that it's Conway, not him, who supports higher Medicare deductibles. He also claims that reform will cut $500 billion in benefits to seniors. Paul says President Obama is the most anti-business President in history. (I guess that stands in contrast to Bush under whose leadership the Dow lost value over the course of eight years.)
Update: In response to questions about his plan to raise Medicare deductibles, Rand Paul says Obama is a disaster and is bankrupting the country. Then he says Conway lied. Then when Conway points out that Paul did say the things that he claimed, then Paul says well, Conway is oversimplifying what I said. Speaking of oversimplifying, Paul says the only form of stimulus that has ever worked is reducing taxes.
Update: Question is about abortion. Paul says he is 100% pro-life and supports a Human Life amendment to Constitution. Conway says he supports restrictions like parental notification, but that he believes it should safe, legal, and rare.
Update: Conway comes out in favor of expanding programs like Pell Grants that help families afford college education. Paul slams federal intervention in primary education like No College Left Behind. He says he wouldn't cut Pell Grants or student loans. (Isn't it funny how Rand Paul hasn't identified a single program he'd actually cut despite claiming that his number one agenda would be reducing federal spending?)
Update: On energy legislation, Paul says Cap & Trade would be a disaster for Kentucky, and accuses Conway of flip-flopping. Conway says he also opposes Cap & Trade and that it's false to suggest otherwise.
Update: Again Social Security and Medicare, Rand Paul says he opposes doing anything that would reduce benefits for current beneficiaries but that we need to make tough decisions in the future. Conway in his strongest moment of the debate says that any plan to privatize Social Security like the ones that Paul proposes are fundamentally wrong because Social Security is designed to keep seniors from starving to death in poverty.
Update: Rand Paul, in his craziest moment of the debate, says the Kentucky politician he admires most is Jim Bunning. Why? Because Bunning was willing to take to the floor and block Senate action on an unspecified spending bill. Of course, the bill that he failed to specify was one providing unemployment benefits to workers in Kentucky. So Rand Paul is basically saying the thing he admires most in Kentucky political history is when Jim Bunning stood up to deny unemployed Kentuckians any assistance during the recession. And with that heartless thought from Rand Paul, the debate concludes.