Meeting in their second debate, U.S. Senate candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and her GOP rival, Rep. Rick Lazio, on Sunday emphasized sharp contrasts in their positions, while Clinton grappled with sensitive questions about her personal and political differences with her husband, President Clinton.
The major political disagreement between the Clintons came on a foreign policy question on which she and Lazio were in accord. Both candidates strongly disapproved of the U.S. decision to abstain from voting Saturday on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the current violence in the Middle East and criticizing Israeli use of force, an issue of vital concern to New York’s large bloc of Jewish voters.
Clinton’s condemnation of the U.S. abstention put her, not for the first time, at odds with her husband’s administration, as she seeks to become the only sitting first lady to be elected to public office.
Later, Clinton, 52, also was asked why she had stayed with her husband after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Appearing slightly surprised, she answered calmly: “The choices that I’ve made in my life are right for me. I can’t talk about anybody else’s choices. I can only say mine are rooted in my religious faith, on my strong sense of family and in what I believe is right and important.”
Asked for his rebuttal, Lazio, 42, said: “I think this was Mrs. Clinton’s choice and I respect whatever choice that she makes. … This election is about the issues, about who can be most effective for New York.”
The four-term congressman from Long Island, whom voters in opinion polls had criticized as being overly aggressive in the first debate last month, refrained from personal attacks on Clinton throughout the nationally televised, one-hour showdown.
The opponents answered questions posed by a moderator and three panelists before an audience of 200 people, including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Lazio stepped in as the GOP Senate candidate in May following Giuliani’s withdrawal after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Since then, the contest has been extremely close, with Clinton holding a narrow lead in the most recent polls.
The candidates were decidedly more civil Sunday than they were in their September slugfest in Buffalo. During that debate, Lazio strode across the stage to Clinton’s lectern, brandishing a document banning so-called soft money, or unregulated contributions, from both campaigns and pushing her to sign it on the spot. Clinton refused to do so at that time, but two weeks ago the two campaigns agreed to ban spending for commercials on their behalf by anyone, such as a political party or advocacy group, except the campaigns.
On Friday, Lazio, who has made campaign finance reform a signature issue, announced that his campaign would reimburse the Republican National Committee for about $1.4 million that his campaign had used for television commercials since the deal was struck.
Clinton, who assured Lazio that she would not be visiting his lectern during the debate, lambasted him for accepting the party money. “Last month, Mr. Lazio said this was an issue of trust and character,” the first lady said. “He was right. And if New Yorkers can’t trust him to keep his word for 10 days, how can they trust him for six years?”
Lazio, who maintains that the money did not violate the agreement, bristled and swiftly returned fire. “Mrs. Clinton, please, no lectures from Motel 1600,” he said, alluding to the number of overnight visits by campaign contributors to the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
On the one issue on which they agreed, both blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the current violence in the Middle East and blasted the U.S. failure to veto the UN Mideast resolution.
“I believe we should have vetoed it. It was a wrong move not to have vetoed it,” said Clinton, breaking from the position of her husband’s administration. “The United States remains the guarantor of Israel’s security and in the Senate, I would certainly be a strong voice to do whatever was required.”
Lazio, equally adamant, said, “This sends all the wrong messages about whether we stand firmly behind our democratic ally in the Middle East. … My record is 100 percent consistency for security for the state of Israel and our alliance.”
For most of the debate, the candidates emphasized their differences, with Clinton taking the offensive more often than Lazio.
Echoing a constant theme of her campaign, Clinton sought to link Lazio with the conservative reign of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an unpopular figure in New York. “He voted with him time and time again,” Clinton said, making reference to the shutdown of the federal government during Gingrich’s tenure.
For his part, Lazio made repeated reference to his lifelong New York roots in an effort to portray Clinton as a carpetbagger. He said no New Yorker would have made the proposals that Clinton did in her failed 1993 universal health-care program. That program, he said, would have cost the state 75,000 jobs and threatened funding for its many teaching hospitals.
Lazio said he would work better than Clinton across party lines to build bipartisan coalitions. He also noted that New York has a three-decade history of having one senator from each of the two major parties. New York’s other senator, Charles Schumer, is a Democrat.
“I think it’s important for New Yorkers to have somebody who has a foot in the other party of influence,” Lazio said.
This signaled a change in strategy, according to Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
“He’s counterpunching,” Benjamin said. “He waited to be attacked and then responded. And he’s got a new theme: one of each, one Democrat and one Republican in the Senate. That’s a smart thing for him to do.”
When asked to define a New Yorker, Clinton pointed out that 40 percent of the state’s residents were born outside the country. “It is a place that I have always known welcomed everyone from everywhere,” she said with a smile, “including immigrants from Washington, D.C.”
The two candidates sparred on a variety of issues. He supports a ban on a form of late-term abortion; she would do so only if there were exceptions for situations threatening the health of the mother. He favors school vouchers; she opposes them. He opposes public financing for political campaigns; she said she could support it. He is behind a proposal to use taxpayer money to build a domed stadium in Manhattan that might lure back the Jets and Giants, the professional football teams that currently play in New Jersey; she would rather use the money for infrastructure needs, such as a new subway.
During the spin control session that has become a staple after political debates, both sides claimed victory.
“Rick Lazio spent a lot of time running from his record, running from his support of Newt Gingrich, running from the kind of votes that he took in Congress against the interests of New Yorkers,” said Clinton campaign manager Bill de Blasio.
Republican Gov. George Pataki countered that the first lady’s criticism of the U. S. abstention on the Security Council vote was a hypocritical political tactic.
“Mrs. Clinton on the one hand is claiming credit for what the Clinton administration has done well and yet trying to distance herself from the Clinton administration,” he said.
Mitchell Moss, director of New York University’s Urban Research Center, called the debate a draw.
“Nobody left this debate having turned the momentum, which is in her favor,” he said.
