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Todd Friedman | Phoenix Staff

Candidates for representation of the 7th Congressional District, incumbent Democrat Joe Sestak and Republican Craig Williams fielded questions from Barbara Dietrich, debate moderator and president of the Philadelphia League of Women Voters.

BY JEFF DAVIDSON

In print | Published October 30, 2008

On Wednesday, Swarthmore hosted a debate between the two candidates currently vying for representation of the 7th Congressional District in the U.S. Congress. With the Nov. 4 election day rapidly approaching, incumbent Democrat Congressman Joe Sestak took to the stage in a spirited war of words against Republican Craig Williams. This event, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Delaware County, began with three-minute opening remarks by the candidates at 10 a.m. followed by nearly an hour and a half of questions and concluded with closing statements at 12 p.m.

The debate proceeded according to the town hall format that has been widely employed by congressional as well as presidential candidates this fall with one exception: the moderator read all of the questions instead of the audience. Before the actual event, members of the audience submitted written questions to the League, which then conveyed them to debate moderator and president of the League of Women Voters of Philadelphia Barbara Dietrich. The League of Women Voters subsequently evaluated the questions and selected those deemed most suitable for Wednesday’s event.

After the introductions of the two candidates, Sestak began with his opening statement.
“Complex, challenging issues certainly confront us, and it’s nice to have a comprehensive debate forum,” Sestak said. “And Craig, thanks for being here for a bipartisan debate.”

Throughout the debate, both candidates stressed the importance of bipartisan cooperation in Congress. They delved deep into issues ranging from the economy to healthcare and even addressed the role of the United Nations. Williams questioned the accuracy of Sestak’s statistics pertaining to the number of Americans who lack healthcare coverage, while Sestak disagreed with offshore drilling, which is one of the central pillars of Williams’s campaign platform.

The topic of the Iraq War and a possible Iran War also brought up a heated discussion.

“We are going to win this war and come home with honor and dignity,” Williams said. He later added that “now is a time to be on the offensive with Iran. Now is a time to get tougher on economic sanctions.” Afterwards, Sestak noted the current overextension of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan and warned against the hazard of imposing further strains on the troops by deploying them elsewhere.

Every question besides the last prompted a rebuttal by the opposing candidate. Beyond the alloted 30 seconds though, the candidates were not able to respond further to statements made by their opponent. In a post-debate interview, the candidates discussed their opinions on the debate format.
“I thought the format was very nice, but it was hard to get into a great deal of detail because there wasn’t much back and forth,” Williams said in an interview. “Nevertheless, I think it gave the people a good thumbnail of the differences between me and Joe Sestak.”

With four minutes to answer each question, the debate was strongly based upon in-depth answers instead of full-on arguing.

“I think that this form [of debate] without question provided an opportunity for a substantive and a fairly in-depth discussion far more than any debate I’ve seen so far [for Congress],” Sestak said in an interview. “Usually it’s an hour with 45 seconds to a minute for answers. Without a question, this gave me a great chance to outline my views.”

Although the crowd was told repeatedly that clapping, cheering and others attempts to interact with the candidates during the debate were unacceptable, the audience violated these ground rules on two occasions. First, Sestak attacked his opponent with the accusation that Exxon Mobil financed Williams’s trip to Alaska for research on energy. Williams fired back with a curt rebuttal.

“Yeah nice try … but I paid every nickel on that trip as did the other six congressional candidates,” Williams said. “The power, the oil, the natural gas, the coal of this country belongs to us. The only people standing in our way are liberals in the United States Congress. It belongs to you and me and we [have a right] to go explore that.”

The clapping and cheering that ensued were quickly suppressed by the moderator.

When later asked what Congress can do to effectively limit the power of the imperial president, Williams responded by stating, “I’m not sure if we’ve got one.” To this the crowd erupted in laughter, at which point Sestak stepped in to say that this response was inappropriate.

Other than these two instances, the crowd remained quiet and there were few interruptions. After the debate ended, the candidates stayed to talk with anyone who wanted to give their say. According to Dietrich, after all of the preparations, the debate ran smoothly.

“I think they did well,” Dietrich said. “They respected the time frames because there were limitations. They addressed the questions in a straightforward way.”

Before the debate began and the camera started rolling, some members of the crowd expressed a concern about the bias that might result from holding the event at such a strikingly liberal location.
“How did the League of Women Voters choose such a neutral site?” a crowd member sarcastically asked, standing up to make himself heard. When the crowd laughed and Dietrich did not present a direct answer, he asked, “So you won’t answer?”

Although the debate took place on the predominantly politically liberal campus, the crowd that filled up LPAC Cinema consisted mainly of local citizens and very few students. Many people boasted their favorite presidential candidate, with both McCain and Obama receiving attention.

This debate, planned in September, marks only the third debate for the 7th District U.S. Congress position in the last decade. Before the two one-hour debates held for the 2006 term, the candidates did not have any formal debates. This debate stands as one of the final campaigning opportunities before the Nov. 4 election.

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