Centre Daily Times - "Candidates Square Off"

News Article

Centre Daily Times - "Candidates Square Off"

Three Democratic and seven Republican candidates for Congress underwent their edgiest forum yet Wednesday night, at times disagreeing with one another and at other times with the assumptions of questions posed to them.

The League of Women Voters forum at the State College Municipal Building first questioned all three Democratic candidates for the 5th Congressional District on the April 22 primary election ballot, and then seven of the nine Republican rivals.

Asked his position on the use of torture to extract information from U.S. enemies, Baptist Pastor Keith Richardson, of Clarion, said he disagreed with the question's premise that the U.S. administration agrees to torture.

"We don't support torture," he said. "We're a humane and good and just society."

Howard Township Republican health care professional Glenn Thompson agreed.

"U.S. policy is not to engage in torture," he said.

The faltering economy dominated discussion, with the Republicans dividing over whether they supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the accord that eliminated most tariffs between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Richardson, Thompson, and State College developer Matt Shaner said they supported NAFTA pretty much as is.

With tariffs, Shaner said, the price of goods will go up much higher.

"Free trade is uplifting a lot of the world," he said.

But Lycoming County businessman Jeff Stroehmann said the United States should "go back and fix" NAFTA because it is especially challenging to rural communities in the district that have been dependent on a limited number of blue-collar industries.

And Clearfield County financial consultant Derek Walker said NAFTA's impact on the district will worsen.

"That has hit our area hard," he said. "The jobs aren't here."

The Democrats were similarly asked how to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States. Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello said trade agreements should be renegotiated to hold companies to the same standards and Clearfield County Commissioner Mark McCracken said corporate executives need to think less about profits and more about the jobs of their workers.

Bill Cahir, of Bellefonte, said new trade agreements should ensure that foreign workers can organize to negotiate better wages. He said he would eliminate tax breaks for companies that take their jobs overseas.

"If Pennsylvania workers get a level playing field, they will outwork other workers every time," he said.

Everybody got some form of a question about when the United States should leave Iraq. Republicans agreed, in varying strength, that the United States should stay until it gets results.

Shaner said the surge is working and "everyone agrees" there's progress on the ground. Stroehmann said that "we're better than we ever were," and Elk County Coroner Lou Radkowski said the United States has already achieved a partial victory in "getting rid of Saddam Hussein."

Former Centre County Commissioner Chris Exarchos said the United States, "rightly or wrongly," toppled a government and disbanded its armed forces.

"We should not get out until we've put the country in some semblance of order," he said.

Among the Democrats, Vilello called for an "immediate withdrawal" and an end to the surge. McCracken said the next president should bring U.S. allies back together to forge a diplomatic end to the war "as quickly as possible."

Cahir, a two-tour Marine Iraq war veteran with "boots-on-the-ground experience," said the U.S. withdrawal should be phased with no rigid timetable with stability as a goal.

The night had a laugh or two, especially when Richardson capitalized on the general knowledge that Shaner has spent $1.2 million of his own money on the campaign so far.

Richardson pulled out a small copy of the Constitution from one breast pocket of his suit and said he had done the same thing at an earlier forum. Then he pulled out a checkbook from the other breast pocket to make his punchline vivid.

"I almost made the mistake of reaching into my other pocket and pulling out my checkbook," he said. "Then I realized that was the other candidates."

An audience member at the forum, Anne Ard, executive director of the Centre County Women's Resource Center, said after the forum that she had learned a lot.

"What struck me most of all," she said, "is what a complicated job it is because you have to know so many things."

Source