MTP: Santorum v. Casey

NBC’s “Meet the Press” began its award-winning series of U.S. Senate debates Sunday. First up, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, and his challenger Bob Casey, the Democratic state treasurer.

I thought Santorum came off very well, particularly considering he is behind in recent polls (although gaining).

Santorum held strong on issues like Iraq and the war on terror. He was taking a lot of his language from the administration (“Islamic fascism”) but admitted the White House has not properly articulated to the American people why and how this war is so complex.

Casey did not seem to have many original ideas. His answers on social security fell short and the best he could do on the war is “new leadership.”

Missouri Sen. Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill will be on MTP on Sunday October 8. Two dynamics at play in this debate you won’t see in the McCaskill/Talent forum:

1. The war vote in Iraq: For any incumbent running for senate this year, they face questions about their October 2002 vote on the resolution to authorize military force against Iraq. Every senator will be asked, “Knowing what you know now, would you have voted differently?” Every incumbent except Sen. Talent. He was still a few weeks away from defeating then-Sen. Jean Carnahan (She voted yea) and taking office.
   Still, here’s what candidate Talent told the Post-Dispatch the day of the vote:

   
   The two questions I've had are not, Why do we want to remove Saddam Hussein? That was a perfectly correct thing for them to want to do. This guy is a huge organic threat and also a sponsor of terrorism. But why the urgency? Why now, as opposed to a year from now? And Tony Blair pretty much told us that they think he can get a nuclear weapon. And what I'm told is that all he needs is weapons grade plutonium, and there's a lot of that floating around. If he gets a nuclear weapon, he can put it on a scud missile and hit Tel Aviv. So I think that's a reason for the urgency.
   
   Another issue I have is how they can do it, because the Army is not as big and hasn't been funded as well as it should have been. But I've looked at the options and I'm convinced that they can do it and with no more risk than in Desert Storm.
   
   Then we try to do what we did in Afghanistan. We help midwife as reformist, modernist and democratic a successor regime as possible.
   
   Then here’s what Talent said during a debate in Columbia a week later:
   
   Favored resolution on Iraq but would prefer the United States first attempt to instigate insurgent takeover of the country.
   
   

2. Gender: By the end of the debate, you saw two men who have palpable animosity between them. Nicer than I’ve seen in other MTP debates, but still their “maleness” showed through. One would expect Talent/McCaskill to be different. Neither campaign or party has introduced any particularly nasty ads. I don’t take either of them for softies, but as Sen. Talent articulated last week, it’s a debate about choices.
   

Remember: the first Talent-McCaskill debate in Missouri is Monday, October 16 in the KY3 Studios.