Kirk, Giannoulias Debate #2: Even More Personal
By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 20, 2010 1:00PM
Illinois Senate candidates Mark Kirk and Alexi Giannoulias squared off in the second of three scheduled debates last night on ABC7. Much like their "Meet the Press" debate last week, the focus was on personal ethics. Kirk once again answered why he embellished his military record, while Giannoulias reiterated that investigations into his family's Broadway Bank did nothing wrong in making loans to people who were later outed as reputed mobsters.
The debate wasn't as entertaining when Kirk and Giannoulias debated issues not related to personal integrity, as the two essentially maintained party lines on the stimulus program. Kirk, who voted for every Bush tax cut and budget that led to the stimulus in the first place, maintained the GOP party line that "the lasting legacy of the stimulus will be a near-trillion-dollar debt leveled on the financial future of our kids." Giannoulias repeated the Democrat line that the stimulus prevented a second Great Depression.
With Kirk and Giannoulias agreeing to disagree on political issues, expect the character attacks to escalate in the two weeks leading to the November 2 general election.