2nd District rivals tussle over health care, ads
In their opening debate Friday, the rival candidates for Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District seat watched blistering ads about themselves in front of their opponent and argued why the commercials don't hold up.
The ad watch provoked some of the sharpest exchanges between Democrat Angie Craig and Republican Jason Lewis in a half-hour debate on TPT's "Almanac" show. Also appearing was the Independence Party's Paula Overby, who has been invisible on the paid airwaves.
Craig critiqued a Republican group's commercial that said the former medical device executive would be "pushing to expand Obamacare even further" while standing behind industry tax exemptions.
"There are 100,000 jobs in Minnesota in the medical technology industry. You better bet I opposed a business tax that was going to cost Minnesota jobs and cost the Minnesota economy jobs," Craig said.
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She said scrapping the federal health law in whole would threaten insurance protections for women and young adults. Craig swiped at Lewis for promoting that strategy rather than trying to improve the law.
"He's with Donald Trump on a number of issues and that's of course where he is here. And that's where he is here. Repeal, repeal, repeal with absolutely no plan to actually replace," Craig said.
Lewis said the federal health law "experiment" is not working. He said he favors a system with more competition and fewer mandates.
"This is a disaster," Lewis said of the current health law setup.
Moderators also aired a Craig commercial, which used snippets from Lewis' conservative radio show of him making controversial remarks on women and slavery. Lewis said the comments have been pulled out of context.
"If Angie Craig is willing to mislead you here and now, she'll mislead you in Congress," Lewis said, adding, "I don't believe in this scorched-earth negative campaigning."
Overby, a quality assurance manager, voiced disgust with the millions of dollars outside groups are feeding into negative ads to tear down Lewis and Craig.
"Candidates aren't even running our process anymore," Overby said. "It's all indirect spending."
Next month's winner will replace seven-term Republican Rep. John Kline, who is retiring.
The next debate is set for next Thursday on Minnesota Public Radio.