Michaud, Raye debate taxes, war, prescription drugs

BANGOR – Round 2 between congressional rivals Mike Michaud and Kevin Raye had both candidates refining their messages as well as their responses to their opponent’s expected attacks.

After debating just two days ago, Raye, the GOP nominee, and Michaud, the Democratic contender, came to the WLBZ-2 studios Monday armed with legal pads of notes and ready to field questions on the campaign’s persistent issues – war, prescription drugs, Social Security and abortion rights.

The debate will air at 8 tonight on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6 in Portland.

Taped while President Bush outlined his case to the nation for a possible strike against Iraq, the debate quickly wound its way to the subject.

“I think it’s very important to continue to lay out the case to the Congress and the American people and then to the world about the situation we face,” Raye said. “I think so far [Bush] has done that.”

Michaud – whose Sunday rally in Lewiston with House minority leader Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., was disrupted by anti-war protesters – was less convinced.

“I don’t think that back here in the U.S. there is a real threat of more terrorism happening,” said Michaud, who cautioned against a first strike lest a vulnerable Israel be put at risk. “I don’t want to push Saddam Hussein to a wall that he will react sooner than he was originally going to do.”

The Iraq question was among the least contentious for the congressional rivals, both of whom look to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, who is running for governor.

At the outset of Monday’s debate, Raye resumed his criticism of Michaud’s 1999 vote to impose a tax on high-income Social Security recipients. Gov. King vetoed the bill.

When again asked Monday to explain his vote, Michaud abandoned his response of just two days earlier when he repeated several times that Maine has never taxed Social Security.

Instead, he looked to turn the tables on Raye, asking the former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe what he has done to repeal the federal Social Security tax on which the proposed Maine tax was based.

Raye was quick to confirm that Snowe, while a representative in 1993, had voted against the tax, which was passed by a Democratically controlled Congress.

The issue of prescription drugs played a prominent role in Monday’s debate, with the candidates differing on whether Maine’s court-challenged Rx law should be adopted at the federal level.

Michaud said he would introduce the legislation, which allows the government to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, on his first day in office.

Raye said that while he opposed the Bush administration’s attempts to derail the Maine law, he called it “untested and untried.”

Some of the most heated exchanges again came on what has proved to be a polarizing issue – abortion rights.

Raye on Monday stepped up his criticism of Michaud for his answer to a 1998 questionnaire in which he said he would ban abortion in all cases except when the life of the mother is in danger.

“No woman will have to wonder what I’m going to say next,” said Raye, asserting that Michaud’s 1998 stance “denoted a lack of respect for women.”

Raye also would ban late-term abortions, but would make exceptions for the health of the mother and in cases of rape or incest.

Michaud has said he would oppose a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade and recently said he would also make exceptions to a late-term abortion ban for the mother’s health or in cases of rape or incest.