Last night, the four Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates gathered in historic Faneuil Hall to debate security, the economy, health care, and education in the lead up to the Nov. 7 election.
Democrat and former Clinton official Deval Patrick, Republican and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, Independent and former Turkpike Authority official Christy Mihos, and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross began with a series of handshakes.
They didn't waste much time on pleasantries, however, instead launching into a discussion on crime.
In response to the most recent of a series of ads by the Healey campaign calling him soft on crime, Patrick, the current frontrunner, responded that his past career as a prosecutor makes him uniquely qualified to handle crime prevention. Patrick is a former assistant U.S. Attorney General for civil rights.
"When it comes to crime, I'm the only one up here who's ever put anybody in jail," he said.
Still, the Healey campaign has repeatedly harped on two letters that Patrick sent to the state parole board advocating on behalf of convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer.
Patrick also gave money to LaGuer's defense fund for DNA tests.
"How could a person who has viciously raped a grandmother for eight hours be considered humane?" asked Healey. "I think that's just bad judgment."
Patrick, who has also done legal defense work, said that his advocacy was merely part of a properly functioning judicial system.
"I don't need to be lectured on crime," he said, as he went on the offensive against Healey's record as the current lieutenant governor.
"Gun and gang violence are soaring," he said. "That is the legacy of your administration." As a result, he said, Massachusetts is now the most violent state in the region.
"If you come down off that high horse of yours sometime and actually see how it works on the streets, I'd be happy to show you around," Patrick said to rousing applause from the audience.
Healey responded that the current administration has dealt effectively with crime, pointing to Melanie's Bill, which increases penalties for drunk driving, as well as other measures.
"We've saved lives. I've worked to tighten our sex offender laws. I've tightened our gang laws," she said.
Still, her recent ad that shows a woman walking through a garage juxtaposed with Patrick referring to his advocacy on behalf of LaGuer drew criticism from the rest of the candidates.
"I'm absolutely just disgusted ... about these negative ads," Independent candidate Christy Mihos said. "They don't do a darn thing ... to make us safer."
The debate next turned to health care, specifically the bill that went through the state legislature last year supporting universal health care.
To achieve this, the bill requires contributions from employers toward their employees' benefits and also mandates that all people that can afford health care purchase it.
It also provides free health care for a low-income segment of the population and a sliding scale of costs for those who can afford it.
All three candidates offered criticism of the bill. Patrick emphasized current Governor Mitt Romney's veto - which the legislature subsequently overrode- of the section of the bill that requires employer contributions.
"Your campaign campaigns on the promise of killing that employers' assessment once and for all," he said.
Green-Rainbow candidate Grace Ross said that the bill only provides quality care for those with money. "Quality care, if you can't get to it, doesn't matter," she said.
Mihos expanded this argument, noting that the bill still does not extend to a number of people. "This law does not cover 80,000 children in the Commonwealth," he said.
He also said that both parties have not been honest enough about the costs of providing universal health care.
"Open up the process. Let's see what's going on behind closed doors," he said. "The Democrats and the Republicans are not telling us [everything]."
This critique of the two-party system was shared by Ross, who at one point shook Mihos' hand as he expressed the need for less reliance on the status quo.
A third point of contention among the candidates was the economy, with all four expressing discontent with the thousands of lost jobs and the exodus of workers from the state.
"This isn't rocket science. People are leaving Massachusetts because it's too expensive," Healey said. "We need to make Massachusetts more affordable. That's the answer to the population loss."
She said that the solution should be tax cuts, an argument that Mihos rejected. "Taxes went down in this administration and people still left," he said.
Patrick said that the economy needs to be fixed, but that it will take more than criticism of the current administration to reverse the current situation.
"We've got to be about a forward-looking plan," he said.
Still, Healey said that Patrick's proposed changes are too expensive and can't be achieved without raising taxes.
"Conservatively, we have calculated $8 billion in new spending that you have proposed," she said. "I want to know where that money's going to come from, and it's going to come from raising taxes," she said.
Patrick said that the opposite problem is true of the Romney/Healey administration, arguing that they have taken too much money from areas like education.
"This administration has taken over $2 billion out of local aid. You're killing public education," he said.
Ross had a different proposal to fix the economy, suggesting a massive increase in the minimum wage, a move many feel would drive small businesses out of the state.
"All the studies show that that helps local economies in the long run," Ross said, defending her proposal.
Party dynamics played a critical role throughout the debate. Mihos and Ross, the two third-party candidates, were on the defensive much of the night.
Mihos defended his candidacy, asserting that he is going to win the election and comparing his future success to the Boston Red Sox overcoming odds to win the 2004 World Series.
"People who have never voted before are going to come out in record numbers because they love this state just like I do," he said.
Healey emphasized that the race is really between her and Patrick, and called for another debate that would exclude Ross and Mihos.
"I think it would be wonderful if we could have a one-on-one debate, an extended discussion on [the important] issues," she said in a proposal that received audible disapproval from the audience.
Healey was also on the defensive for some of the night because of her connection with the Romney administration.
One panelist at the debate asked her if she would be willing to criticize Romney for making jokes about Massachusetts in other states.
Although Healey reiterated her support for the state, she refused to directly criticize Romney. "I think he's probably heard your message loud and clear," she said in response to further prodding.
In closing the debate, Patrick expressed the desires of all candidates in the race in his appeal to the audience.
"I ask for your health, your prayers, and your vote," he said.
James Bologna contributed reporting to this article.
