Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican attorney John Deaton will debate twice this week.
The candidates will appear on WBZ in eastern Massachusetts on Tuesday night and in western Massachusetts on Thursday for a debate hosted by NEPM in Springfield.
State House News Service reporter Chris Lisinski says Deaton, the lesser known candidate who relocated from Rhode Island to the Bay State earlier this year, is focusing on independent voters who still might be undecided.
Chris Lisinski, SHNS: The big theme that Deaton has hammered over and over again is that he views himself as really a nonpartisan candidate — not your traditional Republican running against a Democrat, but someone who, in his telling, has a different perspective, can sit in between the two parties, find consensus, and look at things a different way than a candidate more closely aligned with either political party might.
We'll have to wait and see if that's the kind of message that's going to resonate with voters.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Deaton has gotten wrapped up in some drama within his own party. Former Massachusetts GOP chair Jim Lyons is not happy with the candidate. What soured conservatives on Deaton? And how much does it even matter in a Massachusetts election?
The real tipping point in Deaton's “I am not that partisan" approach appears to be his suggestion that if Republicans in the U.S. Senate tried to bring forward a national abortion ban, he would simply switch parties, become a Democrat, and deny Republicans the votes they needed for those abortion restrictions. That, in the words of a group founded by former MassGOP chair Jim Lyons, amounts to “legislative extortion.”
You know, you asked how much of a difference this kind of frustration within the party's ultra conservative ranks is going to make? It's not really clear.
Keep in mind that the largest voting bloc in Massachusetts is unenrolled voters who don't like to identify themselves closely with either party. If that's the group that Deaton is targeting, you could make a case that losing some on the outer edges, even those with pretty big influence on the outer edges, is not exactly a fatal blow to his campaign.
Massachusetts lawmakers have a long history of disagreeing on health care policy, but I think we're in for a lot of discussion about this from the Legislature. The latest report on health care costs found that health spending has grown faster than household incomes. Access to care, Chris, is the issue. What are the issues lawmakers will need to address on this?
So much of this continues to be driven by pressure points that we've seen for a few years now. Prices are rising, and that's driving a lot of the spending increase, moreso than people actually using more health care and seeking more health care.
Regulators and analysts who looked at this data say that another big factor is a sharp rise in pharmaceutical spending. And these are areas that the Legislature just has not been able to agree on any kind of reforms.
Keep in mind, as you and I have talked about several times now, the Legislature moved to implement some really significant hospital oversight and health care reforms earlier this year. But because of sniping between House and Senate Democrats, they haven't actually been able to get anything to the governor's desk. And the exact same status quo that's been in place for the past year-plus remains here, right now.
