Virginia Senate candidates go on attack

Both Virginia Senate candidates were on the attack at a debate Monday night.

Despite a sizable lead in the polls, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) tried to paint his Republican challenger Ed Gillespie as a partisan who had taken a major anti-tax pledge. Gillespie, meanwhile, attempted to capitalize on reports that Warner had discussed possible jobs for the daughter of a then-state senator who Democrats were trying to keep from resigning.

{mosads}Warner said that Gillespie had signed the pledge promoted by the group Americans for Tax Reform, which says that its signatories will not vote to raise federal income taxes. Warner brought it up many times throughout the debate, as he sought to tie Gillespie to the group’s polarizing founder, Grover Norquist.

Gillespie said that, while he will not vote to raise taxes if elected to the Senate, he has not signed the group’s pledge — calling Warner’s comments “a flat out wrong statement.”

But Warner continued with the attack throughout the debate, saying it was evidence that Gillespie wasn’t ready to use every weapon at his disposal when addressing the nation’s problems.

“We’ve got to not have one hand tied behind our back by taking stupid pledges,” Warner said. He also claimed to have a letter from Norquist thanking Gillespie for his pledge.

Warner’s campaign provided the press with a link to that letter after the debate. “I fully recognize your position as going above and beyond the letter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” Norquist wrote to Gillespie in June.

Warner also worked to portray his challenger as the consummate insider by drawing on Gillespie’s long career in Republican politics. Gillespie is a former aide to George W. Bush, past chairman of the Republican National Committee, and one of the lobbyists behind the firm QGA Public Affairs. He also helped to found the powerful Republican super-PAC American Crossroads.

“He and Karl Rove came together and formed the granddaddy of all super-PACs,” Warner said.

Gillespie, who is lagging behind in the polls, was no less aggressive during the showdown.

He renewed a line of attack he’s used throughout his campaign — that Warner is an ally of President Obama — and sharpened a new one: that Warner may have inappropriately discussed potential jobs for the daughter of a then-state senator in a failed attempt to stop the state senator from resigning. That state senator’s resignation had the effect of shifting the balance of power in the statehouse and damaging the agenda of the state’s Democratic governor.

News of the phone call in question surfaced Friday, when The Washington Post reported that Warner had spoken to the son of then-state Sen. Phillip Puckett about jobs for his Puckett’s daughter — including a possible federal judgeship. At the time, Puckett was considering whether to resign from the Senate, which ultimately shifted the balance of power in favor of state Republicans. This undercut an attempt by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

On the debate stage, Warner resisted any implication that the call was untoward. He said that he was simply discussing possible career options for the daughter of a friend and that Phillip Puckett had decided to resign by the time Warner had spoken to him.

“I did not offer her a job, nor would I offer her any kind of position,” Warner said.

Gillespie also tried, as he has throughout the campaign, to tie Warner to President Obama. He repeatedly mentioned the incumbent’s vote for Obama’s healthcare plan.

“I will not be a blank check for the president. I will be a check and balance on the president,” he said.

While the candidates spent much of the night attacking one another, they also gave answers on some of the other issues dominating the news cycle.

Asked if the federal government was doing enough to combat the threat of Ebola in the United States, Warner said it was time to consider banning flights arriving from countries where the virus is running rampant. Gillespie said it was time to implement such a ban, not just consider it.

Warner was also briefly put on the defensive over his vote for the fiscal plan that resulted in the sequester, which cut funding for military installations — including in Virginia. He said he voted for several budget plans that would have replaced the sequester cuts. He also said that he had worked to restore some of the funding, including making sure that one of the aircraft carriers based in Virginia was refueled.

“And I opposed the president on this,” he said, briefly smiling.

Warner still remains the odds-on favorite to win the race, leading by double digits in most recent polls. He was elected to the Senate in 2008 and previously served as Virginia’s governor after a long career in business.

— This post was updated at 10:34 p.m.