Debate between US Senate candidates tips scales for audience members

MISSOULA — Democrat Alani Bankhead repeatedly jabbed independent Seth Bodnar with her own questions in a political debate for U.S. Senate.

Bodnar mostly responded with answers to the audience, but at one point, he mulled the tactic aloud, to chuckles from the crowd.

“I guess we’re going to ask questions to each other,” Bodnar said.

For about a hour on Sunday, the candidates took questions at an event at the Missoula Public Library hosted by Indivisible Missoula, a civic engagement organization.

They talked about health care, immigration, and corruption in politics, among other topics, in front of an estimated 200 people a couple of weeks before absentee ballots are sent.

Bankhead, of Helena, mentioned her law enforcement experience multiple times and stressed her existing connections in Washington, D.C.

Bankhead spent 21 years with the U.S. Air Force and retired as a lieutenant colonel. In the military, she worked in law enforcement and counterintelligence.

“I’m the only candidate who has the trusted relationships of the inspectors general up in D.C. who are already texting me to say, ‘Hurry up and get here so we can hold ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the Department of Justice accountable,’” Bankhead said.

Bodnar told the standing-room-only audience to stay focused on the goal to beat the Republican nominee in November.

The former president of the University of Montana stepped down in January after eight years and filed in March to run for the Senate.

Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Steve Daines withdrew his candidacy at the last minute in March, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme filed to run, and Daines threw his support behind Alme.

Neither Alme nor Libertarian Kyle Austin participated in the debate Sunday, but Indivisible scheduled other Senate candidate forums.

Austin said he participated in an event with Bankhead one week earlier. Alme could not be reached Tuesday.

“Kurt Alme is nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump,” Bodnar said.

Before the deadline to withdraw, powerful Democrats urged Bankhead to bow out to consolidate support for Bodnar, who has earned progressive endorsements.

At least a couple of audience members said the debate helped them choose between the two candidates.

Janet Fiero was undecided before the event, but immediately following she picked up a Bodnar yard sign from the back of the room.

Fiero, of Missoula, said Bodnar showed competence and offered strong policy positions. She said Bankhead’s digs at Bodnar turned her off.

“Alani was just very irritating with her clips, and it did not serve her well,” Fiero said.

But Bankhead and Bodnar demonstrated similarities as well, including in their approach to the safeguards they would “insist on” before backing immigration enforcement funding.

Bankhead said the country needs comprehensive immigration reform, and it must uphold due process.

She said she comes from a family of retired law enforcement officers and supports law enforcement, but law enforcement isn’t respecting due process.

“They would get no funding from me until they were held accountable for what they were doing to our immigrant brothers and sisters,” Bankhead said.

Bodnar said the country needs strong borders, and it needs to enforce immigration laws, but it needs accountability.

“We need to do that without allowing a masked, untrained, unaccountable paramilitary force to run rampant through our cities, trampling on the individual liberties of American citizens,” Bodnar said.

He pointed to his experience as a platoon leader in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division.

“We don’t violate due process rights. We don’t violate basic human rights,” Bodnar said. “We didn’t do that in Iraq. We should not allow that to happen on our soil to people here in this country.”

The candidates also addressed how they would modify the Affordable Care Act to ensure everyone in the country can access affordable health insurance.

The questions the moderator asked included ones based on questions audience members submitted in advance of the forum.

Bankhead said she’s the only candidate for universal health care, and the country is already set up for it through an existing program, the military health care system called TRICARE.

She said taxpayers already are spending the money, and a budget reallocation could help everyone get “great quality health care.”

“We can fund it using your taxpayer dollars,” Bankhead said. “It’s called the defense budget and the illegal war on Iran.”

Bodnar said health care is “a crisis” in the country, with premiums rising 26% year over year, and fixes are urgently needed.

He said he would restore ACA subsidies to be sure people can get health care; protect Medicaid expansion, important to rural hospitals; and reverse bureaucratic work requirement verifications that will lead to 30,000 Montanans losing access.

“I’m not about bumper stickers or slogans. I’m about getting things done,” Bodnar said.

Bankhead used her rebuttal to quiz Bodnar: “So you’re advocating to keep health insurance companies?”

Bodnar said tens of millions of Americans have a private-coverage option, and he’s interested in solutions. He said even under the Obama administration with Democrats in control of Congress, doing away with private options wasn’t realistic.

“I don’t think that … fighting for five years to rip the private options out of people’s hands is going to get us the type of change that Montanans so urgently demand,” Bodnar said. “I’m about getting results and getting them quickly.”

Bankhead addressed her opponent directly after the very first question.

After the moderator asked candidates to address the actions they would take as senators to dole out consequences when it’s clear federal officials have broken the law, Bankhead took a shot at Bodnar.

“Well, Seth, that was a whole lot of words to not answer the question,” Bankhead said.

She said she was the only candidate on stage who signed a pledge to impeach Trump and put him in jail, and she’s the only one who already has a record of holding government officials accountable.

Citizens’ Impeachment aims to remove Trump from office as a “tyrant” and “would-be king” whose crimes “meet the definition of tyranny.” It’s billed as a national volunteer organization intent on gathering support for Trump’s impeachment.

“I’ve arrested pedophiles and traffickers on six different continents,” Bankhead said. “A lot of them have been government officials, so I’m very familiar with this space.”

Asked if he wanted to use his rebuttal time, Bodnar said yes, to correct the record. He said he’s the only candidate endorsed by the anti-corruption organization End Citizens United, and he’s the only one that signed the Political Integrity Project pledge.

The organization is dedicated to getting big money out of politics and opposing corruption, and it gives him an A- grade. Bankhead isn’t graded or listed as a signatory.

“My duty is to the Constitution of the United States,” Bodnar said. “I want to be really clear about this: A U.S. senator? Their job is to be a juror. I will be a juror. I will hold the powerful accountable.”

After the debate, Jane Borish said she wished a Social Democrat was running, but she was leaning toward Bodnar before the debate.

“Alani made some good points, although not specific enough,” Borish said. “But I really was turned off by the mud slinging, so I’m more likely to vote for Seth Bodnar after that talk.”

Borish said she appreciated the way Bodnar “resisted the urge” to respond in kind because “sharp elbows” have been too much a part of politics. She said she thought Bodnar also could have offered more specifics, “but they were limited in time.”

Another audience member already in support of Bodnar described Bankhead’s approach as “snarky.”

“I was very turned off by the negativity in her replies and how she always had to attack him,” Mark Heyka said.

But Robbie Liben, of Missoula, said he was more likely to support Bankhead after the debate.

He said he walked into the debate slightly leaning toward Bankhead but also turned off “by her militarism.” He said in the debate, Bankhead supported particular policies, but Bodnar offered mostly platitudes.

“It struck me that really all he’s got to run on is stopping Alme,” Liben said.