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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Monday, October 30, 2006

Kennedy questions Klobuchar’s honesty

By The AP

ST. PAUL (AP) — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kennedy questioned the honesty of his Democratic opponent Amy Klobuchar during a debate Sunday night, scaling up his rhetoric against her with ten days to go until the election.

Kennedy several times brought up the flap over a possibly stolen Kennedy ad that was leaked to the Klobuchar campaign, suggesting that Klobuchar waited several days before reporting the incident to the FBI; and the refusal of the Klobuchar-led Hennepin County Attorney’s office to respond to Republican Party requests for information about the office’s prosecution of criminals.

“If you won’t give Minnesota voters straight answers on these issues, why should they trust you in the U.S. Senate?” Kennedy asked Klobuchar.

Klobuchar hit back by contrasting her response to the stolen ad to the response of Republican congressional leaders in the scandal surrounding disgraced U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who recently resigned amid allegations of improper contact with underage House pages. Kennedy is a Republican U.S. House member, though he’s had no connection with the Foley incident.

“When I found out someone not from our campaign had improperly taken an ad, I immediately reported it to the FBI,” Klobuchar said. “That’s more than I can say about the leadership of this Congress.”

With the Foley affair and other congressional scandals generating headlines this election season, Kennedy also was asked during the debate if the Republican Party still represents American values.

“Yes, Republicans I believe do represent the values of Minnesotans,” Kennedy replied.

“Yes, there have been scandals, and some have been horrifying. Those involved need to be held accountable, and they are being held accountable. Some are in jail, and they deserve to be.”

The televised debate, held at the University of St. Thomas, touched most often on the war in Iraq and homeland security. Kennedy, as he has in recent days, touted his support for the U.S. effort in that country, saying that mistakes have been made but that drawing down resources now would create a breeding ground for future terrorist attacks on American soil.

Klobuchar and Independence Party candidate Robert Fitzgerald both called for new strategies in Iraq. With Kennedy criticizing Klobuchar’s calls for diplomacy as naive, she pointed out that even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said recently that the solution must be “a political one. This country is in civil war,” Klobuchar said.

Fitzgerald seized on his first opportunity to bring his upstart candidacy to TV viewers, having been excluded from the first TV debate two weeks ago on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Fitzgerald said both candidates are too reliant on support from corporate donors and their own political parties.

“To think that either of these two is going to achieve meaningful reform is ludicrous,” Fitzgerald said. “You don’t put replacement parts into a broken machine.”

The candidates are set for two more debates between now and Election Day, the next this Thursday in Rochester and the final one the following Sunday at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul.