Some of the night’s most spirited exchanges revolved around environmental issues, campaign financing and the intersection of the two. Eldridge is married to Facebook founder Chris Hughes and the couple has a personal fortune estimated to be over $600 million. He has made campaign finance reform a key plank in his race and eschewed corporate contributions. For funding he has relied on a mix of his own wealth and contributions from individual donors.
In Monday’s debate, he repeatedly denounced the influence of corporate money in politics and specifically in Gibson’s campaign. He assailed Gibson for signing onto the Koch brother’s funded American’s for Prosperity climate change pledge. The pledge binds signers to vote against any climate change legislation that will have the net effect of raising taxes.
In Eldridge’s parlance, the pledge means Gibson has promised to “do nothing” on climate change. In Gibson’s, it simply means that he opposes energy taxes because they would hurt working families and small businesses. But Eldridge, who sat on the Board of Directors of Scenic Hudson before launching his campaign, drew a link between Gibson’s acceptance of donations from oil and gas companies and his stance on a range of environmental issues including hydrofracking and subsidies for big oil and gas companies.
“Why are they supporting him?” said Eldridge. “They’re supporting him because he stands up for them in Congress.”
Gibson countered with repeated attacks, beginning in his opening statement and running the course of the debate, on Eldridge’s personal financial holdings as inconsistent with his stated beliefs. Gibson said that Eldridge had profited from investments in big energy companies. “If you feel that strongly about it, you should divest,” said Gibson. “Its not impressive when you take this stand and then don’t lead by example.”
Eldridge responded that his investments were managed by a third party and, if elected, he would put his holdings in a blind trust to guard against conflicts of interest.
No boots on the ground
Gibson also accused Eldridge of distorting his stance on hydrofracking. Gibson said his support for the gas drilling technique is contingent on gas companies complying with the federal clean water act, a strong regulatory framework based on rigorous science and the ability of individual communities to ban the process.
Eldridge said that he would oppose fracking in New York State. He said the risks were too great and the rewards short term. He also invoked U.S Rep. Maurice Hinchey who represented Ulster County for 20 years before retiring in 2012, contrasting his record on environmental issues with Gibson’s. Hinchey, he said, had always been a strong advocate for the environment while Gibson tried to burnish his environmental record with a 33 percent rating from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“That means that for every three votes on environmental issues, he voted for the environment once,” Eldridge said. “That’s not a record to be proud of.”
The pair also sparred over the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour. Eldridge said that he supports raising it to $10.10. Gibson said that that large an increase was not feasible with the current climate in Washington. Instead, he proposed an increase to $9 as “politically do-able.”
On confronting the threat from ISIS, Eldridge said that it was clear that Americans did not want another “boots on the ground war” in the region. But he said he would support limited military action in both Iraq and Syria in the context of an international effort with full participation from regional allies. Gibson, a retired Army Colonel who served four combat tours in Iraq, said he opposed any military participation in the conflict. Gibson said that our potential allies in the fight lacked the military competence and political reliability for meaningful coordinated action. Instead, Gibson said, the U.S. should shore up Iraqi and Kurdish forces while pushing Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to make political concessions that will deprive ISIS of recruits and support.
Monday’s meeting was the second of four planned debates in the Congressional race and the only one to feature a large live audience. The pair are set to meet again on October 16 at WMHT studios in Schenectady. The final debate will take place at Time Warner Cable studios in Albany on October 22.
I dunno: some people didn’t like Maurice Hinchey, and Sean looks to be every bit as good or better! So that could spell trouble.
I don’t have to understand why people vote the way they do… But I am responsible for knowing why I vote the way I do for each candidate I vote for.
I don’t know that Mr. Gibson could have ducked debates with Eldrige… the debates have been brilliant demonstrations of the candidates positions… for that I have to be grateful.
But it is Mr Eldridge that is addressing the real changes we must make in this democracy to keep it a democracy… public funding for campaigns…
The audience was appaling only interested in hearing themselsves scream. It was perfect example of why congress isn’t working! No one wants to listen. While Gibson is weak on the environment, Eldridge is just as weak on his investments that show he doesn’t walk the talk. He is after all running as an investor and as such his investments are his voting record despite trying to pawn it off on a third party (call your guy up Sean there are plenty of socially responsible funds these days). Both these candidates had me missing Hinchey! Maybe I’ll look to see who the Green Party is running!
I dunno, Gerald, some people didn’t like Abe Lincoln either, one of whom was named John Wilkes Booth. I dunno, Gerald…Eldridge is going to singlehandedly pass campaign finance reform….yes? Sure he is. And a duck is coming to fly into my oven for Thanksgiving Dinner also. Of course we need third parties, because you think either major party is going to pass campaign finance reform? Hasn’t happened in the last 45 + years I’ve heard it talked about by the two major parties. Watch “60 Minutes” a bit and ye shall learn the worst offenders on campaign contributions are also Demcorats. Eldridge is like Hinchey? Oh, so he actually did something to SERVE others like Hinchey did in the Navy before he entered politics? Nothing apart from throw some of his considerable money around a bit. “Ennnh!” sounds the buzzard. The Dems really goofed on picking Eldridge this time, but $$$ talks everywhere. I haven’t seen quite this level of vacuous political “debates” and baloney-level campaign propaganda apart from this year’s version in a long time. Get real, Gerald.
Look at Gibson’s voting record and that indicates to me that he is not a moderate Republican, but a very conservative one. I will vote for Sean Eldridge because I believe that he will represent the best interests in a changing world, particularly in Ulster County. In terms of his personal investments, the socially responsible funds don’t keep up with inflation and besides many of these funds charge highly fees. Voting GREEN is like throwing your vote down the toilet.
“In terms of his personal investments, the socially responsible funds don’t keep up with inflation and besides many of these funds charge highly fees.”
So…. profits are more important than the environment? Isn’t that the same argument Eldridge is (allegedly) saying is bad? Isn’t opposition to fracking essentially saying “the environment is more important than profits”?
I guess it’s OK for *him* to profit from fracking, but not land-owners who might want to sell/lease their land to energy companies.
The look on Sean Eldridge’s face says it all – he has no real idea of what we are going through – he is after all a Canadian who has only been a citizen for what – seven years – and has millions of dollars in his bank account – an amount unheard of for most of us and so goes that “I feel your pain” or you will help us keep our hard earned money. Most serious problem for me is that Sean Eldridge supports abortions up to the ninth month which is murdering of babies in my book. Would he be here if his own mother believed in abortion? Has he even seen the videos of how a baby is formed and what it looks like at different states of growth? These babies feel pain and so you would allow the mothers to kill their own child? And have the taxpayers pay for it? There is a war on women and it is thinking like this that is the real war on women. And the men should be as responsible for these babies as well. It takes two to make a baby and it should take two to be responsible for the life they created. (There are exceptions such as in the cases of incest and rape).