It was brief, but all eyes were on Congressman Mark Critz and Republican hopeful Keith Rothfus in their first debate at Penn State-Beaver.
According to The Tribune Review, the debate, which was limited to about 20 minutes due to time constraints with other state legislative races, touched on partisanship, the economy, and Obamacare.
“We’re elected to lead, we’re not elected to draw a line in the sand like my opponent,” Critz said.
Rothfus criticized Critz on bipartisanship, pointing to Critz’s 95 percent voting record with Nancy Pelosi as a hypocritical point.
“That’s an interesting moderate record,” Rothfus said.
The Beaver County Chamber of Commerce hosted the debate and posted 257 photos from the event online, including a few of Critz and Rothfus apparently sharing a joke while in the audience.
After the debate, Rothfus’ camp released a statement saying that this debate shows the real difference between Rothfus and Critz.
“Keith Rothfus stressed his plans for the future and how vastly different they are from Congressman Critz. With new leadership under Governor Romney and Keith Rothfus, we can relight the American job engine, the American spirit, and the American dream by repealing Obamacare, reforming our complicated and unfair tax code, and rolling back the onerous regulations that are stifling job growth.”
However, Critz’s surrogates did not back down either. The AFL-CIO released a fact-check statement from Politico, refuting a tweet sent out by Rothfus during the debate saying 800k jobs would be lost because of Obamacare.
“The CBO report didn’t say 800k jobs would be lost, it said around 800k people would voluntarily leave the workforce. These are people who have enough money to live off of, but need to maintain health care coverage that they can only afford if its provided by an employer. ACA will bring down costs, so people can afford it without employer benefits.”
The newly redrawn PA-12 district is a golden goose in the 2012 election. Thus far, both parties have poured tons of resources into their candidates in order to win. While this debate was disappointing in that it only went on for 20 minutes, keep an eye on twitter, as Rothfus and Critz spar on the social media website every couple of hours.
The event was hosted by the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce. Pa. Sen. Elder Vogel (R-Beaver) also debated his opponent, Democrat Kim Villella, along with the state House candidates in Beaver County.
Loading ...
8 Responses
Critz has a record and Rothfus doesn’t. Critz’s record indicates that he’s more loyal to the national Democratic leadership than he is to us in western PA. I don’t know where Keith Rothfus’s loyalties lie, beyond what we’ve heard in this campaign. But there’s more hope in an “I don’t know” than there is in a candidate who’ll sell us out to Obama’s vision of remaking America into a European-style social democratic state.
Keith Rothfus best represents the beliefs of Western PA. All Critz has done is to vote with Pelosi and Obama time after time, against our interests. It’s time for a change!
Keith the Candidate Rothfus has an excellent role model on lying and misrepresentation, the bloodied GOP class warrior Paul Ryan!
http://youtu.be/Ge1lWvgdG1I
I still haven’t heard anything Critz has really done but take credit for things he had nothing to do with and ignore constiuents in need!
Women should be very scared for critz to stay in office!
http://www.citizensagainstmarkcritz.com/
Rothfus campaign has spent millions claiming there is nothing special about the guy. It only took 20 minutes for him to prove it. Wow no wonder you don’t actually see him speak in his ads.
When Rothfus losses this election will he be gone for good? We can only hope.
HA! Good catch Steven, thanks
“It was brief, but all eyes were on Congressman Mark Critz and Republican hopeful Mark Critz…”
Sounds like there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them to me.