Georgia Senate candidates bring the heat in televised faceoff

A debate where the stakes are control of the Senate.

Sunday night saw Sen. Kelly Loeffler face off with her challenger, Rev. Raphael Warnock, for what could be the only debate of either runoff election in the Georgia Senate races.

The stakes? Simply put, control of the Senate.

If Warnock and Jon Ossoff both win their races with Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue, the Senate is 50/50, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker.

In a campaign steeped in both outside cash and outsized invective, the debate between the Republican Senator appointed a year ago and the Democratic pastor saw both candidates seeking to define the other, using parameters established well ahead of the nationally televised faceoff.

When asked to explain one thing or another, both candidates found a way to wriggle out of specificity, using the finite speaking time to press home familiar attacks larded with hot button talking points.

Loeffler was asked to account for President Donald Trump‘s assertions that the election was rigged but sidestepped the inquiries without taking positions as extreme as the President’s.

“It’s very clear there were issues in this election,” Loeffler said. “The President has every right to every recourse.”

Loeffler continued trying to strike a balance between the President’s insistence on challenging the results and running a forward-looking campaign, though Warnock clearly sensed vulnerability.

“President Trump has every right to every recourse, but Georgians should know we have a process that works,” Loeffler said, in one of several responses to the reverend’s ripostes.

She said something similar when asked to decide between Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp.

“The buck stops with the Secretary of State,” the Senator punted. “I appreciate the President’s support of me, and I appreciate the Governor’s support of me.”

“My loyalties are with Georgia,” she said by way of wriggling through the follow-up.

The Democrat also was evasive when confronted with inconvenient facts.

When asked about various comments he made from the pulpit, Warnock said those were a “cynical political tactic … used to make a cheap political point.”

But the quotes run deep, and they gave Loeffler a platform to attack “radical liberal Raphael Warnock.”

When asked to “renounce socialism and Marxism,” Warnock sidestepped the question.

He assured Georgians he “believed in the free enterprise system,” unlike Loeffler, “who spent her career before the Senate … teaching big banks to hide money in the Cayman Islands.”

“She purchased that seat, but the people who sold it to her don’t own it, and the people who own it are coming for that seat,” Warnock said.

“I’m OK with the fact she wants to make money; you just shouldn’t use the people’s seat to enrich yourself,” he added sometime later.

When asked if Senators should be barred from trading stocks, Loeffler called it an “attack on every single Georgian” and a “distraction from the real issues.”

Warnock slammed Loeffler for conflicting with her WNBA team this summer when they diverged over Black Lives Matter.

“There’s not a racist bone in my body,” Loeffler said, saying that Warnock has called on people to “repent” their “whiteness.”