Talk of Miller dominates Senate debate

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Posted 8:37AM on Monday, October 28, 2002

ATLANTA - Although Georgia's senior senator is the one up for re-election, much of the discussion focused on its junior senator Sunday in a debate between Max Cleland and Saxby Chambliss. Cleland, the incumbent Democrat seeking a second term, had a powerful ally with him during the afternoon WSB-TV debate that also included Libertarian Claude Sandy Thomas. Democrat Zell Miller, the popular former governor now a maverick senator, was in the studio to vouch for the incumbent in a race polls show may be tightening. "It concerns me when my name is being used in a misleading way," Miller said afterward. Chambliss, a GOP congressman targeting Cleland's seat, has used television ads to point out policy clashes between the two, including Miller's unconditional support of President Bush's Homeland Security Department and Cleland's insistence a worker rights provision be included. But Cleland charged his opponent was overplaying the differences and said they've voted alike four out of every five times. "Those four times he votes with him are to open the session, close the session, approve the journal and to go home," Chambliss said, adding the fifth usually involved significant policy vote. Cleland responded he and Miller are "colleagues, not clones" and that "we make a great team for Georgia." Miller agreed. Most of the debate focused on national hot-button domestic issues such as Social Security, prescription drugs, Medicare and immigration reform. Cleland also issued a new charge, accusing Chambliss of opposing federalization of the HOPE scholarship, one of Miller's hallmark efforts as governor. Cleland aides explained afterward he was referring to a tax credit resembling HOPE tucked inside a Democratic rival to a package of cuts approved by the Republican House in 1997. Chambliss said the senator was camouflaging a vote that had nothing to do with the popular scholarship program. Numerous times during the debate, Cleland would interrupt Chambliss by calling one of his charges "wrong." That began when Chambliss accused Cleland of only halfheartedly supporting Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut and backing 22 Democratic attempts to weaken it. "If those 22 amendments had passed, the Bush tax package would have been gutted," Chambliss said. "There would have been no tax package." Cleland said he supports a permanent elimination of the inheritance tax but called it economically unwise to permanently roll back the rest of the cut without knowing what the future holds. "We don't need to roll up our britches before we get to the creek," he said. The senator explained a permanent tax cut could jeopardize the Social Security trust fund and attacked Chambliss for supporting a plan allowing recipients to invest part of their government retirement in the stock market. "We don't need a risky privatization scheme that takes Social Security from people on Main Street and turns it over to people on Wall Street to play Russian roulette with it," Cleland said. But Chambliss responded the money belongs to the people, not the government. "Younger persons coming into the workplace ought to have the opportunity for choice, ought to have the opportunity for options," Chambliss said. Thomas was largely an oversight during much of the debate, with Cleland and Chambliss using asking him softball questions to underscore areas of policy agreement. Thomas said both his opponents advocate big-government positions. "It's time to return control back to the people and the states so the federal government can focus its entire effort on defense," Thomas said.