Spicy Debate for Republican Senate Candidates

While the Senate race this fall is kind of boring, in that Senator Hillary Clinton is pretty much assured re-election, one thing that is exciting is the insanity of the Republican party. The two Republican candidates, John Spencer and K.T. McFarland, debated on NY1 last night and it was balls out nuts. Spencer won the Republican party's nomination, but McFarland is hoping to sway some people during the primary (September 12) with digs like this:

"You brought up your wife, and I must tell you that that’s not a personal issue. That’s a professional issue. Because when you were mayor of Yonkers, you had an affair with your secretary while you were married to somebody else. You tripled her salary and made her your chief of staff. You were living with her. You doubled your own personal income. You got financial gain from that. And you had two children... If you'd worked for the federal government and you'd behaved that way, you would have been subject to indictment."

Meow! Spencer then said, "Shame on you, shame on you as the mother of children and a woman yourself, to talk about my wife and my family like that," and explained his current wife had been a staffer in other political offices and that he had gone through a "private separation and remarriage." Still, McFarland managed to say, "You are like the Clintons. You taxed and spent like Hillary, and you behaved like Bill," which Spencer dismissed as a ploy for a soundbite. Well, the ploy worked!

The NY State Democratic Party LOVED it and told the NY Times, "This was more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon than a Senate debate." We'd have to say Itchy and Scratchy, but whatever. And Senator Clinton's spokesman told the Daily News, "We are considering sending every voter a copy of that debate." Seriously - the NY State Republican party is pretty effed when the Republicans candidates for Senate own up to Pataki being a crappy governor and simply go at each other.