One of the first initiatives for Chellie Pingree when she took office in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009 was to hold an Access to Capital Workshop at the University of Southern Maine, trying to help small businesses secure funding.
One person who attended the session was Dean Scontras, a developer of alternative energy projects — and now her Republican challenger in Maine’s 1st Congressional District.
“I was pleased to see you at that workshop,” Pingree told Scontras during a televised debate Thursday night on Maine Public Television, before reminding him that federal stimulus money paid for subsidies for his own industry.
“It just seems to me,” Pingree said to Scontras, who has attacked the stimulus as wasteful spending, “that if you pick and choose what’s OK for government to do based on whether or not you can benefit from it, it’s slightly disingenuous.”
It was one of several feisty exchanges between the candidates, who hold opposite views on a variety of social and economic issues.
Recent polling on the race indicates that Scontras has closed what was once a deficit of 20-plus percentage points to single digits.
One area the two agreed on was the desire to return U.S. troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.
Pingree pointed to her staunch opposition to the war dating back to 2002, and said Scontras had been a proponent of military intervention during a Republican primary race two years ago.
They argued about a particular Pingree vote, with Scontras saying she voted to unfund troops while they were in harm’s way and Pingree saying she stood up against her party and voted against a surge but supported an authorization bill meeting soldiers’ needs.
The subject of Pingree’s flights on the jet owned by her fiance, hedge fund manager S. Donald Sussman, also came up, with Scontras saying that a financial regulatory bill came down hard on banks but said nothing about hedge funds.
Pingree said she voted for stricter control in a House bill but Republicans stripped such provisions from the Senate version.
The debate will air again on MPBN at 8:30 tonight and 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at: gjordan@pressherald.com
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