DEBATE FORMAT KEEPS GOVERNOR CANDIDATES TO TIGHT RESPONSES

The format of Monday night's gubernatorial debate kept the four
would-be governors to a staccato rhythm and the confines of time.

Occasionally, each scored his barbed aside.

They covered a lot of issues ground without plowing any new
furrows.

Green Robert Kelleher, Republican Bob Brown, Libertarian Stan Jones
and Democrat Brian Schweitzer responded to 15 questions in less than
an hour in front of a full house of about 250 citizens who gathered at
the Mary Alice Fortin Health Conference Center at Deaconess Billings
Clinic.

Limited responses

With the respondent limited to one minute and his opponents to 30
seconds of rebuttal, the candidates had to stay on topic or get cut
off when they overran the clock. Debate moderator Janice Munsell, of
the Billings League of Women Voters, brooked no verbiage excess.

It took a couple of rounds before the candidates tailored their
responses to brevity, but once the rhythm kicked in, it worked.

A question to Schweitzer for his stand on election day voter
registration drew a yes, "right up to the day" of the election. He
used his time to criticize "higher and bigger fences" placed on those
who wanted to vote. He said there was no need for the
30-days-before-election deadline for registering and hit Brown, the
secretary of state, for being responsible for 90,000 Montanans being
purged from the rolls since the last general election.

Jones said, "It is a bad idea. There is an opportunity for fraud." He
said it was not unreasonable to prove one is a citizen of Montana
prior to the election.

Brown said election-day registration invites fraud, that the integrity
of the process needs to be protected and the voter identification
process worked well in the June primary.

State law recited

Kelleher reminded Schweitzer that state law requires election
officials at the county level to purge the rolls of those who fail to
vote in three successive general elections and that Bob Brown had
nothing to do with it.

On several questions Kelleher and Jones returned to their
philosophical principles: Establish a parliament and claim the rights
to the subsurface mineral rights for the state by the former and get
the government out of every aspect of citizens' lives by the latter.

In a robust closing statement, Jones said America is becoming a
socialist police state. He called for dramatic change so U.S. citizens
can reclaim their constitutional rights not to be controlled and
harassed by their government.

"We're being suffocated," he said. He blamed both the Republicans and
the Democrats.

Kelleher said if he were governor he would refuse to sign the document
allowing Montana National Guard members to be called up for the war in
Iraq.

"All our troops are illegally in Iraq," he said.

Brown kept to his themes of education priority, development of natural
resources and marketing of Montana's natural beauty.

Schweitzer, too, returned to issues of health care and prescription
drugs and his bipartisanship by having Sen. John Bohlinger,
R-Billings, as his running mate.

"Times will be different (at the Legislature)," he said, referring to
a cooperative effort aimed at both sides of the aisle.

All, except Kelleher, said they would audit and justify every state
expense to cut spending and enhance efficiency.

Kelleher said he would increase taxes, especially on out-of-state
wealthy people with homes in Montana so he could increase spending on
children in need.

For affordable health insurance, Schweitzer and Brown supported
insurance pools for the low-income because it is less expensive than
the cost shifting to those who now have insurance.

Kelleher suggested compacts with Alberta to get cheaper prescription
drugs, while Jones said government coercion of insurance companies to
cover pre-existing conditions has made insurance premiums
unaffordable.

Brown denied he had a Republican philosophical inconsistency because
he opposed medical marijuana and a state constitutional amendment
opposing gay marriages. He said marijuana was a narcotic legalization
was not a step in right direction.

Jones said the government should stay out people's personal lives,
while Kelleher said drug use among the young in California declined
after medical marijuana was legalized there.

Schweitzer said the state already has a law on the books protecting
marriage as between one man and one woman. He said he thought medical
marijuana was a "gateway drug" to other drug use.

Kelleher said education, including at the university level, should be
free. Jones would privatize all schools. Brown and Schweitzer both
promised more investment in education. On a related subject of keeping
Montana students in-state when they graduate, Jones would enact a
comprehensive sales tax and remove all other taxes to encourage
business to come to Montana. Kelleher ignored the question and talked
about the how the railroad was harming Montana agriculture, while
Schweitzer touted the need for specialized technical training to
attract business. Brown said Montana's business climate is improving
with lower business equipment, income and capital gains taxes being
enacted by the Republican controlled legislatures of the past decade.

Schweitzer was asked about doing business in Montana. The Democratic
nominee has taken heat for going out of state to buy pickup trucks
while saying he supports small businesses.

Brown said keeping personal spending in-state would help businesses
earn a profit and thus reduce prices. Kelleher complained that a
single mother earning minimum wage had to work 75 hours a week just to
make it and that elections should be about issues not
personalities.

Jones said Schweitzer was smart; "He buys where it is the cheapest. If
taxes in Montana were gone, it would be cheaper to buy it here."

Schweitzer called Brown inconsistent because state law requires state
purchases to be at the best price wherever they are found.

In a question related to using the Coal Tax Trust fund, Schweitzer
accused Brown of another inconsistency in opposing a bill in 1991, but
now promoting a plan to use it.

"He (Brown) was right in '91; he's wrong today," Schweitzer said.
"Don't bust the trust. It is a great legacy and investment."

Kelleher said the coal belongs to Montanans and they should have the
rights to all of it. Jones said get rid of the trust and use the funds
going into to run government.

Brown said taking the $15 million that flows into the trust annually
and investing it in infrastructure projects leveraged with matching
funds from the federal government would be a better use of the money
now.

He said he does not want to break into the corpus of the trust which
is in excess of $700 million, but only the annual flow.

To do that requires a three-fourths vote of both chambers of the
Montana Legislature.

Brown said after the debate he believes he can accomplish that now,
pointing to a successful change in the school lands trust that he and
Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch, a Democrat, got
through the 2001 session.

The debate Monday night was sponsored by the Billings League of Women
Voters, Montana Nurses Association and Billings Outpost.

Questions were posed to the candidates by David Crisp, editor of the
Billings Outpost, and Lynne Turner Fitzgerald, director of local cable
Community Channel 7. Munsell posed written questions from the audience.

It was broadcast live by KSVI Channel 6 television.