By Joe Rogalsky,
Delaware State News
SALISBURY, Md. — Democratic Gov. Ruth Ann Minner sought to cast her opponents as nothing but naysayers in Thursday's final two debates of this year's campaign.
Republican William Swain Lee and Independent-Libertarian Frank Infante said the state has squandered opportunities to improve during the past four years and made their cases for voters to replace Gov. Minner in Tuesday's election.
The candidates met in a morning debate on WDEL radio in Wilmington and in the evening during a debate televised on Salisbury,Md.-based WBOC.
"The other night in a debate, our president said ‘a plan is not a litany of complaints,' " Gov. Minner said during the morning radio event, quoting a statement from President Bush.
"Today, you have heard from my opponents a litany of complaints. We have a plan and we are moving the state forward."
In both debates, Mr. Lee said voters need to decide whether they approve of Gov. Minner's performance and determine whether to renew the governor's contract for another four years, or fire her and hire him.
"The governor talks about her plans for the next four years," Mr. Lee said on WDEL.
"She hasn't done anything the last four years. The governor has money, she has chosen to spend it on political pork. She has not been a leader with a plan."
The state's smoking ban, which has been largely absent in the campaign, came up in both debates.
During a discussion of gambling on WDEL, Mr. Infante said the ban needed to be relaxed to allow smoking in casinos. He has also advocated allowing smoking in bars to help attract customers.
"Unless Gov. Minner is willing to admit there are flaws in it, she is lying to the public," he said.
Mr. Lee, a retired judge, praised the law.
"It's something you are going to be remembered for," Mr. Lee said to Gov. Minner during the WDEL debate.
"It's something that is not going to be changed."
During the half-hour debate on WBOC, during which a fly buzzed around the candidates, Gov. Minner swiped at both opponents over their smoking ban stances.
"One opponent (Mr. Infante) says he'll do away with it," she said.
"The other (Mr. Lee), it depends on where is. In some places, he'll do away with it. In others, it's the best thing that ever happened."
Like most of their debates, Thursday's included testy exchanges over the three-tiered high school diploma proposal and the condition of Delaware's prisons.
Gov. Minner again took credit for "stopping" the controversial diploma program because she signed the bill delaying it for one year while an outside panel of experts studies it. A few days before the bill reached her desk in May, however, she said she was "not happy" about it but recognized the overwhelming legislative support.
"I had no say in what happened because it was already in place when I became governor," she said on WBOC.
"I found it to be disruptive to our students. I signed a bill stopping it on May 20 before my opponent even knew about the three-tiered diploma."
Mr. Lee, who has made improving the state's education system a campaign priority, reminded the governor he advocated against the system while she opposed the bill delaying it.
"That's ridiculous," Mr. Lee said of the governor's remarks.
"I was out there speaking on the steps of Legislative Hall against it. The voters were there to get rid of it altogether. The only reason it's still in existence is because of the governor."
Mr. Infante pledged to eliminate the three-tiered diploma plan quickly.
"It has to go," he said.
Mr. Lee and Mr. Infante have criticized Gov. Minner many times for not doing enough to address staffing shortages among correctional officers working in the state's prisons. The issue came to the forefront after a July 12 incident at the Delaware Correctional Center, where a counselor was held hostage for nearly seven hours and raped.
A few days after the incident, Gov. Minner told the Delaware State News that "in prisons, you almost expect this to happen." Her opponents have said the remark shows insensitivity to the situation.
"We need to pay them better money, we need to give them better benefits and we need to let them retire after 25 years because that is a longer sentence than most of the inmates are serving," Mr. Lee said on WDEL.
"I put a lot of those people in prison. I know they're dangerous."
Gov. Minner said her opponents are taking the quote out of context because she was talking about training issues and was explaining why the prison's emergency response team handled the situation instead of the state police.
On WDEL, she called her opponents and other quote critics "mind-readers who think they know what I mean but don't listen to what I say."
"There are problems in our prisons, but nationally, there are problems in all prisons," Gov. Minner said.
"With everything going on in the news and with the correctional officers saying the things they are saying, there is no wonder people do not want to go into our corrections system."
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Staff writer Joe Rogalsky can be reached at 741-8226 or jrogalsky@newszap.com Reposting permission by newszap.com
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