Faso gets rocky reception at Woodstock debate with Delgado
Candidates debate before general election next month
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. >> Republican U.S. Rep. John Faso brought his campaign theme about his challenger’s residency to a debate at the Woodstock Playhouse only to be booed by a crowd that considered the Democratic challenger to have married into the community.
The event was hosted and broadcast live by Spectrum News.
Democratic challenger Antonio Delgado, a Rhinebeck resident, has said he is familiar with the district having grown up in Schenectady and becoming part of his wife’s family, which has resided in both Woodstock and Saugerties. “I proposed to my wife at the Ship to Shore (restaurant) in Kingston, married my wife at the Kaaterskill in Greene County, both of which are in the district,” Delgado said. ““Yes, we did leave after we graduated from high school to pursue opportunities. And, then, we came back.”
Faso previously has hammered at Delgado for moving into the district and shortly thereafter becoming a congressional candidate. He raised the issue Tuesday evening while also saying Delgado was unfair in criticizing tax breaks received by large corporations.
“Before he moved (into the district) he worked for a very large national law firm representing corporate interest,” Faso said. “So this language about corporations and everything is rather disingenuous.”
In addition to being booed over his comments about Delgado’s residency, Faso was laughed at by much of the audience, amounting to about 275 people, when he said Democratic discussions about health care were part of a political conspiracy.
“Mr. Delgado’s all over the lot,” Faso said. “During the primary he said he wanted to move to single payer, now he’s only pretending he wants this public option. The public option would frankly destroy the private market for insurance and that’s really the aim of the radical left.”
During the campaign, Faso has attacked Delgado for decade-old rap songs he recorded, using the lyrics to paint Delgado as a cultural outsider, a tactic that has been criticized as playing to racism.
Delgado appeared comfortable Tuesday discussing the rap songs in a community that embraces the phrase “Colony of the Arts” and has recently had its own town elected officials challenged by youth over generational views of music.
“The music to me was uplifting, talk about the issues that ... I still care about,” he said.
“I talked about 80 percent of folks earning 10 percent of the wealth,” Delgado said. “I was talking about that over a decade ago, I’m talking about it now. I’m happy to say I’ve seen the objective members of the community, members who can see it for what it is, talk about how this line of attack is misleading and grotesquely irresponsible.”
The debate moderator noted that the songs talked about current social issues and struggles such as poverty, violence, and racial inequality.
Faso stood by his previous criticism and attempted to shift his response away from the question about the rap songs. However, he was brought back to the topic by moderators who asked if the congressman would denounce ads that focus on selected lyrics that are taken out of context.
“The fact that he had a career as a rapper isn’t relevant,” Faso said. “His words are relevant. Many of those words you wouldn’t want me to say on this program.”
Faso, after saying that the ads were not authorized by his campaign, closed by saying Delgado was “supported by kind of a mob mentality,” which drew groans from the audience.
Delgado said that, during part of Faso’s effort to sidetrack the rap discussion, he had taken comments from a debate on Monday out of context and had specifically misrepresented a response about moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“Israel is a democracy and it is a Jewish democracy,” Delgado said. “My point in the debate yesterday was to say that, if it is to remain one for generations to come, it is urgent, critical that we have a twostate solution. As a man who is married to a Jewish woman, raising two Jewish children, I care deeply about the fate of Israel.”
The candidates clearly differed on what is being done by the Republicanled Congress and President Donald Trump in dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. It was also one issue on which both candidates spoke in terms that clearly demonstrated their one striking similarity as attorneys who speak in measured tones about the law.
“We literally have an administration right now that’s rolling back the evidentiary burden under Title IX for our young women on college campuses,” Delgado said.
Faso noted a policy has been adopted to keep members of Congress from having secret deals to hide sexual indiscretions and said Delgado’s position did not protect both sides in college sexual harassment cases.
“I am astonished that he would, as an attorney, want to have no due process for people who are accused of harassment at colleges,” Faso said.
Following the debate, Faso denied he wants to give additional protection to accused men. “I think when there’s a sexual harassment or sexual misconduct matter that’s been alleged, it should be referred to law enforcement so it can be properly adjudicated and evaluated. I think the colleges often mess this up and they don’t really have a good system for dealing with this and due process is really important.”
The news-making caravan of migrants from Central America now in Mexico and heading for the U.S. prompted Delgado to express concern that individuals would be subjected to mishandling at the border that he said had occurred earlier this year.
“I think a more appropriate approach would be figure out how to put the proper amount of funding and resources in play to have a credible asylum process where people have to figure out the appropriate way to go through it, but ultimately we can make a determination,” he said.
“We are not a nation of open borders,” Delgado said. “We do have ... laws that must be abided by, but instead of beating our chest, but instead of reacting militaristically to every endeavor, we should be thinking diplomatically how we should engage and be about our principles and be about our values as a country and, right now, we haven’t been.”
Faso interrupted when Delgado said there hasn’t been “moral leadership on this issue.”
Faso echoed Trump administration talking points when he said the people in the “caravan” had somehow been put together by an unidentified foe.
“I don’t for a minute believe this is just some kind of spontaneous caravan, not being organized by people who have a political agenda,” he said.
Pressed by moderators, Faso acknowledged not having information to support that contention.
“I’m basing that on common sense,” he said. “How do you get 10,000 people to start marching in a particular direction?”
Delgado declined the offer to follow up Faso’s response, saying: “He rebutted himself.”
Spectrum did not include either Green Party candidate Steve Greenfield or independent candidate Diane Neal in the debate, with representatives contending they both are polling under the 5 percent threshold for participation. A Spectrum/ Siena College poll released this week put Neal’s support at 4.7 percent.