It was a battle over records Monday night as both Sen. Rand Paul and Lexington Mayor Jim Gray each made their case to voters.
If the atmosphere outside KET studios sounded more like a football game, with competing chants and noisemakers, the tone inside was relatively restrained as the Bowling Green Republican and the Lexington Mayor squared off on national security, student debt, coal, and their bipartisan bonefides.
Tensions flared only briefly over charges that each view their positions as stepping stones to higher office. Asked by Gray to pledge a full term of service in the Senate, the presidential aspirant invoked the long-stalled CentrePointe project in his rebuttal.
"Why don't you take pledge to do your job as mayor?" Paul responded. "You've got a lot of stuff to do. I mean, you could keep busy for another eight years working on the hole in downtown."
A frequent critic of the development's ongoing delays, Gray said, "You created a law that was going to allow you to run for the Senate and for the president at the same time."
Arguing for a renewed focus on jobs and infrastructure, a robust intelligence apparatus, and more action to help retired coal miners, Gray often cast his opponent as an agent of Washington gridlock in the thrall of political ideologies.
"He wants us to believe that his wild-assed theories and philosophies are the remedies for everything and they're not," the mayor said, pivoting to his private sector experience. "I know. I've been there. They will not build the first bridge. They will not build the first highway."
Defending his priorities, Paul rehearsed his common themes of limited government, low taxes, less regulation, and strong privacy protections – linking them back to the nation’s founding documents.
"I think you can have security and continue to defend the Constitution. We take an oath. I take it very seriously," the libertarian-leaning Republican said.
Scuffle over SCOTUS
On the fate of the current and future Supreme Court nominees, the candidates also parted ways.
Paul said he "can't imagine" voting for a Supreme Court nominee from Hillary Clinton but stopped short of vowing to continue a blockade of Democratic appointments. The junior senator did promise to meet with potential Clinton nominees and said he would support them only if the person "believes in the separation of powers."
"It's going to be very difficult for me to vote for a candidate coming forward who's saying that they want to abuse the Constitution, abuse the people, to allow power to gravitate to the presidency that's unconstitutional," Paul answered.
The Republican-controlled Senate has blocked President Barack Obama's choice to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Other Republicans, including John McCain and Ted Cruz, have suggested the Senate would block any Clinton nominee.
Gray said the way forward is clearly spelled out, and pointed to the impasse as further evidence of Washington dysfunction.
"The president makes a nomination and the Senate then takes up that nomination through an advise and consent process," the Democrat explained. "I think the Senate should have done its job and I don't know it didn't do its job."
The Top of the Ballot
Accusations of unfitness and poor judgment against presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton were favorite attack lines for Paul during the hour-long discussion. The senator frequently tied Gray to the Democratic nominee, saying "if you endorse Hilary Clinton, you disqualify yourself. I don't know how you can represent Kentucky because everything she stands for is against what we need in Kentucky."
The Lexington mayor offered a clear, if muted, endorsement of Clinton, saying, "I support the nominee of our party."
Gray added that, "The reason I'm a Democrat is because Democrats are for the working man and woman. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to support and endorse every idea of a Democrat."
One name that escaped criticism was Donald Trump – with neither Paul nor Gray going on the offensive against the presidential nominee.
Asked in a post-debate interview about whether he felt the need to take an aggressive tack in his one and only debate, Gray said, "No, I felt like I was just calling it like it is."
Paul declined to speak with reporters.
