Not too late to elevate debate

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Braley and Republican nominee Joni Ernst met for their first debate last weekend. If you missed it, there are plenty of news stories chronicling the event.

Braley and Ernst 'tear into each other,” according to the headline on Politico's coverage. MSNBC said the contenders 'trade barbs.” In the Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier, the candidates went 'for the jugular.”

'Clash,” 'spar,” 'trade blows,” and 'butt heads” all made appearances.

So it was a banner night for colorful language. But it was a lousy night for Iowa.

At stake in this race is the first open U.S. Senate seat in Iowa in decades. The person who fills that seat will be sitting in a powerful position to affect countless issues and address numerous problems facing Iowa and the nation. He or she will be in office for six years, and in terms of the critical fateful decisions that could come up, six years is a very long time.

But instead of rising to the occasion and recognizing the importance of the decision Iowans are making, the candidates took every possible opportunity to attack one another. Even when moderators raised important issues, the candidates simply used them as opportunities to regurgitate charges leveled in dozens of attack ads running in an endless TV loop.

Talking points beat new ideas in a landslide. We heard much about Ernst's tea party ties and Braley's Washington ties, but precious little about what either would do if they win a seat in the Senate.

We understand the pressure mounting. We know that Iowa's Senate seat will be critical in the broader partisan struggle to control Congress. Outside interests on both sides have transformed the race into a mud-splattered war of attrition. The temptation to attack and defend and repeat is enormous.

But both Braley and Ernst are Iowans, so they ought to know that Iowans deserve a far better campaign than this. We deserve to know much more about how they would govern in uncertain times and in an increasingly dangerous world. We've heard a lot about Iowa values, but not much about solutions to problems Iowans would value, and welcome.

Braley and Ernst meet again on Oct. 11. We're calling on them to climb out of the muck and rise to the occasion. There's still time to grab control of this campaign from outsiders and make it a race centered on Iowans and their concerns. Tear into some substance.

' Comments: editorial@thegazette.com or (319) 398-8292.