Steele, Cardin wrangle over race in debate

BALTIMORE — Maryland’s U.S. Senate candidates Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele and Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin clashed over racial issues last night in their first debate of the campaign.

“There are too many divisions in America along racial lines and along economic lines,” Mr. Cardin, a Democrat, said during the two-hour debate at the Greater Baltimore Urban League, which is based in a church that once served as a refuge for escaped slaves on the famed Underground Railroad.

“Voters in the African-American community want change, and if they vote for me, they will get change,” Mr. Cardin said. “I voted against [President] Bush’s budget because Bush’s budget is leading America in the wrong direction, and the people in the African-American community know that.”

Mr. Steele, a Republican and the first black elected to statewide office in Maryland, responded: “I appreciate your message of change, but it is an outdated message.”

“My opponent, Mr. Cardin, says he wants to be a change agent,” Mr. Steele told the boisterous crowd that filled the old church hall. “How can you be a change agent if you vote with your party 95 percent of the time?”

The candidates also clashed over the Iraq war, health care and education.

Mr. Cardin said his Republican opponent was allied with the president in support of the Iraq war and against raising the minimum wage and universal health care coverage.

“I’ve stood up to the presidents of both parties when it was in the interest of the citizens of Maryland,” said Mr. Cardin, who has been running on his experience as a 10-term congressman from Baltimore and former speaker of the state House of Delegates.

Mr. Steele criticized Mr. Cardin, 62, for spending 20 years in Congress and showing little change to the quality of life in his district.

“At what point, Mr. Cardin, will you begin looking at what is going on in your own back yard?” he said.

Earlier, Mr. Steele, 47, chided Mr. Cardin for opening remarks that focused almost exclusively on the lieutenant governor’s association with Mr. Bush.

“What you have just witnessed is the trouble with Washington,” Mr. Steele said. “They run their mouths, but they don’t listen. … After 40 years of humble public service, he still has not learned to look around the room, shut up and listen.”

The remark drew competing cheers and jeers from the crowd.

Mr. Steele said Mr. Cardin had ignored the other candidate in the debate, Kevin Zeese, 51, an anti-war activist running under the banners of the Green, Libertarian and Populist parties.

Mr. Cardin and Mr. Steele are expected to meet at least one more time before the Nov. 7 election, including an appearance Oct. 29 on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

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