BOWLING GREEN -- State Sens. David Boswell (D-Owensboro) and Brett Guthrie (R-Bowling Green) met again last night in Bowling Green for the fourth debate of their race for the 2nd Congressional District, and they again found common ground on many issues while disagreeing about a campaign ad that has somehow emerged as the most controversial aspect of their competition.

During the debate at Bowling Green Junior High, both the candidates opposed the recent financial bailout package and preached a re-evaluation of some regulations as a solution. Both lauded nuclear power and expanded drilling as potential parts of a solution to the energy crisis. Both opposed gay marriage, and both said the return of manufacturing jobs was a principal way to weather economic tough times.

One chief divide between the candidates continued to be over the activities of their respective parties.

The last debate between Boswell and Guthrie was the most contentious of the series of four. The meeting in Elizabethtown on Sept. 30 fell on the heels of a week of sparring over a new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad that accused Guthrie's family company of "shipping manufacturing work to Mexico." Guthrie's frustration with the ad was evident, and he frequently referenced the spot during the event.

Last night, the DCCC spot and its content came up again and provided one of the few schisms of the evening.

Guthrie initially laid out a defense of the ad's accusations early in the evening, asserting that no jobs at his company facilities had been outsourced abroad. A later question from a moderator on the ad's charges found Guthrie categorizing the spot as a type of "Washington attack politics" and arguing such tactics impacted policymaking.

"It just creates an environment that people don't want to work together anymore," said Guthrie. "People get to D.C. - if they win - and they've been maligned, and their company has been maligned, and things have been said negative about them that aren't true. It just changes the whole culture there."

"I want to go to make a positive culture in Washington, D.C. If we don't do it, we aren't going to be able to govern this country," he added.

When the DCCC spot came up in the last debate, Boswell accused Guthrie of "whining," saying robocalls were made in the district distorting his record that he did not complain about.

The response last night was not quite as abrupt, with Boswell first claiming he did not know the ad was coming out and, secondly, bemoaning the state of campaign politics in general.

"It's a fact of political life, one that some of us are not comfortable with... I don't like negative political ads," said Boswell, who then again referenced the robocalls he said were placed by "subordinates of the opposing party.

"The door does swing both ways, and it'd be a perfect world if we didn't have to have this kind of campaign," added Boswell.

"You play like you practice, in a lot of ways," retorted Guthrie.

He then said the robocalls were made by "some group that I had never heard of, and I didn't invite them to come get involved in this race at all."

Pro-Life and Pelosi

Guthrie also tried to turn party label against Boswell, asking the Democrat - who touts his "pro-life" voting record - if he would vote for a pro-life Speaker of the House, if elected.

"I've not been a rubber stamp in the Kentucky General Assembly for the twenty-some odd years that I've been a member of the House and Senate combined and I have a 100% voting record on pro-life issues," Boswell responded.

The current U.S. House Speaker is Nancy Pelosi, a pro-choice California Democrat. Boswell earlier was tight-lipped about supporting Pelosi for Speaker, and his response on Thursday was by no means explicit.

"If I disagreed with her position on those issues, I would vote against Ms. Pelosi on those particular issues," said Boswell concerning abortion.

"I have not been a rubber stamp on any of those kinds of issues," continued Boswell, who then associated Guthrie with the Republican state Senate president. "My opponent has been a rubber stamp, pretty much, for the baron of Burkesville, David Williams."

The experience question

The candidates largely stuck to their standard campaign themes, with Boswell making reference to specific policies he worked on throughout his years of government service in Frankfort to highlight his "experience" while Guthrie did not surrender the experience question by drawing on his business background as equally, if not more, valuable.

"The bottom line is experience, I think, in this job," said Boswell, who has served in the state Senate since 1990, and previously served four years as Commissioner of Agriculture and five as a state Rep. "It's my plan to roll my shirtsleeves up and apply all the experiences I have gathered."

"My experience, I think, is valuable in this race. I have been in the state Senate for ten years," said Guthrie shortly after Boswell's remarks. "But the real experience I am going to bring is through my business experience working on Main Street and the real world."

Issue positioning

Consensus was found on most issues between the candidates, with each saying they would have voted against the financial bailout package.

"All of a sudden, in 140 hours, we want to put $750-plus billion into a bailout scenario," said Boswell of the rushed process for the legislation's passage. "We should evaluate the regulations that have dissipated...I would have voted against both measures with the hopes that we would have been more responsible with our solution."

Guthrie said he would have voted against the bailout, as well, and pitched an "insurance program," in which financial institutions pay a premium to the government to guarantee distressed assets.

The two candidates both said that nuclear power plants in Kentucky and drilling for oil could be parts of a package of energy proposals to address rising costs. Guthrie was emphatic in his assertion that opening up domestic reserves to exploration would lower global costs, though Boswell argued there was no "single silver bullet solution" to the energy issue, and advocated for alternative energy development.

"I think if we develop our own oil and resources, even though it may take seven years, or eight, to get it to market, the markets will respond...and we will get lower prices," said Guthrie.

"It's imperative that we wean ourselves from the dependence of foreign oil, and if that includes developing our resources, I'm all for it," said Boswell.

In a sequence where the candidates questioned each other, each asked an issue-specific question to the other. When inquiried, Boswell affirmed his support for the Employee Free Choice Act - legislation supported by organized labor that would allow unionization in a plant when a majority of employees sign union cards, and removing the employer's option to call a secret ballot election on the issue.

Labor unions support the bill, arguing it removes employer coercion from unionization procedures, while some employers say it allows for labor coercion.

In his question, Guthrie said he opposed the privitization of social security.

The candidates also took somewhat opposing stances on the war in Iraq. Guthrie advocating for decision making power on tactics and withdrawl to be left with military generals, while Boswell said the mission in Iraq was largely over once Sadaam Hussein was killed. The Democrat also connected continued American presence in Iraq with the presence of oil reserves there.

"I do think our position in Iraq at this stage has a lot to do with energy," said Boswell. "I think approaching those issues...about becoming energy independent and sustaining our own needs here through conservation, and renewables to provide our energy independence will go a long ways to bring many of our troops back out of the Middle East."