NEWTON - U.S. Sen. John Kerry followed his Republican challenger in talking to reporters after their debate here Monday night and said that Jeff Beatty's debate performance was indicative of Republican negativity that has cropped up across the country.

[img_assist|nid=1571|title=U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Boston)|desc=Politicker Photo|link=none|url=undefined|align=right|width=114|height=182]"Tonight, we had an opportunity to talk about the most serious issues in front of the country in a serious way," the Boston Democrat said. "And what I think we saw was reflective of the national Republican Party and its negativity -- always personal and always negative, without real ideas for how to deal with the country's problems."

"That is not what we need for Massachusetts," Kerry went on, "We don't need another Republican to go to Washington and join with the Bush mentality to perpetuate the policies that have hurt us over these last years. Period."

Kerry, who is leading in recent polls, also addressed his wife's ownership of AIG stock in 2007. Beatty has repeatedly criticized Kerry for his connections to the bailed-out insurance lender and Kerry parried each attack by saying that such a relationship does not exist.

"The reason, first of all, that you know anything about it, is because we disclose it, I disclosed it," Kerry said. "What I disclosed was that at one point in time in 2007 briefly, within that three month period that qualifies, a company that was managing some of my wife's assets, owned some AIG stock. Therefore we revealed that. But she then, dismissed the company and it no longer worked for her. But because they had, we disclosed it. We did what the law requires. But she does not and has not owned AIG stock since the winter of 2007 and I don't personally own any stock in AIG."

Kerry noted that Congress played no role in deciding to bailout AIG, the Treasury Department did.

"Moreover, the government didn't do anything for AIG, except the treasury department bailed it out," he said. "So what is this all about? We in Congress made no decision for AIG."

The senator also willingly addressed his repeated questioning of Beatty in the debate over providing a specific healthcare plan.

"I could have asked for an economic bailout plan, I could have asked for a lot of things," Kerry said. "We haven't heard them in his campaign. There is no plan. He doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have a plan for the economy."