Keller @ Large: WBZ Debate Aftermath
BOSTON (CBS) – Tuesday night, all five candidates for governor participated in a debate on WBZ, but Jon Keller shows how frontrunners Charlie Baker and Martha Coakley both could not face the test against his truth-seeking 'spin-o-meter.'
In one riveting moment of the debate, Coakley claimed a pay raise Baker got while running Harvard Pilgrim Health Care raises questions about his values.
Watch: WBZ Gubernatorial Debate
"In a not-for-profit your salary went from over $600,000 to $1.7 million. How do you explain that to people whose premiums went up, or who lost their care?" Coakley asked.
However, her attempted portrayal of a greedy executive fell through Wednesday at the Chamber of Commerce forum, when Baker noted that the Attorney General's office had to approve his salary.
Coakley asserted that she was not the Attorney General during this time period but Baker clarified that it occurred in 2008, when Coakley did, in fact, hold the position.
The two also clashed over Obamacare, and the state's effort to seek federal waivers from some of its more onerous provisions.
"Four of us on this panel today have talked about the waivers we should have pursued instead of going down the road of full speed ahead," said Baker.
Coakley responded, saying she has supported "the waivers that have made sense for Massachusetts."
Coakley may not have supported all the waivers Baker wanted, but she did back a 2013 push to get relief from some Obamacare rules that small businesses feared would send their premiums soaring.
Meanwhile, Scott Lively indicted Massachusetts as "the most extensive nanny state perhaps in the entire world." But, a conservative think-tank that ranks states for their economic and social freedom places Massachusetts in the middle of the 50 states.
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