I can’t remember the question, but it’s being treated as a launching pad for Coats’ final statement. Apparently, he considers being a lobbyist a private matter like sex or something, and Ellsworth’s drumbeat a virtual invasion of privacy and very unseemly.

Ellsworth sez the record and resumé are among the issues, and Coats’ resumé is a legitimate issue. Then he ticks me off by saying that lawyers advocate for whoever pays the bill, eliding lobbying and lawyering. Unless my profession is less popular than I think, he just blunted his mantra of “lobbyist, lobbyist” by making it no more noxious than the honorable job of an attorney.

Sink-Burris, too, makes a closing statement.

All things considered, war is a big enough issue for me that Sink-Burris gained a touch of favor. Postscript: her position on marriage, too, may be the ultimate compromise we collectively reach.

A Rohrschalk question about gay rights – “what do you think about gay rights?” I think it was.

Ellsworth: Very big question. Don’t ask don’t tell has been bad for gays. Marriage is one man and one woman, though.

Sink-Burris: I think she’s saying that civil unions should be the government role, and then Churches should do as they want about “marriage.” But she has an odd locution about “people who consider themselves gay” or something like that. Hmmm.

Coats supported DADT. Marriage is a “liaison” between one man and one woman.

“Campaign Finance Reform.”

Coats stammers. Maybe we should ban money from outside Indiana for Hoosier races.

Ellsworth thinks it’s a great question. He served in Vietnam with John Kerry. Wait, no! That’s not what he said. He walked a beat! He was police, not soldier. He’s not the kind of guy who would do an unnamed thing that rhymes with hobbyist to line his pockets after leaving Congress.

A Fair Tax would minimize the influence of big money says — let’s see — I think that was Sink-Burris.

Energy including “alternate” or “green” energy.

Sink-Burris wants the states to regulate pollution and the market to provide energy.

Coats knows how to pronounced “nuclear” — I think, but I’m not sure. I think he likes market solutions.

Brad Ellsworth gets excited at the sight of boondoggle windmills in White and Benton Counties. And notes that Coats was lobbyist for cap-and-trade billionaires.

Moderator offers everyone 30 seconds to clear the air over the lobbying stuff that’s been flying around. It will never happen. It will be brought up again. And Coats will bring up Ellsworth’s Obamacare vote again.

Infrastructure. Very important. Pretty bland answers. Coats says we’d have more money for infrastructure if we hadn’t spent so much on stimulus and Obamacare which, by the way, Ellsworth voted for.

Dan Coats gives a perfunctory answer and then sez “That wasn’t me lobbying. That was my 850-lawyer firm.”

Ellsworth says “you were co-chair of a 25-30 lawyer lobbying department at the law firm.” Then gives his perfunctory answer.

Sink-Burris sez the Fair Tax is a panacea that will eliminate the questioner’s recordkeeping woes. Right or wrong, she’s answering the question, and even taking it to a higher level of generality rather than micro-focusing on a particular paperwork burden.

Rebecca Sink-Burris is dissing the bank bailout. Huzzah! I’ll click to post this when the two dudes have answered. No! Wait! She’s waffling. “Some say this, some say that.”

Coats just categorically said government messes things up. And he wants to be Senator? But he’s frank that the big banks got bailed out because they’re powerful and influential, while little banks didn’t. (Too big to fail, but he didn’t propose to bust them up. Yeah. That’s my version of Rebecca Sink-Burris’s Fair Tax mantra.)

Ellsworth didn’t answer the question, but trenchantly notes that Coats was a lobbyist.

Rebecca Sink-Burris, Libertarian, apparently thinks “Fair Tax” is a winning issue. I’m pretty ambivalent. It’s simpler, but it’s regressive, isn’t it, just like the sales tax?