Two hours from now, the first (and per­haps only) tele­vised sen­a­to­r­i­al debate for the 2012 cycle will begin tap­ing at KCTS’ stu­dios at Seat­tle Cen­ter. It will air tonight at 7 PM (KCTS high def­i­n­i­tion chan­nels are 9.1 for over-the-air broad­casts, 009 on Dish or DirecTV, 109 on Com­cast Xfin­i­ty, and 509 on Fron­tier FiOS). We’ll be cov­er­ing the debate in real time as it is taped from the stu­dio, and we invite you to fol­low along.

UPDATE, 12:30 PM: We’ll be get­ting start­ed two hours from now.

UPDATE, 1:00 PM: Now just an hour and a half away.

UPDATE, 2:45 PM: In place at KCTS’ stu­dios. Big thanks to the net­work for let­ting NPI be here to cov­er this debate. Hur­ray for PBS and pub­lic broadcasting!

UPDATE, 3:03 PM: Co-mod­er­a­tors Kim Abel (from the League of Women Vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton) and Enrique Cer­na (from KCTS 9) are going over the ground rules and intro­duc­ing the candidates.

UPDATE, 3:07 PM: Sen­a­tor Cantwell is first to give an open­ing state­ment. She’s empha­siz­ing some of the accom­plish­ments of her sec­ond term, includ­ing her role in reau­tho­riz­ing the Export-Import Bank and get­ting fund­ing increased for com­mu­ni­ty colleges.

UPDATE, 3:09 PM: Baumgartner’s open­ing state­ment was large­ly about fam­i­ly. He described his can­di­da­cy as a team effort between him­self and his wife, and used the plur­al “we” instead of “I” when talk­ing about his candidacy.

UPDATE, 3:12 PM: First ques­tion is about the so-called fis­cal cliff. Baum­gart­ner opens first, and imme­di­ate­ly goes on the attack with a cheap shot, point­ing out that when Sen­a­tor Cantwell took office, the nation had a sur­plus (which the Bush admin­is­tra­tion gave away to the wealthy).

UPDATE, 3:14 PM: Sen­a­tor Cantwell’s response to the fis­cal cliff prompt­ed Baum­gart­ner hold up his chal­lenge sign. Baum­gart­ner attacked Cantwell for sup­port­ing the Bush administration’s inva­sions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Cantwell quick­ly par­ried back, using up two of her own chal­lenges to rebut Baumgartner’s comments.

UPDATE, 3:15 PM: Sec­ond ques­tion is about Afghanistan. Sen­a­tor Cantwell says she wants to bring our troops home. Baum­gart­ner asserts that the planned with­draw­al from Afgah­nistan will not actu­al­ly bring all of our troops home.

UPDATE, 3:16 PM: Baum­gart­ner: “Sen­a­tor Cantwell has con­sis­tent­ly been in sup­port of poor­ly planned wars.”

UPDATE, 3:16 PM: Third ques­tion is about the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act. “If you would repeal the Act, what would you put in its place?

UPDATE, 3:18 PM: Baum­gart­ner: “I look at the sit­u­a­tion and say we need to devel­op mar­ket forces to give him a prod­uct he can afford.” Says “tort reform” is need­ed to reform health­care. (“Tort reform” is real­ly about pre­vent­ing pub­lic pro­tec­tion attor­neys from being able to hold cor­po­ra­tions account­able when they don’t serve their customers).

UPDATE, 3:20 PM: Cantwell dis­miss­es Baumgartner’s call for allow­ing peo­ple to buy insur­ance across state lines, says she nev­er saw so many let­ters from peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions from Wash­ing­ton State opposed to that idea. Says Patient Pro­tec­tion Act is work­ing – we need to strength­en it.

UPDATE, 3:21 PM: Cantwell and Baum­gart­ner just used up their last chal­lenges argu­ing about health­care reform.

UPDATE, 3:22 PM: Next ques­tion is about the DREAM Act. Cantwell says she sup­ports it, says state real­ly needs the DREAM Act as well as com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform. “The con­ser­v­a­tive ele­ments of the Repub­li­can Par­ty” didn’t want to address immi­gra­tion reform, she says.

UPDATE, 3:22 PM: Baum­gart­ner begins his response by char­ac­ter­iz­ing Sen­a­tor Cantwell’s tenure in the Sen­ate as “twelve years of fail­ure”. What a pet­ty, unsub­stan­ti­at­ed attack. Where’s the evidence?

UPDATE, 3:24 PM: Baum­gart­ner on immi­gra­tion: “We have to look at this in a holis­tic way.”

UPDATE, 3:24 PM: Hal­lelu­jah – next ques­tion is about the cli­mate cri­sis. Enrique Cer­na wants to know what is each candidate’s strat­e­gy for deal­ing with the con­se­quences of a warm­ing world (includ­ing a rise in sea level).

UPDATE, 3:29 PM: Baum­gart­ner is not con­vinced that the cli­mate cri­sis is caused by humans, but says we should address the like­ly con­se­quences nonethe­less. Doesn’t pro­vide much in the way of specifics.

UPDATE, 3:30 PM: Cantwell: “I worked in a bipar­ti­san fash­ion with my col­league, Sen­a­tor Collins” on a pro­pos­al to begin address­ing the cli­mate cri­sis. “This is an impor­tant issue for us… I want us to diver­si­fy off of fos­sil fuels. I don’t want to drill off the coast of Wash­ing­ton, and I don’t want to drill in the Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge… two things I think my oppo­nent supports.”

UPDATE, 3:30 PM: Next ques­tion is about the influ­ence of mon­ey in pol­i­tics. What do you think is the prop­er role of cor­po­ra­tions in Amer­i­can elections?

UPDATE, 3:30 PM: Cantwell: Cer­tain­ly sup­ports trans­paren­cy in elec­tions. Says she sup­ports McCain-Fein­gold. At a min­i­mum, we need to cor­rect [Cit­i­zens Unit­ed], she says.

UPDATE, 3:30 PM: Baum­gart­ner: “I think mon­ey in pol­i­tics caus­es a big prob­lem… Obvi­ous­ly I’m at a big dis­ad­van­tage in this race. If I could wave a mag­ic want, I’d elim­i­nate tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing.” Would “absolute­ly sup­port” greater transparency.

UPDATE, 3:31 PM: Next ques­tion is about the fed­er­al bud­get. Baum­gart­ner says we need a bal­anced bud­get. Cantwell says she wants to defend Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare no mat­ter what. Let the Bush tax cuts expire, she says. Let’s get it done.

UPDATE, 3:32 PM: Next ques­tion is about Syr­ia and Iran. Kim Abel asks: What is your approach to these two situations?

UPDATE, 3:32 PM: Cantwell: “Syr­ia is a very com­plex sit­u­a­tion… The key thing for us right now is to put pres­sure on Chi­na and Rus­sia to get the Assad regime out of pow­er, and not back down.”

UPDATE, 3:33 PM: Cantwell cites her work with Lisa Murkows­ki to impose tough sanc­tions on Iran. “I believe we’re start­ing to see Iran change because of that pres­sure on their economy.”

UPDATE, 3:34 PM: Baum­gart­ner begins answer to Syria/Iran ques­tion by tak­ing anoth­er cheap shot at Cantwell. As if it is her fault that the Bush admin­is­tra­tion didn’t pay for their for­eign inva­sions and occupations.

UPDATE, 3:35 PM: Baum­gart­ner: “I think this is [an area] where I would pro­vide a lot of val­ue in the U.S. Senate.”

UPDATE, 3:35 PM: Next ques­tion: What is the role of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment ensur­ing a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion for children?

UPDATE, 3:36 PM: Baum­gart­ner: “The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment should set high stan­dards and should test… Unlike Sen­a­tor Cantwell, I sup­port char­ter schools. I won’t be a tool of the teach­ers’ unions in the U.S. Senate.”

UPDATE, 3:37 PM: Cantwell: “I don’t want a Ryan bud­get.” Cites her sup­port for STEM (sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math) ini­tia­tives. “I am not going to sup­port ideas like the Ryan bud­get that would cut Pell Grants… We need to make col­lege more affordable.”

UPDATE, 3:38 PM: Next ques­tion is about fund­ing for PBS. “Tell us now… Where do you stand on fund­ing for pub­lic broadcasting?”

UPDATE, 3:39 PM: Cantwell: “I real­ly appre­ci­ate” pub­lic tele­vi­sion. Implies she’ll strong­ly sup­port con­tin­ued fund­ing for the Cor­po­ra­tion for Pub­lic Broadcasting.

UPDATE, 3:41 PM: Baum­gart­ner says “I real­ly like Front­line” … then veers off a tan­gent and doesn’t answer the ques­tion about PBS funding.

UPDATE, 3:42 PM: Next ques­tion is about trib­al gam­ing near Spokane. ‘Where do you stand on this pro­posed casi­no by the Spokane tribes?” Baum­gart­ner oppos­es expan­sion, says it’s right next to Fairchild Air Force Base and could jeop­ar­dize base expansion.

UPDATE, 3:44 PM: Cantwell: “It’s very impor­tant that they [the tribe] go through the process.” Con­cludes her answer on that ques­tion and then cir­cles back to Afghanistan.

UPDATE, 3:44 PM: Next ques­tion is about coal ter­mi­nals in the Pacif­ic North­west. Why is it okay for us to export coal when we’ve stopped burn­ing it?

UPDATE, 3:46 PM: Cantwell: “Work­ing togeth­er on clean ener­gy solu­tions [with Asian coun­tries] would be a great idea.” Says she’ll be involved as process plays out for deter­min­ing if the ter­mi­nals make sense.

UPDATE, 3:47 PM: Baum­gart­ner: “I have a lot of con­cerns about coal trains.” Cites health effects of coal dust and poten­tial impact on mobil­i­ty for emer­gency vehi­cles in places like Spokane.

UPDATE, 3:47 PM: Baum­gart­ner does not sound like a con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can in this debate. He sounds more like a Ron Paul libertarian.

UPDATE, 3:48 PM: Next ques­tion is about the prac­tice of Bor­der Patrol agents pulling peo­ple over. Baum­gart­ner: “We should teach more police offi­cers Span­ish… Every­body should learn a for­eign language.”

UPDATE, 3:49 PM: Cantwell: “This is a very impor­tant issue… it’s about bal­anc­ing pri­va­cy rights and security.”

UPDATE, 3:50 PM: Cantwell: “I inter­vened on the Penin­su­la to ensure that the Bor­der Patrol was work­ing with local law enforcement.”

UPDATE, 3:50 PM: Mov­ing now to clos­ing statements.

UPDATE, 3:51 PM: Cantwell thanks audi­ence, KCTS9, and Baum­gart­ner. “This elec­tion… reminds me how much jobs and the econ­o­my are impor­tant here.” She’s reflect­ing on her record and nev­er-end­ing work to lis­ten to the con­cerns of busi­ness­es small and large in Wash­ing­ton State.

UPDATE, 3:57 PM: Baum­gart­ner has just deliv­ered his clos­ing state­ment. He has both said and implied dur­ing his com­ments this after­noon that Sen­a­tor Cantwell isn’t an effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Wash­ing­ton State, but oth­er than repeat­ed­ly describ­ing Irag and Afghanistan as “Sen­a­tor Cantwell’s wars” (a ludi­crous attack if we ever heard one), he has offered no spe­cif­ic crit­i­cisms of her record.

And that’s it – we’re done!

The can­di­dates have shak­en hands and the lights have come on. Audi­ence mem­bers are get­ting up from their seats. So long from Seat­tle Center!