Seth Moulton and John Deaton debate without Ed Markey in Massachusetts Senate race

If there was ever any doubt about what the dominant issue of the Massachusetts campaign season would be, it was removed within the first few minutes of the cycle's first televised debate between Democrat Seth Moulton and Republican John Deaton. 

"The enemy of Massachusetts people today is Donald Trump," said Congressman Moulton (D-6th District) during a WBZ inter-party pre-primary debate for U.S. Senate at the WBZ studios.  

"Let me introduce myself, I'm John Deaton," responded the presumptive GOP nominee. "I'm debating you, not Donald Trump."

Deaton, an attorney who lost to Sen. Elizabeth Warren two years ago and is unopposed in the September 1 GOP primary, has been a vocal critic of Trump and says he has never voted for him. So, it was a measure of his frustration when he responded to Moulton's constant association of him with the president with this somewhat off-color remark: "F the Republican Party, F the Democratic Party, they all suck."

But that caustically independent branding didn't deter Moulton. When Deaton insisted he'd use his clout to push for local funding priorities like repair of the Cape Cod bridges, the Democrat waved him off. 

"Massachusetts deserves someone who's going to fight for Massachusetts, who's going to stand up to the Trump administration and say that when you're yanking NIH dollars away from our universities, when you're taking power away, so it jacks up Americans' and Massachusetts residents electricity bills. We're not going to stand for that," Moulton said. "I'm not going to go to the Senate and just vote along with every other Republican to endorse these policies regardless of whether or not you happened to vote for Trump in an election."

Incumbent Sen. Ed Markey declined an invitation to join the debate. And while the two challengers share a belief that Markey's shelf life has expired, they disagreed on what real change will look like.

"The bottom line is that the old playbook is just not getting it done," said Moulton. "There are other important differences between myself and Senator Markey, like I'm not going to support [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer."

Replied Deaton: "If you look at Seth's argument, it is simply he's younger than Markey. He sees eye to eye on all the policies. That's not change, that's promotion dressed up as generational change."

The two candidates clashed over immigration policies and the future of ICE, with Moulton calling for its elimination and Deaton dismissing that as a foolish slogan. And while they took turns taking swipes at the incumbent, their criticisms won't go unanswered for long. Markey is set for a one-on-one interview here on WBZ Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m.