The District’s five attorney general candidates faced a jury of their peers last night at the Loose Lips Debate. If you couldn’t make it to the Rock and Roll Hotel, you can listen to the debate below.

(Unfortunately, the recording missed the candidates’ opening statements and Lorie Masters and Karl Racine‘s answers to the first question about what they did to help make the District’s first attorney general election happen this year.)

Highlights from the attorney general debate include:

40:00 –  Hopefuls Edward “Smitty” Smith and Karl Racine get testy. When the candidates get an opportunity to ask one another questions, Smitty makes clear that his “ethics pledge” was aimed at Racine’s employment at law firm Venable LLP. Smitty asks Racine how voters can trust him when Venable’s clients do business with the District, only to have Racine call the pledge a “gimmick.”

48:00 – Racine claims that putting $225,000 of his own money into his campaign doesn’t amount to an attempt to buy the election.

“The reason why I put my own money is because I care about this city,” Racine says.

49:00 – Lateefah Williams and Smitty defend their comparative lack of experience as attorneys in the District. Racine cuts in to say that he thinks that LL’s question about Williams’ experience—-something she raised herself in the Washington Blade—-is “almost insulting.” Notably, he doesn’t have the same concerns on Smitty’s behalf.

53:00 –  Paul Zukerberg defends himself from the charge he’s too zany to be attorney general.

“When I float up to heaven, they’re going to ask me not whether I was Mr. Joe Straight Guy, but whether I was Paul Zukerberg,” Zukerberg says. “And I gotta be true to myself.”

1:08:00 – Elsewhere on the November ballot, Smitty and Williams say they’ll vote for Muriel Bowser for mayor. The other three candidates—-Zukerberg, Racine, and Lorie Masters—-are more tight-lipped about their mayoral choices.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery