In a few moments Representatives Tom Latham and Leonard Boswell will debate live on KCCI-TV in Des Moines. KCCI and the Des Moines Register are live-streaming the event. It’s the second debate between Boswell and Latham, who debated in Creston last night.

I taped the fifth debate between Representative Steve King and Christie Vilsack last night, but haven’t had a chance to watch yet. Nor have I been able to listen to today’s Iowa Public Radio program featuring Representative Bruce Braley and Ben Lange.

Any comments about any debates in the Iowa Congressional races are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Added some thoughts about the IA-03 debate after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: The Braley-Lange debate is worth a listen. I posted my take in this news roundup on the IA-01 race.

Debate format: I prefer the studio debates to the live audience debates, where audience noise is distracting and wastes time. For the most part, KCCI’s Kevin Cooney and the Register’s Kathie Obradovich asked substantive questions.

However, it was a terrible idea not to have a clock to keep the candidates’ answers equal and limited.

General impressions: Boswell and Latham both came across as “themselves,” not as politicians who have been coached to sound a certain way. Although I’m sure they do practice talking points with their staffs, the way they speak sounds more natural and less scripted than many politicians. On twitter some Iowa Republicans mocked Boswell for “mumbling,” but that’s just the way he talks.

I doubt the back and forth on the big issues (Bush tax cuts, Obamacare, Medicare) swung any voters. Probably both candidates reinforced their supporters’ beliefs.

The news story of the debate will probably be Boswell coming out for a gas tax increase. I give him credit for answering in a straightforward way when asked how we should pay for repairing our crumbling infrastructure. In contrast, Latham offered some unbelievable revisionist history when he complained about the “failed” stimulus, then said it failed because money wasn’t targeted toward job creating projects like infrastructure. Hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus funding went toward roads and bridges. (It should have been more, but President Obama threw in a bunch of tax cuts to get non-existent Republican support.) Boswell has consistently supported more spending on infrastructure. Latham has consistently opposed those bills.

I thought it was interesting that the moderators forced Latham and Boswell to defend their cheap shot campaign ads. The poor quality of the IA-03 ads is one reason I am behind schedule on doing a news roundup about this race. There are so many substantive policy differences between Latham and Boswell, yet they’re on tv complaining about bonuses paid to Boswell staffers and TARP money received by Latham’s family bank.

Boswell scored by pointing out that Latham’s a hypocrite because on average, he pays his staff more per year than Boswell’s. Latham scored by asking Boswell, when was the last time you ran a positive ad?

I don’t think either candidate hurt himself in this debate. Both claimed to be interested in bipartisan progress. I wish the moderators had done more background research on the candidates’ voting records, though. Latham is a rubber stamp for the House Republican leadership almost 100 percent of the time. As much as I dislike Boswell’s habit of voting with Congressional Republicans and Blue Dogs from time to rime, there is no question that his record is far more bipartisan than Latham’s.

UPDATE: Here’s O.Kay Henderson’s write-up of the debate. Latham and Boswell are debating again October 11 on Iowa Public Television at 7 pm, just before the vice presidential debate.