By Michael Jonas and Bruce Mohl

The four Democratic candidates for US Senate met last night at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester in the first formal debate of the race to succeed Sen. Edward Kennedy. What follows is an attempt to fact-check some of the claims made by the candidates. The fact-checking is based on interviews and reviews of public records wherever possible. CommonWealth encourages readers to comment, offering their own analysis of what was said during the debate.

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US Rep. Michael Capuano emphasized his experience in Washington bringing home the bacon. At one point, he said he had brought home more funds and federal transportation dollars “than ever before.” He later said he had brought more money into his district and the state “than any other member in a long time.”

Certainly Capuano has secured more federal dollars for Massachusetts than any of his three rivals, who haven’t worked in Washington. But he’s engaging in a bit of hyperbole when he says he’s secured more federal funds for Massachusetts than ever before. Bringing home the bacon is difficult to measure, but the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington offers one form of assessment: federal earmarks. According to the center, Capuano is above average compared to his colleagues in Congress in securing earmarks. Capuano sponsored or cosponsored 55 earmarks totaling $57.2 million during fiscal 2008 and 2009, of which 29, or $18.6 million, were sponsored by him alone. He ranked No. 2 in the Massachusetts delegation for solo earmarks and sixth in overall earmarks over the two-year period. The state’s undisputed earmark leader in the House is Rep. John Olver, who sponsored or cosponsored 132 earmarks worth $165 million over the two-year period. Of that total, 78 earmarks worth $60.5 million were sponsored by him alone. Alison Mills, a spokeswoman for Capuano, said the congressman’s claim was based primarily on passage of the transportation reauthorization bill in 2005, which included $5.23 billion for Massachusetts over six years, a 25 percent increase over the previous reauthorization.

Capuano said he wouldn’t send more troops to Afghanistan because the mission there — to destroy al Qaeda – is accomplished. As evidence, Capuano said General Stanley A. McChrystal had written in an Aug. 30 report that fewer than 100 al Qaeda members are left in Afghanistan. He made a point of saying McChrystal was answering the wrong question in calling for the deployment of more troops to Afghanistan. “The mission was to get al Qaeda, not to conquer Afghanistan,” he said.

McChrystal and Capuano actually agree on the mission in Afghanistan, with one exception. Both men say the mission is to disrupt and destroy al Qaeda, but McChrystal also believes that the mission includes preventing the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan. The general argues that, if the Afghan government falls, the country could again become a base for terrorism. The McChrystal report doesn’t say how many al Qaeda are in Afghanistan but notes that many are located in next-door Pakistan. “Al Qaeda and associated movements based in Pakistan channel foreign fighters, suicide bombers, and technical assistance into Afghanistan and offer ideological motivation, training, and financial support,” the general’s report says. Mills, Capuano’s spokeswoman, acknowledged the al Qaeda figure was not drawn from the McChrystal report but from comments made by National Security Advisor Jim Jones. “Congressman Capuano was mistaken on the source of that number, but he is not wrong on the facts,” she said.

Responding to a question asking what the candidates would do in the face of a federal recommendation to close the Hanscom Air Force Base or the U.S. Army’s Natick Labs, Attorney General Martha Coakley cited her efforts to anticipate issues affecting the state’s economy by creating a Business, Technology and Economic Development Division within her office.

In 2007, Coakley launched such a division within her office’s Business and Labor Bureau. The division, which is staffed by two attorneys, aims to improve the climate for business and technology development in Massachusetts. Among projects the division has worked on is a joint review with the Patrick administration of state regulations to identify those that are overly burdensome or “inconsistent with statutory mandates,” according to a description on the attorney general’s office website. The office has also worked with the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation to ensure that new regulations governing data security “strike a balance of protecting consumers while also not being overly burdensome, particualrly for smaller businesses,” said Emily LaGrassa, communications director for the attorney general’s office. The division has been “a very useful way for the business community to engage with the attorney general’s office,” said JD Chesloff, deputy director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable.

Coakley said she is the first attorney general in state history and “I believe in the country” to have such a business-focused divsion. A spokeswoman for the National Association of Attorneys General was unable to confirm today whether Massachusetts is the only state in which an AG’s office has such an operation.

Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca said he had “worked with” Ted Kennedy for 10 years.

Pagliuca did not team up with Kennedy on any big public initiatives. But Pagliuca spokesman Will Keyser says the wealthy private equity investor became someone who staff members on the health care committee that Kennedy chaired “would call pretty regularly for a business perspective” on issues they were working on. Keyser, who served as Kennedy’s spokesman in his Washington office from 1999 to 2002, says Pagliuca “developed a pretty good friendship with Sen. Kennedy in the late 90s.”

Pagliuca made reference to two having two campaign staff members who have been in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan War veterans Drew Sloan and Joseph Goodwin are both part of the Pagliuca campaign staff, says Keyser. Sloan serves as Pagliuca’s military policy advisor. Goodwin is a son of author Doris Kearns Goodwin and writer and former presidential advisor Richard Goodwin.

Capuano says he is running for the US Senate in part because he’s “a working class guy.” He said: “If somebody like me doesn’t step up and try, then nobody like me will ever succeed in this country.”

According to his campaign biography, Capuano graduated from Somerville High School in 1969, received a Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College in 1973 and a law degree from Boston College Law School in 1977. He served five terms as mayor of Somerville starting in 1990 and was first elected to Congress in November 1998. He earns $174,000 a year as a member of Congress. His campaign biography doesn’t mention what his parents did for a living, but a Boston Globe story indicates his father was an alderman in Somerville who unsuccessfully ran for mayor twice. Mills says Somerville was known as “Slummerville” in the 1960s. “Is there anything more you need to verify that the congressman has a working class background?” she asked.

City Year co-founder Alan Khazei said there are six health care lobbyists in Washington for every member of Congress.

Two reporters for Bloomberg News reported this amazing statistic late this summer. The reporters said 1,500 organizations have health care lobbyists and about three more are signing up each day.

Khazei said casino gambling generates $3 in social welfare costs for every $1 spent on gambling.

It’s unclear where Khazei obtained this statistic. It surfaces repeatedly on the Internet without attribution, often on religious websites and blogs. Usually the wording is that for every dollar in tax revenue received from gambling there are $3 in social welfare costs. Kathleen M. Scanlan, executive director of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, said she had never seen the statistic before. The Khazei campaign did not return phone calls.