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Banned
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What Are Your Impressions of the 3rd Republican 2008 Presidential Candidates Debate?
IMO, Ron Paul shined, (I edited out other "also rans") TFP limits for posts prohibits a lengthy OP from me... The misinformation in opinions about Libby's convictions and pardon concerned me, as did Rudy's stance, vs. his later support for "the rule of law". McCain seemed incoherent.
The multiple Ft. Dix and JFk "terror threat" references seemed laughable....lame. The Reagan references...too numerous and stale. No solutions for Iraq offered.
Anybody impressed by anything these guys said? What? What did they say to justify supporting any of them?
Quote:
<b>Third G.O.P. Debate</b>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/us...ewanted=2&_r=1
June 5, 2007
(Page 2 of 28)
....MR. BLITZER:...to Scott Spradling of WMUR for the next question.
MR. SPRADLING:..Sen McCain, we’ve just spent a few minutes looking back. I’d ask you to look forward now,..
..[In] June... 17 confirmed deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. Approximately, 100 U.S. troops are dying there every month. If..General Petraeus, reports back to Congress this September that the surge hasn’t significantly improved the situation on the ground, what then?
(Page 3 of 28)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/us...ewanted=3&_r=1
Sen McCain: I, one, think this strategy needs to be given a chance to succeed. We haven’t barely gotten the fifth brigade over there, which is part of this strategy. I am convinced that if we fail and we have to withdraw, they will follow us home. It will be a base for al Qaeda, and we will be facing greater challenges and greater sacrifices than that already made...
..in my mind that this will become a base for terrorism, there will be chaos in the region.
And when Senator Clinton says this is Mr. Bush’s war, that this is.. Bush’s war — when..Clinton was in power, I didn’t say that Bosnia, our intervention there was..Clinton’s war. When we intervened in Kosovo, I didn’t say it was.. Clinton’s war.
BLITZER: Senator.
SEN. MCCAIN: What he — what Sen Clinton doesn’t understand, that presidents don’t lose wars, political parties don’t lose wars; nations lose wars and nations lose the — have the consequences of failure...
..SEN. MCCAIN: We must succeed in this conflict.
BLITZER: The question was, if Gen Petraeus says — (applause) — it’s not working so far in September, what do you do then?
SEN. MCCAIN: Then you have to examine the options. And I’ll tell you the options. One is the division that Sam described. You would have to divide bedrooms in Baghdad, because Sunni and Shi’a are married to each other. You have 2 million Sunni and 4 million Shi’a living in Baghdad together.
You would have to — you withdraw to the borders and watch genocide take place inside Baghdad. You watch the destabilization of Jordan. You see further jeopardy of Israel because of the threats of Hezbollah and Iranian hegemony in the region. All of the options I could run through with you; my friend, none of them are good. That’s why we must succeed and give it a chance to succeed.
...BLITZER: Congressman Ron Paul, how much longer should the United States stay in Iraq?
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MR. PAUL: The sooner we come home, the better. If they declare there’s no progress in September, we should come home. It was a mistake to go, so it’s a mistake to stay. If we made the wrong diagnosis, we should change the treatment. So we’re not making progress there and we should come home. The weapons weren’t there, and we went in under U.N. resolutions. And our national security was not threatened.
We’re more threatened now by staying. (Applause.)
BLITZER: Gov. Huckabee, do you have confidence in ..the government of PM Nouri al-Maliki, that he’s going to do what needs to be done?
HUCKABEE: I think there’s some real doubt about that, Wolf. But I want to remind all of us on this stage and the people in the audience that there’s a reason that this is such a struggle. And I think we miss it over here in the West. Today’s the birthday of Ronald Reagan. We all would believe that Ronald Reagan is the one who ended the Cold War, and Ronald Reagan is the one who helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But there’s a group of people who don’t believe that, and that’s the Taliban. They believe they brought about the demise of the Soviet Union because of the way they fought in Afghanistan.
And what I want to just mention is that it is not the size of the dog in the fight; it is the size of the fight in the dog. And we underestimate, grossly underestimate how fierce this dog and how determined they are to destroy every last one of us.
(Page 5 )
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.. BLITZER: If it came down to a preemptive U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facility, if necessary would you authorize as president the use of tactical nuclear weapons?
BLITZER:..Mayor?
Do you think if you were president of the United States and it came down to Iran having a nuclear bomb, which you say is unacceptable, you would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons?
MR. GIULIANI: Part of the premise of talking to Iran has to be that they have to know very clearly that it is unacceptable to the United States that they have nuclear power. I think it could be done with conventional weapons, but you can’t rule out anything and you shouldn’t take any option off the table.
[In] debate the other night, the Democrats seemed to be back in the 1990s. They don’t seem to have gotten beyond the Cold War. Iran is a threat, a nuclear threat, not just because they can deliver a nuclear warhead with missiles. They’re a nuclear threat because they are the biggest state sponsor of terrorism and they can hand nuclear materials to terrorists. And we saw just last week in New York an attempt by Islamic terrorists to <b>attack JFK Airport; three weeks ago, an attempt to attack Fort Dix.</b>
BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. GIULIANI: These are real problems. This war is not a bumper sticker. This war is a real war.
BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.
..BLITZER:.. Governor.
Gov Romney, I want to get you on the record. Do you agree with the mayor, the governor, others here, that the use of tactical nuclear weapons, potentially, would be possible if that were the only way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb?
MR. ROMNEY: You don’t take options off the table. But what you do is stand back and say, “What’s going on here?” Do you see what’s happening in Sudan and Afghanistan, in Iraq and Iraq? All over the world we’re seeing the same thing happening, and that is, people are testing the United States of America.
And we have to make sure they understand that we’re not arrogant. We have resolve. And we have the strength to protect our interests and to protect people who love liberty. For that to happen, we’re going to have not just to attack each one of these problems one by one, but say, “How do we help move the world of Islam so that the moderate Muslims can reject the extreme?” And for that to happen, we’re going to have to have a strong military and an effort to combine with our allies in such a way —
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. ROMNEY: — that we combine for an effort to help move Islam towards modernity.
That’s what we’re going to have to do instead of looking at each theater one by one and saying: We’ll bomb here, we’ll attack here, we’ll go to Sudan.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
<b>MR. ROMNEY: I watched the Democrats. They don’t think there’s a war on terror.</b>
MR. BLITZER: Thanks
MR. ROMNEY: There is a war going on, and we need a broad response <b>to make sure that these people have a different vision.</b>
MR. BLITZER:..Thanks, Governor. (Applause.)
(Page 6 )
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....... MR. BLITZER: Thank you. Thank you, Congressman. (Applause.)
Mayor Giuliani, what do you think the consequences for the nation are if this immigration plan proposed by President Bush goes through?
MR. GIULIANI: The problem with this immigration plan is it has no real unifying purpose. It’s a typical Washington mess. It’s — everybody compromises, four or five compromises, and the compromises leave you with the following conclusion. The litmus test you should have for legislation is, is it going to make things better? And when you look at these compromise, it is quite possible it will make things worse.
The organizing purpose should be that our immigration laws should allow us to identify everyone who is in this country that comes here from a foreign country. They should have a tamper-proof ID card. It should be in a database that allows you to figure out who they are, why they’re here, make sure they’re not illegal immigrants coming here for a bad purpose, and then to be able to throw out the ones who are not in that database. We can do that. Credit card companies —
MR. BLITZER: Thanks
MR. GIULIANI: — take care of data that is greater than that.
MR. BLITZER: Thanks Mayor.
I want to get to Sen McCain in a moment. But first, Gov Romney, Sen McCain has accused you of flip-flopping on this issue, in effect....
..What do you say to Sen McCain?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, he’s my friend. He campaigned for me two times and I consider him a friend. I’m not going to make this a matter of personal politics. It’s an issue that’s way too important for that.
My view is that we should enforce immigration laws. And this bill, unfortunately, has at least one provision that’s a real problem. It’s the Z visa. And what it allows is people who’ve come here illegally to stay here for the rest of their lives. Not necessarily as citizens; they have to wait 13 years to become citizens. That’s not the point.
The point is, every illegal alien, almost every one, under this bill gets to stay here. That’s not fair to the millions and millions of people around the world that would love to come here —
MR. BLITZER: OK
MR. ROMNEY: — and join with family members, bring skill and education that we need. It’s simply not fair to say those people get put ahead in the line of all the people who’ve been waiting legally to come to this country.
MR. BLITZER: All right. (Applause.)
Senator or McCain, this is your chance. I’d like you — I’d like you to respond as someone who is the co-author of this legislation.
SEN. MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I agree with Judd Gregg. He’s a great senator.
(Page 7 of 28)
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SEN. MCCAIN: Second of all, Rudy you just described our legislation, so I’d be glad to have further conversation with you because it does account for people who are here illegally, it does have an employment verification system, and it weeds out those who shouldn’t be here, and it gives others a chance to remain in this country.
Look, this is a national security issue first and foremost. Ever since 9/11 it’s a national security issue. People came to <b>Fort Dix, New Jersey</b> from across our Southern border and tried to kill our soldiers. For us to do nothing is silent and defacto amnesty. What we have done is what you expect us to do, my friends, and that’s come together with the president of the United States, the leader of our party, Democrat and Republican, conservative Republicans like Jon Kyl, Johnny Isakson, Saxby Chambliss and Trent Lott, and sit down and figure out an approach to this problem.
And it is a serious national security problem. We need to act, my friends, and if someone else has a better idea, I’d love to have them give it to us. (Cheers, applause.)
BLITZER: Thanks, Senator...
SEN./REP./MR. : I have a better idea.
SEN. MCCAIN: That — that will get the support of enough people so that we can pass legislation. This isn’t the bill that I would have written, but it does —
BLITZER: ..Thanks
SEN. MCCAIN: — it does satisfy our national security challenges, which are severe and intense, and we can not allow 12 million people —
BLITZER: Thanks
SEN. MCCAIN: — washing around America illegally, my friends. And I hope you’ll examine the legislation —
BLITZER: Okay. Thank you, Senator.
SEN. MCCAIN: — and I hope we can move forward with it, and we can make it better.
BLITZER: All right.
SEN. MCCAIN: But it’s our job to do the hard things, not the easy things. (Cheers, applause.)
BLITZER: Mayor, go ahead.
MR. GIULIANI: I’ve read the 400 pages, and this is part of the problem in Washington — they say things and then it’s not in the legislation. There are four or five different methods of identification, not one. It does not provide information about who exited the United States. Now tell me how you’re going to figure out who’s in the United States, if you can’t figure out who’s left the United States. And finally, it doesn’t provide for a uniform database. Many countries have this.
The United States doesn’t have it.
On September 11th, when we tried to figure out who was in this country, it took weeks to figure out who were the right people and who weren’t, because there isn’t such a database.
BLITZER: Mayor, thank you.
MR. GIULIANI: And that is a fatal flaw in this legislation, and wishing it away doesn’t make it possible.
BLITZER: Thank you. (Applause.)
Gov Romney, what would you do with the 12 million or so illegal immigrants who are right now in this country?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, one is to enforce the law as it exists. The law that was passed in 1986 — (applause) — the law passed in 1986 asked for us to secure the border and said also to put in place an employment verification system. Neither one of those was done. So let’s make sure that we enforce the law as it exists.
And if you want to improve this bill, well, one thing you could do to make it better is to take that Z visa and make it temporary, instead of a permanent right to stay in America. That’s simply just not fair. (Applause.)
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<b>..BLITZER: Is there anyone here who believes gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the United States military? If you do, speak up now. (Silence.)..</b>
MR. SPRADLING: But Gov Thompson, I’d like to know, seeing as how you were a member of President Bush’s Cabinet as HHS secretary, how would you use George W. Bush in your administration?
MR. THOMPSON: I certainly would not send him to the United Nations. (Laughter.)
I believe George W. Bush has tremendous characteristics. He’s very honest, he’s very straightforward. I would put him out on a lecture series talking to the youth of America about honesty, integrity, perseverance, passion, and serving the public....
(Page 15 of 28)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/us...wanted=15&_r=1
MR. BLITZER:..Gov. Huckabee, you served...as a Republican governor, of Arkansas. Your old job is now in Democratic hands. Here in New Hampshire the GOP has suffered some significant losses as well, and the Republicans lost the majority in the House and the Senate, as you well know.
Simple question: What’s happened to the GOP?
MR. HUCKABEE: Lost credibility because we didn’t do what we were hired to do. When you’re elected, you’re hired to do a job. You’re hired to cut spending, lower taxes, bring more government back to the local people. We did the polar opposite, and the people fired us. And I think in many ways, although there are some good people that got caught up in the tsunami of the 2006 elections, the Republican Party as a whole deserved to get beat. We’ve lost credibility — the way we bungled Katrina, the fact that there was corruption that was unchecked in Washington, and the fact that there was a feeling that there was not a proper handling of the Iraqi war in all of these details, and the indifference to people pouring over our borders.
And let me just add this, Wolf, there are a lot of people for whom the immigration issue is like a (lot of them ?). They see Washington not taking the kind of positions to build a fence, and they know that when they go to the airport to get on an airplane they have to show photo ID, they have to go through layers of security, and they don’t understand why someone coming across an international border doesn’t have to do the same thing.
MR. BLITZER:..Thank you, Governor. (Applause.)
Rep. Hunter, I want to just — did he raise the issue — he raised the issue of corruption.
<h3>Do you think it would be appropriate for President Bush to pardon Lewis Scooter Libby, who was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for his role in the CIA leak case?</h3>
REP. HUNTER: You know, I think, Wolf, to make a determination on that, you’d have to look at the transcript. I’ll tell you a couple transcripts I have looked it, and that’s the agents, Compean and Ramos, who were given 11 and 12 years respectively for stopping a drug dealer bringing 750 pounds of drugs across the border. I’ve looked at their transcript; I would pardon Compean and Ramos right now.
And let me say — (interrupted by applause) — and let me say with respect to what Mike said, we got to bring back the Reagan Democrats to this party because we need the Reagan Democrats, Republican leadership to work, and we’re going to have to get a good trade bill that brings jobs back to this country.
We’re going to have to stop China from cheating on trade. Build the middle class, build jobs, Wolf. That’s what strengthens the Republican Party.
MR. BLITZER: All right. Thank you, Congressman.
I just want to do a quick yes or no, and I’m going to go down the rest of the group and let everybody just tell me yes or no, would you pardon Scooter Libby?
REP. PAUL: No.
MR. GILMORE: No. I’m steeped in the law. I wouldn’t do that.
REP. HUNTER: No, not without reading the transcript.
MR. HUCKABEE: Not without reading the transcript.
SEN. MCCAIN: He’s going through an appeal process. We’ve got to see what happens here.
MR. GIULIANI: I think the sentence was way out of line. I mean, the sentence was grossly excessive in a situation in which at the beginning, the prosecutor knew who the leak was —
MR. BLITZER: So yes or no, would you pardon him?
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MR. GIULIANI: — <b>and he knew a crime wasn’t committed.</b> I recommended over a thousand pardons to President Reagan when I was associate attorney general. I would see if it fit the criteria for pardon. I’d wait for the appeal. I think what the judge did today argues more in favor of a pardon —
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. GIULIANI: — because this is excessive punishment —
MR. BLITZER: All right.
MR. GIULIANI: — when you consider — I’ve prosecuted 5,000 cases —
MR. BLITZER: I’m trying to get a yes or no. (Laughter.)
MR. GIULIANI: Well, this is a very important issue. This is a very, very important — a man’s life is at stake. And the reality is, this is an incomprehensible situation. They knew who the leak was —
MR. : Say, Wolf, can I explain — (off mike) —
MR. GIULIANI: — <b>and ultimately, there was no underlying crime involved.</b>
MR. BLITZER: All right.
MR. ROMNEY: This is one of those situations where I go back to my record as governor. I didn’t pardon anybody as governor because I didn’t want to overturn a jury.
But in this case, you have a prosecutor who clearly abused prosecutorial discretion by going after somebody when he already knew that the source of the leak was Richard Armitage. He’d been told that. <b>So HE went on a political vendetta.</b>
MR. BLITZER: So is that a yes?
MR. ROMNEY: It’s worth looking at that. I will study it very closely, if I’m lucky enough to be president, and I’d keep that option open.
MR. BLITZER: Senator?
SEN. BROWNBACK: Yes. <b>The basic crime here didn’t happen.</b>
MR. BLITZER: All right.
SEN. BROWNBACK: What they were saying was that the identity of an agent was revealed —
MR. BLITZER: Governor?
SEN. BROWNBACK: — <b>but that agent has to be in the field for that to be a crime. That didn’t occur.</b>
MR. BLITZER: Governor?
MR. THOMPSON: Bill Clinton committed perjury in a grand jury — lost his law license. Scooter Libby got 30 months. To me, it’s not fair at all. But I would make sure the appeal was done properly, and then I would examine the record.
MR. BLITZER: Congressman?
REP. TANCREDO: Yes.
MR. BLITZER: Yes.
<b>All right. We heard from all of them. (Applause.)</b>
MS. VAUGHN:.I have Erin Flanagan with me..
Hi, Erin.
Q Hi, Jennifer.
MS. VAUGHN: You live in Bedford, NH.
Q I do.
MS. VAUGHN: You have a question about the war in Iraq, which is something that is deeply personal to you.
Q It is. Unfortunately, my beloved little brother, 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Cleary, was killed in action in Taji, Iraq, eight days before he was to return home, on December 20th of 2005. ...My family has been devastated by the loss.
As a member of an American family who has suffered so greatly at the choices made by the current administration, I desperately would like to know what you, as commander in chief, would do, both in the halls of the American government to bring the parties together, as well as on the desert sands of the Middle East, to bring this conflict to a point at which we can safely bring our troops home.
Thank you.
MS. VAUGHN: Erin, thank you.
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.....MR. BLITZER: Senator McCain, is that a good idea to divide up Iraq into three separate —
SEN. BROWNBACK: It’s not divided.
MR. BLITZER: Three states —
SEN. BROWNBACK: Three states, one country.
SEN. MCCAIN: It’s not, and I want to tell you, thank you for your brother’s service and sacrifice to our country. We are proud of you and your endurance, and we’re proud of your sacrifice.
This war — I’m going to give you a little straight talk. This war was very badly mismanaged for a long time, and Americans have made great sacrifices, some of which were unnecessary because of this management of the — mismanagement of this conflict.
I believe we have a fine general. I believe we have a strategy which can succeed, so that the sacrifice of your brother would not be in vain; that a whole 20 or 30 million people would have a chance to live a free life in an open society and practice their religion no matter what those differences are.
And I believe if we fail, it will become a center of terrorism, and we will ask more young Americans to sacrifice, as your brother did.
This is long and hard and tough, but I think we can succeed. And God bless you.
.... MS. VAUGHN: Cynthia Kiernan is here with us tonight.
Cynthia, you live in Merrimack, New Hampshire. You can go ahead and stand up. You brought your husband with you.
MS. KIERNAN: Yes. Michael served in Iraq. And we have a question regarding the government in Iraq. Everyone’s talking about “Pull our troops out, pull our troops out.” Well, considering they’ve lived under a dictatorship for the last 30 years or so, what are we going to do to make sure they have a government in place before we do pull our troops out and they’re able to help themselves? Otherwise we’re just putting them in a position to accept another terrorist leader.
MS. VAUGHN: Congressman Paul?
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REP. PAUL: Well, we’ve had four years to do this and it hasn’t worked. The biggest incentive for them to take upon themselves the responsibility is just for us to leave. We don’t need to lose 100 men and women every month, more than 1,000 per year. And so you want it done. You want them to take over. You’ve got to give them an incentive.
So I think we should immediately stop patrolling the streets. That’s a policeman’s job. It’s not the work of the Army. We’re not fighting a military battle. We’re in a different type of warfare right now. So the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can make sure that no more Americans will die.
We have a lot of goodness in this country and we should promote it, but never through the barrel of a gun. We should do it by setting good standards, motivating people, and have them want to emulate us. But you can’t enforce our goodness like the neocons preach with an armed force. It doesn’t work. Woodrow Wilson was telling us about that in promoting democracy a long time ago.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
REP. PAUL: It doesn’t work, and we have to admit it.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Congressman. (Applause.)
Let me bring Mayor Giuliani in. I don’t know if you consider yourself a neocon, but go ahead and respond to what Congressman Paul said.
MR. GIULIANI: (Laughs.) Michael, thank you very much for serving us, and thank your family for their tremendous sacrifice.
I’d like to put it in a slightly different context. I believe that your service for us and your brother’s sacrifice is one of the reasons we’re safe now in the United States. I believe that this terrorist war began way back in the 1970s. They attacked us in 1993 in New York. They attacked us again in 2001 in a horrible way. And I believe that what we’re doing in Iraq, if we can get it right, is going to help reduce the risk for this country. And if we get it wrong, it’s going to be much, much worse for us.
And part of what we have to do, and we haven’t done right, is take on that responsibility of nation-building. We created that responsibility for ourselves when we overthrew Saddam Hussein, which we did very effectively. It was one of the greatest military actions in American history overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
But we didn’t accomplish the second step. People can only embrace democracy when they have an orderly existence, and we have to help province that. We didn’t want that role, but it is our role. We have to train our military to do it. We should probably have an Iraq stat program, in which we measure how many people are going to school, how many factories are open, how many people are going to back to work. We had to get into the nitty-gritty of putting an orderly society together in Iraq. It is not too late to do it.
And I’d just like to ask the one question I didn’t get to ask before. When you said if General Petraeus comes back in September and reports that things aren’t going well, what are we going to do? But suppose General Petraeus comes back in September and reports that things are going pretty well. Are we going to report that with the same amount of attention that we report the negative news? (Applause.)
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MS. VAUGHN: Good evening, sir. You are Doug Hall.
DOUG HALL: Yes.
MS. VAUGHN: I understand that you’re the town moderator for Chichester, New Hampshire.
MR. HALL: I am.
MS. VAUGHN: What’s your question tonight?
MR. HALL: I know a business owner in northern New Hampshire who was on vacation in Spain last year for about three weeks. While he was there he had to buy refills for prescription drugs — brand-name drugs. And he discovered in buying those drugs that he could buy his refills there for $600 less than he could by them here in New Hampshire. So since then, he’s said he is going to take a trip over to Spain and get his vacation paid for to buy his drugs
My question to you is, why is this? And if you are elected president, is there anything you would do to address it?
MS. VAUGHN: Mayor Giuliani?
MR. GIULIANI: What I would do is change the whole model that we have for health insurance in this country. The problem with our health insurance is it’s government- and employer-dominated. People don’t make individual choices. It’s your health; you should own your health insurance. We should be giving you a major tax deduction — $15,000 for a family — so you can buy your own health insurance. If you buy health insurance for 8,000 (dollars) or 9,000 (dollars), you’ll save five (thousand dollars) or $6,000 in tax-free money. Then we should have a health savings account in which you can put some money aside to pay for your ordinary medical expenses.
Health insurance should become like homeowners insurance or like car insurance: You don’t cover everything in your homeowners policy. If you have a slight accident in your house, if you need to refill your oil with your car, you don’t cover that with insurance. But that is covered in many of the insurance policies because they’re government dominated and they’re employer dominated. What the Democrats suggested on this stage two nights ago was socialized medicine. There’s a man in California who said to me, “When we make health insurance free, just wait and see how expensive it will become.” And the reality is that we need a free market. We need 100 million Americans making different decisions that will bring down the cost of health insurance, it will bring down the cost of prescription medicines. Free-market principles are the only things that reduce cost and improve quality. Socialized medicine will ruin medicine in the United States. (Applause.)
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.
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MS. VAUGHN: Also on the topic of health care tonight, this is a question from our WMUR.gather.com blogger, who is Joshua Williamson. Joshua asks: “Millions of Americans are dissatisfied with the current state of our health care system, and U.S. employers are at a disadvantage due to the high cost of health insurance.
What would you do to fix the health care system? And would you support implementing a single-payer system in which the government acts as the insurer in order to save enough money to cover the millions of uninsured and to lower premiums for the rest of the U.S. population?”
MR. BLITZER: .....Governor Romney, you worked with the Democrats in the state legislature in your home state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You worked with Ted Kennedy to come up with a program that provides some — that mandates, in effect, the individual health insurance coverage. Some conservatives say this is simply big government, more liberal involvement in people’s lives.
What do you say to those conservatives who are critical of the way you handled this issue in Massachusetts?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I want to talk to the people, not just to those conservatives who are critical, and the people of this country recognize that they got some real concerns in health care. And I learned after I was governor a short of period of time, I talked to people, and they say, “If I lose my job, I’m worried I’ll lose my insurance, and my insurance premiums are getting higher and higher and higher.”
And I talked to small business people, and they said, “I can’t afford the policies anymore.”
And we said: You know what? We got to find a way to get everybody insured. And the last thing we want is to have the government take over health care, because anything they take over gets worse, not better. We’re not going to turn to Washington, because Washington makes a mess. Washington’s all talk.
We said: We need to find a way to get everybody in our state insured with private insurance. The half a million who didn’t have insurance, all the people worried that if they lost their job, they’d lose insurance — we said we got to find a way to get them insured without raising taxes, without a government takeover, and that’s what we did.
MR. BLITZER: (Off mike.) Thank you.
MR. ROMNEY: It relies on personal responsibility.
This is a big issue for this country. Every Democrat up there’s talking about a form of socialized medicine, government takeover, massive tax increase. We have to stand up and not just talk about it.
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MR. BLITZER: Thank you. . MR. ROMNEY: I’m the guy who actually tackled this issue. We get all of our citizens insured. We get people that were uninsured with private health insurance. We have to stand up and say the market works. Personal responsibility works.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: We’re going to have insurance for all of our citizens they can afford, that’s theirs, that’s portable.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. ROMNEY: They never have to worry about losing it.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. ROMNEY: That’s the answer.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Governor. (Applause.)
MR. : I’m told that’s not true.
MR. BLITZER: Jennifer, go ahead.
MR. : Actually, Wolf, that’s not true.
MS. VAUGHN: Thank you, Wolf.
Next question comes from you, sir. Your name is Max Latona.
Q Yes, it is.
MS. VAUGHN: You live in Manchester, New Hampshire. What do you do for a living, sir?
Q I teach philosophy here at St. Anselm College.
MS. VAUGHN: What’s your question tonight?
Q My question is a simple one. In your opinion, what is the most pressing moral issue facing this country today? And if you’re elected president, how would you address that issue?
MR. BLITZER: ....Mayor Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani. (Applause continuing.)
Mayor Giuliani, what is the most pressing moral issue in America today?
MR. GIULIANI: I think the governor is correct. I’d put it maybe in a slightly different way. We have great gifts in this country that come to us from God. We have a country in which we have freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom for the individual, the right to elect our own officials. And the reality is that in some of the world, much of the world, that doesn’t exist.
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MR. GIULIANI: We have great resources in this country. And watching the strength of America when we believe in the essential ideals that we have, they’re not just American ideals, they come from God. And I think it’s our moral obligation to find the right way to share that with the rest of the world.
I think the challenge for our generation is going to be, are we able to share those gifts in an appropriate way with the rest of the world? If we can bring along the Middle East, if we can bring along those countries that are presently our enemies and get them to see the values of these ideals, if we have the moral strength to be able to explain it to them in the way Ronald Reagan was able to do with Communism, then we can — we can end up having the peace that we want.
And we should not — we should never become pessimistic about this. Remember this is the country that was at war with Vietnam just a short while ago; we’re friends now.
MR. BLITZER: All right.
MR. GIULIANI: This was a country that was at war with Japan, Italy and Germany a generation ago. They’re some of our best friends today.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor. (Applause.)
Congressman Paul, what’s the most pressing moral issue in the United States right now?
REP. PAUL: I think it is the acceptance just recently that we now promote preemptive war. I do not believe that’s part of the American tradition. We in the past have always declared war in the defense of our liberties or go to aid somebody, but now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the just- war theory of Christianity. And now, tonight, we hear that we’re not even willing to remove from the table a preemptive nuclear strike against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security!
I mean, we have to come to our senses about this issue of war and preemption and go back to traditions and our Constitution and defend our liberties and defend our rights, but not to think that we can change the world by force of arms and to start wars. (Applause.)
...MR. BLITZER: Jennifer, go ahead.
MS. VAUGHN: Next question tonight from Neil Capano. Neil, you are an airline agent.
Q Yes, I am.
MS. VAUGHN: You live in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Do you have a question tonight for Governor Romney?
Q Yes, I do.
...my question is for Governor Romney exclusively.
You’ve been accused of — you’ve been accused of flip-flopping on immigration. Just earlier tonight, you indicated that you said that you’d want the national language of the United States to be English. However, why are you airing ads in Spanish?
MS. VAUGHN: Governor, let me also add something on this. Your campaign also provides a Spanish-speaking version of your website with your son also speaking in Spanish.
MR. ROMNEY: Let me make it real clear — I’m not anti-immigrant. I love immigrants. I love legal immigrants coming to our country. I’m happy to communicate to them, and I hope they vote for me.
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MR. ROMNEY: And I’m happy to have people all over the country, and I’m going to reach out to them in any language I can to have them — have them vote for me and understand why I’m going to support making this a great land.
I’ll tell you as well, I very firmly believe that we have to make sure that we enforce our borders, that we have an employment verification system, and that those people who have come here illegally do not get an advantage to become permanent residents, they do not get a special pathway. That’s a mistake. That’s the problem I have with the bill that — the Kennedy-McCain bill. That’s a mistake, in my view.
Now, let me tell you what I think about a broader issue. We’ve talked tonight about all of the issues as they relate to the problems that we have, and I understand that. But we have extraordinary opportunities. What the Republican party has to stand for is more than solving problems. In the 19th century, the new frontier for us was the American West. In the 20th century, it was Europe — selling products to Europe and North America. Now Asia has come out of poverty. A billion people —
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. ROMNEY: — who were steeped in poverty are coming out of poverty. They’re consumers. We can sell products to them, medicines, technology —
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: — energy. We are a party of the future, and we have to stop worrying about the problems and thinking we can’t deal with those. We have to focus on the future and our opportunity to make America a great place for our kids and grandkids. Thank you.
...MR. BLITZER: ....Senator McCain, I’d like you to respond.
SEN. MCCAIN: Well, first of all, Governor, muchas gracias. (Laughter, applause.) We need to enforce our borders. There is indeed a special path, it’s especially hard, it’s eight to 13 years.
My friends, we know what we’re talking about is the latest wave of migrants into this country. We have to stop the illegal immigration, but we’ve had waves throughout our history. Hispanics is what we’re talking about, a different culture, a different language, which has enriched my state where Spanish was spoken before English was.
My friends, I want you the next time you’re down in Washington, D.C. to go to the Vietnam War Memorial and look at the names engraved in black granite. You’ll find a whole lot of Hispanic names. When you go to Iraq or Afghanistan today, you’re going to see a whole lot of people who are of Hispanic background. You’re even going to meet some of the few thousand that are still green card holders who are not even citizens of this country, who love this country so much that they’re willing to risk their lives in its service in order to accelerate their path to citizenship and enjoy the bountiful, blessed nation.
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SEN. MCCAIN: So let’s from time to time remember that these are God’s children. They must come into country legally, but they have enriched our culture and our nation as every generation of immigrants before them.
Thank you. (Cheers, applause.)
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
... MS. VAUGHN: John Lewicke, good evening to you, sir.
Q Good evening.
MS. VAUGHN: ...What do you do?
Q I work self-employed as an electrical engineer.
MS. VAUGHN: What’s your question tonight?
Q In 2006, we saw the first — the worst Republican defeat in living memory. If we do more of the same, why do we expect anything different? And I’d like to ask each of the candidates why their position is — or how their position differs from the present administration’s, so that we won’t see a repeat of 2006 in 2008.
MS. VAUGHN: Senator McCain, do you want to begin with this one?
SEN. MCCAIN: Spending, spending, spending, spending, which led to corruption. We have members — former members of Congress in jail as we speak because of this earmarking. We let spending get out of control, we presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society, and our constituents and our Republicans became dispirited and disenchanted. We’ve got to stop the earmarking. The bridge to nowhere, the 233 miles — a $233 million bridge to an island in Alaska with 50 people on it was the tipping point.
I want to promise you, as president of the United States, I’ll veto every bill that has a pork-barrel project on it, and I’ll make the authors of it famous, and we’ll get spending under control, and we’ll stop the corruption in Washington. (Applause.)
MR. BLITZER: If all of you will — if all of you will limit your answer to about 10 or 15 seconds.
We’ll go down the line, starting with Mayor Giuliani. What has been President Bush’s biggest mistake since taking office?
MR. GIULIANI: I would like to add to what John was saying. The thing that I would do different is I would establish accountability in Washington.
Washington is a mess, and that’s one of the reasons Republicans lost. Republicans became Democrats. I would establish programs like I did in New York City, where I had to deal with a heavily Democratic city — FedStat programs to measure accountability.
MR. BLITZER: All right.
MR. GIULIANI: You get what you measure. If you don’t measure success, you have failure. And I turned around New York City; I can turn around Washington.
MR. BLITZER: Governor?
MR. ROMNEY: It’s going — (interrupted by applause) —
MR. BLITZER: Go ahead, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: It’s going from small bore to large bore. Yes, of course it’s spending, and yes we’re going to have to deal with all the issues and the problems we have. But the Republican Party is a — is a party of the future and with a vision.
Ronald Reagan had a vision for where he was going to take America. We have to once again take people forward, and that vision is the new frontier of the 21st century.
MR. BLITZER: All right.
MR. ROMNEY: Our products and services can lead the world.
...MR. BLITZER: The question is what — what’s President Bush’s biggest mistake over these past several years?
MR. BLITZER: ....Congressman Paul.
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MR. PAUL: The president ran on a program of a humble foreign policy, no nation-building, and no policing of the world. And he changed his tune, and now we are fighting a war, and our foreign operations around the world to maintain our empire is now approaching $1 trillion a year.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. PAUL: That’s where the money’s going, and that’s where it has to be cut so we can take care of education and medical cares that are needed here in this country. (Applause.)
...MS. VAUGHN: Erin Gardner’s here with us tonight. Erin, you live in the Gate City, Nashua, New Hampshire.
Q Yes, I do.
MS. VAUGHN: What is your question tonight?
Q With regards to illegal and legal immigration, in your opinion, what does it mean to be an American? What are the tangible and intangible attributes of an American?
MS. VAUGHN: Congressman Tancredo.
REP. TANCREDO: It means, number one, cut from the past. If you come here as an immigrant, great. Welcome. If you come here legally, welcome. It means you cut your ties with the past, familial — especially political ties with the country from which you came.
But let’s be serious about this, you guys. We talk about all the immigration reform we want, and what it’s got to get down to is this: Are we ready for a timeout? Are we actually ready to say, “Enough is enough”? We have to stop all legal immigration except for the — for people coming into this country as family members, immediate family members, and/or refugees. Are we willing to actually say that and say enough — is it — we have got to actually begin the process of assimilating people who have come in this great wave of immigration. The process of assimilation is not going on.
And how long? How long will it take us for that — for us to catch up with the millions of people who have come here, both legally and illegally, and assimilate them? I’ll tell you this. It’ll take this long: until we no longer have to press 1 for English and 2 for any other language. (Applause.) ...
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....MR. BLITZER: Mayor Giuliani, are you comfortable with what Congressman Tancredo says about immigration to this country?
MR. GIULIANI: No, I’m very uncomfortable with it. I mean, the reality is, it’s one thing to be debating illegal immigration. It’s a very complex subject. I think we’ve had a very good debate about it. And I think the bill needs to be fixed in the way that I’ve indicated. But we shouldn’t be having a debate about legal immigration.
Abraham Lincoln defined what an American is better than I’m going to be able to do it or Congressman Tancredo or anyone on the stage. Abraham Lincoln, who fought the know-nothing movement, said being an American is not whether you came over on the Mayflower or you came here yesterday. How much do you believe in freedom? How much do you believe in freedom of religion? How much do you believe in freedom for women? How much do you believe in the right to vote? How much do you believe in the rule of law?
The person who believes in that the most is the best American, and the person who doesn’t isn’t an American.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. GIULIANI: That’s Abraham Lincoln’s words. We should always be open to legal immigration. It reforms us. It makes us better. It brings us people who want to make a better life for themselves —
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. GIULIANI: — and their families. If we lose that, we lose the genius that has made America what it is.
MR. BLITZER: ...When you hear what Congressman Tancredo says, what goes through your mind?
SEN. MCCAIN: It’s beyond my realm of thinking. Look, America is the land of opportunity. The question was just asked, “What is it to be an American?” It’s to share a common goal that all of us — a principle — are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.
That means we go as far as our ambition will take us. That means we have a better life for ourselves and our children. And the lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door is still the ideal and the dream. Of course it has to be legal. Of course it has to be regulated. And 18 months, by the way, will go by while we fix the border before we do anything else on this issue.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
SEN. MCCAIN: But America is still the land of opportunity and it is a beacon of hope and liberty, and as Ronald Reagan said, a shining city on a hill. And we’re not going to erect barriers and fences.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Senator.
Let me go back to Jennifer. Go ahead, Jennifer.
MS. VAUGHN: Carolyn Gargasz, you’re here with us tonight. You’re a state legislator. What is your hometown?
CAROLYN GARGASZ: Hollis.
MS. VAUGHN: And what’s your question?
MS. GARGASZ: What would you do to include moderate Republicans and to bring back to the party those independents who were formerly registered Republicans?
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...MR. BLITZER: Senator McCain?
SEN. MCCAIN: Protect the family, that’s one of the questions earlier. Protect our American family, it’s under assault in many respects, as we all know. And second, take the lead in fighting this transcendent issue of our time: the battle and struggle against radical Islamic extremism. It is a force of evil that is within our shores. Look at the events of the last few days at JFK, attempts at Fort Dix, the London suicide bombers.
My friends, this is a transcendent struggle between good and evil. Everything we stand for and believe in is at stake here. We can win. We will never surrender, they will. I am prepared to lead. My life and my experience and my background and my heroes inspire me and qualify me to lead in this titanic struggle which will not be over soon, but we will prevail.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Senator. (Applause.)
Thanks to all of you for joining us....
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06-06-2007, 02:40 AM
