I’ve skimmed the transcript from the Republican Presidential Candidate debate last week.
I’m liking Huckabee more and more. I’d still love to see him and Obama square off in the election.
Here are a couple highlights I found:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Governor Huckabee, the question is, how do you unify the country the way Reagan did, a good portion of the country?
GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: I think it’s important to remember that what Ronald Reagan did was to give us a vision for this country, a morning in America, a city on a hill. We were reminded that we are a great nation not because government is great; we are a great nation because people are great.
Chris, I want to go back, though, to say why we’re a great nation. We are a culture of life. We celebrate, we elevate life. And let me just say, when hikers on Mount Hood get lost, we move heaven and Earth to go find them.
When coalminers in West Virginia are trapped in a mine, we go after them because we celebrate life.
This life issue is not insignificant, it’s not small. It separates from the — us from the Islamic fascists who would strap a bomb to the belly of their child and blow them up. We don’t do that in this country.
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MR. MATTHEWS: Governor Huckabee, you’ve criticized Governor Romney for saying his faith wouldn’t get in the way of his public life, his governing. Do you want to back that up tonight?
MR. HUCKABEE: I’ve never criticized Governor Romney for that.
MR. ROMNEY: Thank you! (Laughs.)
MR. HUCKABEE: I’ve said in general, and I would say this tonight to any of us, when a person says my faith doesn’t affect my decision- making, I would say that the person’s saying their faith is not significant enough to impact their decision process.
I tell people up front my faith does affect my decision process. It explains me. No apology for that. My faith says, “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”
MR. MATTHEWS: But you answered a question that George Stephanopoulos of ABC — about this governor, one of your rivals — and you answered it in this way. “I’m not as troubled by a person who has a different faith. I’m troubled by a person who tells me their faith doesn’t influence their decisions.” That’s in direct response to George Stephanopoulos on February 11th of this year. Why are you changing that point of view now?
GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I didn’t know I was changing the point of view.
MR. MATTHEWS: No, you’re changing your quote.
GOV. HUCKABEE: I’m saying that of anyone, whether it’s Governor Romney or Governor Gilmore —
MR. MATTHEWS: But you answered in direct response to the — Governor Romney and his Mormonism. Why are you pulling back now?
GOV. HUCKABEE: I don’t mean to be puling back. I want to state very clearly: a person’s faith shouldn’t qualify or disqualify for public office. It shouldn’t do that. But we ought to be honest and open about it. And I think it does help explain who we are, what our value systems are, what makes us tick and what our processors are.
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MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, let’s start with an enjoyable down-the-line, okay? I want each candidate to mention a tax he’d like to cut, in addition to the Bush tax cuts, keeping them in effect.
MR. HUCKABEE: Well, I cut taxes 94 times as governor, but I realized tinkering with it doesn’t work. I’d overhaul it. I would work for the fair tax which meets the four criteria: flatter, fairer, finite, family-friendly. We’d get rid of the IRS. We’d get rid of all capital gains — income, corporate — and we’d have a consumption tax. The fair tax proposal, I believe, offers the best opportunity for all levels of America.
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MR. VANDEHEI: Governor Huckabee, this question comes from a reader in New York. In light of the scandals plaguing the current administration and its allies, involving corruption and cronyism, which mistakes have you learned not to repeat?
MR. HUCKABEE: The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we’re not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas, jobs that are lost by American workers, many in their 50s who for 20 and 30 years have worked to make a company rich, and then watch as a CEO takes a hundred-million-dollar bonus to jettison those American jobs somewhere else. And the worker not only loses his job, but he loses his pension.
That’s criminal. It’s wrong. And if Republicans don’t stop it, we don’t deserve to win in 2008.
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MR. HUCKABEE: I want to make sure that we went to a place where the states had more power and not centralizing the federal government. That’s been a mistake of this administration, I think an honest and sincere one, but a huge mistake. And instead, we need to honor the 10th Amendment, we need to remember that we are a nation of strong states and weak federal government, not strong federal, centralized government and weak states.
Read the full transcript
