I’ve skimmed the transcript from the Republican Presidential Candidate debate last week.
\nI’m liking Huckabee more and more. I’d still love to see him and Obama square off in the election.<\/p>\n
Here are a couple highlights I found:<\/p>\n
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Governor Huckabee, the question is, how do you unify the country the way Reagan did, a good portion of the country?<\/p>\n
GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.
\nChris, I want to go back, though, to say why we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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.
\nWhen coalminers in West Virginia are trapped in a mine, we go after them because we celebrate life.
\nThis life issue is not insignificant, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do that in this country. <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
MR. MATTHEWS: Governor Huckabee, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve criticized Governor Romney for saying his faith wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get in the way of his public life, his governing. Do you want to back that up tonight?<\/p>\n
MR. HUCKABEE: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never criticized Governor Romney for that.<\/p>\n
MR. ROMNEY: Thank you! (Laughs.)<\/p>\n
MR. HUCKABEE: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said in general, and I would say this tonight to any of us, when a person says my faith doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t affect my decision- making, I would say that the person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s saying their faith is not significant enough to impact their decision process.
\nI 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have them do unto you.”<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not as troubled by a person who has a different faith. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m troubled by a person who tells me their faith doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t influence their decisions.” That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in direct response to George Stephanopoulos on February 11th of this year. Why are you changing that point of view now?<\/p>\n
GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know I was changing the point of view.<\/p>\n
MR. MATTHEWS: No, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re changing your quote.<\/p>\n
GOV. HUCKABEE: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m saying that of anyone, whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Governor Romney or Governor Gilmore —<\/p>\n
MR. MATTHEWS: But you answered in direct response to the — Governor Romney and his Mormonism. Why are you pulling back now?<\/p>\n
GOV. HUCKABEE: I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean to be puling back. I want to state very clearly: a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s faith shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t qualify or disqualify for public office. It shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start with an enjoyable down-the-line, okay? I want each candidate to mention a tax he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to cut, in addition to the Bush tax cuts, keeping them in effect.<\/p>\n
MR. HUCKABEE: Well, I cut taxes 94 times as governor, but I realized tinkering with it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d overhaul it. I would work for the fair tax which meets the four criteria: flatter, fairer, finite, family-friendly. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get rid of the IRS. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get rid of all capital gains — income, corporate — and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a consumption tax. The fair tax proposal, I believe, offers the best opportunity for all levels of America.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
MR. HUCKABEE: The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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.
\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s criminal. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong. And if Republicans don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop it, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deserve to win in 2008. <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Read the full transcript<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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, … Continue reading I’m liking Huckabee more and more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,3,20,5,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-misc","category-newsandpop","category-politics","category-take-action"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-Cq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}