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Fox News Republican Debate - January 10, 2008
By Bill | January 10, 2008 | Email This Post
At 9pm Eastern time on January 10, 2008, Fox News is hosting a Republican debate from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. South Carolina promises to be a real battleground, the key state on which a number of candidates are pinning the viability of their campaigns - Fred Thompson and John Edwards, certainly, and to a lesser extent Mike Huckabee.
This entry will be a first for me… in the previous debates I’ve kept the blog and posted at the end, for this one I thought I’d go near-real-time and live blog it. I hope some of you out there read it along the way and post your comments - they’re quite welcome.
My reactions will be coming out as they happen with minimal editing - my apologies in advance for any grammatical or other similar errors. I don’t claim that this represents everything the candidates said, but I believe this is an accurate and fair summary of the major points. My goal is to provide a largely unfiltered representation of what the candidates said, but I can’t resist commenting along the way, so my editorial comments are in italics.
I’ll update each candidate as they speak… running, minute-by-minute comments at the bottom.
Mike Huckabee:
- “I hope we’re not headed for a recession,” but if we are, there are four reasons. 1) oil prices, which impact prices on all commodities, not just fuel. The key to that is energy independence. 2) Subprime mortgages, for which both lenders and borrowers are at fault; Huckabee commends Bush’s actions on this front. 3) Health care costs. 4) Education costs. Huckabee would not raise taxes, cut the marginal tax rates if anything, and eventually move to the FairTax as a long term fix.
- Says he’s not “running for [George W. Bush’s] third term.” Believes we should cut taxes, lower spending, have a strong national defense, protect the sanctity of human life, hold forth the primacy of traditional marriage, and hold the second amendment just as sacred as the first. Wants everyone to understand that Republicans are just as interested as people on the lower end of the social ladder as people on the higher end.
- Asked about the recent encounter with the Iranian navy: trusts that the President acted correctly. Generally believes that if someone targets an American vessel, the next sight they ought to expect to see is the “gates of hell.”
- On Pakistan, it’s not a good idea to push Musharraf out, since we don’t know who will follow him. Musharraf needs to take more action in his border provinces if he wants to continue to give him money.
- Huckabee promises to defend Israel if elected President.
- Wallace points out that after Huckabee left office, taxes were higher and government was bigger, and asks if that’s his idea of Republican government. Huckabee responds that he believes in raising hope, not taxes, and that courts mandated that he spend more money on schools.
- Asked if his earlier support for a religious belief that wives should submit to her husband is politically viable, says that he’s not ashamed of his Christian beliefs, whether or not he’s running for President. Says that the passage also includes that husbands submit to their wives, and that marriage isn’t a 50%-50% deal, but rather a 100%-100% deal. Also says the belief, based on a verse in Ephesians, has nothing to do with being President.
- Believes that Hispanic immigrants who have come here legally are some of the toughest opponents of illegal immigration. Doesn’t believe the government will have to deport illegal aliens, saying basically: the government wasn’t responsible for getting them here, they can find their own way back home.
Rudy Giuliani:
- Giuliani has proposed tax cuts that may pay for themselves; Wallace points out that some experts dispute the math. Giuliani agrees that not all tax cuts pay for themselves; suggests cutting corporate taxes as an example where lower taxes would result in increased revenue. Giuliani also says we must control spending and over-regulation.
- Asked how he would keep a Palestinian state from becoming a breathing ground for terrorists: 1) They must accept the existence of Israel, 2) they must officially renounce terrorism as a matter of policy and prove over time that they mean it.
- Says the defense of Israel is of great importance to the United States, and that we have very few allies we can always count on.
- Giuliani believes he could persuade Musharraf it’s in his interest to pursue bin Laden with greater effectiveness.
- Says that his foreign policy experience goes back to the 1970s and the Ford administration. Also counts blocking Castro and Arafat from the United Nations and rejection of a donation from a Saudi prince as foreign policy experience.
- Defends his policy as mayor of not enforcing immigration law on illegal aliens who came forward with information about crimes as a matter of simple practicality, saying that he couldn’t effectively fight crime without tips from illegal aliens.
John McCain:
- On a possible recession: Americans need “straight talk” … some jobs have been lost that just aren’t coming back. McCain would like to offer training programs to help displaced workers find new jobs. McCain thinks we’re in a “rough patch,” but not that we’re headed for a recession.
- Asked what kind of measures he would take to fight an economic slowdown: stop out-of-control spending, stop sending 400 billion dollars a year overseas to oil producing countries, a portion of which goes to fund terrorist organizations. We can reduce the foreign oil bill by investing in research. Promises to eliminate pork barrel bills and “make the authors famous.”
- McCain believes that tax cuts stimulate the economy, and that current tax cuts need to be made permanent. The larger issue in McCain’s mind, though, is to cut spending.
- Thinks Republicans have largely gone away from the Reagan legacy, and have abandoned traditional Republican environmental principles such as those espoused by Teddy Roosevelt. Thinks “we came to change government and it changed us.”
- Asks if the Democrats can win an election when they deny the Iraq surge is working, that body counts are down, and asks if Hillary Clinton will retract her statement that she would have to “suspend disbelief” to agree with Petraeus, who McCain suggests should have been Time magazine Man of the Year. McCain points out that he was the only candidate to support the surge from the beginning and against the Rumsfeld plan.
- “I’m not interested in trading with Al Qaeda, all they want to send is burqas. I don’t want to travel with them, all they have are one way tickets.”
- McCain says he also is a candidate of change. As examples, he holds forth his experience in making changes in the Iraq policy, and fighting spending and lobbyists.
- McCain says that he has the greatest foreign policy experience by virtue of his having taken part in every national security decision of the last twenty years.
- Believes his immigration policy failed because the American people have no faith in the government. Would require that governors of border states certify that their borders are secure. We should deport any illegal immigrants that are criminals, and then treat the rest in as humane a fashion as possible, but that he will reward no one for being here illegally.
Ron Paul:
- Asked if he supports a “government program” to stimulate the economy. He doesn’t necessarily, depending on the program. He might support a program that was based on tax cuts. Believes the recession is partially a result of programs gone awry. Paul suggests that America doesn’t understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle, and artificially low interest rates are a problem.
- Paul is asked whether he endorses the position that the US Government was complicit in the attacks of 9/11: says he doesn’t believe it, and those viewpoints don’t help him, but also that he can’t tell his supporters to think. Then Paul takes the questioner to task for not letting him address the same topics as the rest of the field. Goes on to explain that the reason the Reagan coalition has fallen apart is because we’ve destroyed the economic basis that held it together. Large cheers from the audience.
- Urges caution in situations like the recent Iranian encounter. Suggests that speedboats aren’t much of a threat against American naval vessels (My comment: tell that to the USS Cole) Also suggests that the Bush administration is looking for a justification for war with Iran.
- Doesn’t believe that the United States should broker peace in the middle east, and that our absence would provide the disagreeing parties with more incentive to settle their differences. Suggests that part of America’s problem is that we try to play all sides against the middle. Believes that the world can solve their problems without us, and that we simply can’t afford it anyway. Believes that all empires have historically come to a bad end for economic reasons.
- Says John McCain will commit us to the Middle East for a hundred years, if need be, and asks how he can possibly commit future generations to such a failed policy. (Big cheers from the audience.)
- Believes we should stop treating Israel like a stepchild, and that if America stopped standing up for them they would be better off long term. Suggests that if we really care about Israel we should stop sending weapons to Arab nations.
- Asked if he’s politically viable, Ron Paul asks if the questioner is suggesting that he’s too much of a strict constructionist for the Republican party. Doesn’t understand the insinuation that he’s somehow “less Republican” when in fact he believes he’s the most Republican of all the candidates, in the classical Republican sense.
- “Maybe I think about economics too much, but economics says that if you subsidize something you get more of it” and says that’s at the core of the immigration problem: we’ve made it economically attractive for immigrants to come here illegally, so naturally they do. On treatment of illegals: “The law is the law, and we should enforce the law” even if it costs Republicans the Hispanic vote.
Mitt Romney:
- “Could we be headed to a recession? Absolutely. Do we have to be headed to a recession? Absolutely not.” Romney goes on to basically say “Recessions are bad” and extol his economic record in the his state. What to do as President to prevent it? Invest in R&D, address gas prices, fix the housing crisis.
- Believes Washington and the Republicans have moved away from the principles of Ronald Reagan, and those are the very principles that can win the White House next year. “Knowing how America works is more important than knowing how Washington works.”
- Mitt Romney suggests that Ron Paul is reading too many of the Iranian President’s press releases. Hisses and boos from the audience.
- “Foreign policy is no longer a game of checkers, but a game of three dimensional chess.”
- The ultimate solution to the Islamic terrorist problem is to get Muslims themselves to reject extremism.
- Asked if it’s possible voters want Washington experience more than they want change… Romney’s answer: “nope.”
- “I’ll take Washington apart and put it back together, simpler, smarter, stronger” (We can rebuild him!)
- Thinks we should secure the border, build a fence, and have an employer immigration system. After that, Romney differs from others (McCain in particular, he says) by requiring that illegals return to their home countries and get in line with everyone else.
Fred Thompson:
- Says that “nobody knows” if we’re headed for a recession, and that we need to “count on the Fed to do the right thing.” Believes we might need a stimulus package later on targeted at low income people. Thinks we would be a lot better off it everyone knew the current tax cuts are permanent.
- Believes that Huckabee’s campaign thinks the Reagan revolution is over… believes that Huckabee has a liberal foreign policy, mentions he has support of the NEA, would ban smoking nationwide, and that his model is that “of the Democratic party.” Large cheers from the audience.
- Believes the American commanders in the recent encounter with the Iranian navy had the right to make whatever decisions they needed to make, and that the Iranians were very close to meeting the virgins promised to them in the afterlife.
- “You can tell that the news is good coming out of Iraq, because you read so little of it in the New York Times.”
- Democracy in Pakistan is in the long-term security interest in Pakistan, and therefore it’s in our interest.
- We need to make sure there’s stability in Pakistan as much as we can, and in the short term that means supporting Musharraf, although he needs to make changes.
- Claims that Huckabee reversed himself, first claiming that he said a pledge against new taxes was dangerous, but then signing one. Fred talks about his own record on taxes, and says that the SC right-to-life organization endorses him.
- “We need to be a nation of high fences and wide gates, and we get to decide when to open the gates.” Cut off funding to sanctuary cities, and eventually you would have “enforcement by attrition.” Stop policies that attract people across the border while we claim to enforce the border.
Summary/Comments:
- 8:58 PM… O’Reilly’s talking about Dr. Phil. There’s hard news for you.
- And here’s the debate… “First in the south” is how they’re billing it.
- Brit Hume is up, “nearly 3,000″ in the audience… I get the vibe we’ve got a lively crowd tonight.
- The “official country music ambassador” is singing the national anthem. All together now: WTF?
- Presentation-wise, it’s kind of a combination of the style you’d see if the folks from the TBN network collided with Lawrence Welk’s tour bus.
- 9:03… green, yellow, and red lights again, followed by a boxing fight bell to cut them off.
- Chris Wallace is asking questions, first question, to Romney: do you believe we’re headed to a recession?
- 9:15: Wallace begins a question to Ron Paul with “Would you support a government program…” Any bets on what the answer to any question to Paul with that lead-in will be?
- 9:21: McCain makes a reference to Teddy Roosevelt. Always like to see a TR reference. Now, if he can just work in Churchill…
- 9:25: Somebody changed the batteries in Fred Thompson! He delivers a Chuck Norris style roundhouse kick right to Huckabee’s jaw… we’ll see if it’s one shot or if Thompson has started to make his move. Makes sense, though… Fred HAS to win South Carolina, and he and Huckabee are competing for the same voters.
- 9:28: there’s Giuliani mentioning Reagan, too… this is turning into a Ronald Reagan debate. Remember a few years ago when all the Democrats were trying to paint themselves as the next Harry Truman?
- 9:30: Ron Paul gets a question about 9/11 conspiracies; he answers the best he can, then quite rightly complains that he gets this kind of nonsense instead of the questions the other candidates get. I’m not a Ron Paul guy, but this kind of thing makes me understand why his supporters or so frustrated. That question was clearly designed to embarrass him over something he never said in the first place.
- 9:32: A Giuliani commercial during the debate. Should they show candidate commercials during the debate?
- 9:37: Huckabee’s “gates of hell” comment… I’ve noticed Huckabee turning more hawkish lately.
- 9:37 Nice un-PC comment from Thompson about the promised virgins in the afterlife of a Muslim martyr. Expect the “Thompson’s a bigot” stuff to start tomorrow.
- Bonus for onlyabill.com readers: Fred Thompson quote from The Hunt for Red October: “This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.”
- 9:41: John McCain drops a Barbary pirates reference.
- Brit Hume just asked Ron Paul what he’s talking about as Paul was complaining about the aggressive responses of the other candidates to the question about the encounter with the Iranian navy, saying that all the other candidates endorsed a passive approach. Paul fumbles his response badly, but in fact I heard their comments much the same way Paul did… there was a definite pro-confrontation undertone to Huckabee and Thompson’s responses.
- 9:57:Romney likens diplomacy to three dimensional chess… is Romney a Star Trek fan? Or a Talosian?
- 10:00: Huckabee and Giuliani jump to Israel’s defense when Ron Paul suggests that we stop giving that country special treatment. An Evangelical Christian and the Mayor of New York speaking up for Israel? Some things are stereotypes because they’re true.
- 10:10:McCain may have TR and the Barbary pirates, but Huckabee just quoted “Trucker” magazine.
- 10:12: Thompson goes after Huckabee again on taxes, and then mentions an endorsement Thompson’s received from a right-to-life group. Smart move by Fred, trying to take a little of Huckabee’s social conservative turf in South Carolina.
- 10:24: The audience applauds at the very mention of an immigration question.
- 10:34: The last answer goes to Rudy, who goes way over time.
All right, the debate is over… here’s Frank Luntz, who I want to hate but actually love.
- Winners: Huckabee and… wait for it… Ron Paul, despite the one bad flub.
- For the record, Luntz’ focus group just announced they thought Fred Thompson won. For my part, I disagree. I think the perception Thompson won is largely because he’s been nonexistent up until now. If he won, it’s in the sense that he’s in the race again.
- Loser: Romney…. big time. He didn’t misspeak, but he didn’t do nearly enough to recover from the losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. Giuliani didn’t do himself any favors, either, he needs to get going fast, and he did not.
- McCain was about neutral, which is probably enough.
- Luntz’ focus group just said Ron Paul clearly lost the debate. I disagree completely. In fact, I thought this was Paul’s best showing by far, despite the obvious ambushes by Fox news. Now, I don’t think it will help him win the election, but that wasn’t the question.
That’s it for tonight. Thanks for reading.
Topics: Debates, Republicans |
January 10th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
thank you again for the blog. I was not able to watch the debate but I came to your site the first chance I got to get the important information. Two impressions I got concerning my candidate, ron paul: first, there must have been alot of fellow supporters in the audience and second, it seems as though Fox begrudgingly invited with the intention of not taking him as seriously as the other candidates. Oh well, as a Democrat, I always did think FOXNews was an oxymoron.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Thanks for the kind words Barbara, it’s nice to know someone enjoyed it. This one was the toughest so far to keep up with, though I hope the blog doesn’t doesn’t show that. Lots of action tonight.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:01 am
How is it possible that out of about 30 only three people were supporters of Thompson prior to the debate and then nearly all claim to support him? And how is it Ron Paul lost the debate according to the focus group? With all the cheering? I think it was a great showing for him. I may not agree with him, but appreciate his knowledge and ability to convey his ideas. He seemed to be the only genuine canidate. Everyone else reads their prepared focus points.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:33 am
I too am STARTING to become a Ron Paul fan. He just makes sense to me. After reading your blog, I think he jumped in MY estimation.
It seemed like the others had the tendency to attack. Is that a valid assumption?
January 11th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Hi Joey… Fred Thompson was definitely the attack dog tonight. With respect to Ron Paul, though, the tone did seem to shift… whereas in previous debates it seemed like the other candidates where humoring him in a slightly condescending way, tonight seemed much more confrontational… led, in part, by the questions from the Fox team.
Again, I’m not a Paul supporter (I actually really am still undecided at this point) but I don’t think he’s gotten a fair hearing, either.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:39 am
I can’t believe I’m going to vote for a Republican. Ron Paul is amazing. And exactly what this great country needs. The more I learn the more he makes sense!
January 11th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Hey Bill,
I liked your off-handed commentary
The reason I enjoyed your side-humor was because I greatly appreciated your journalistic integrity (Oxymoron?).. seriously. You seemed very fair and informative with all of your blog.
I am disappointed, however, with your assumption that Fox News is worthy of a fair assessment.
I know you are just trying to be fair, which is great!
But I can’t watch Fox News without thinking that any minute; Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera will appear on stage and state that ” According to an anynomous official, U.S. Intelligence claims that midgets have the capacity to fly… The only recourse is to drop nuclear weapons on all Muslims!
We must do this to protect our borders”
Get my drift? Fox is so blatantly unfair and unbalanced it almost seems as if they might have an agenda? hmmmmm. Talk to RM
January 11th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Thanks for the coverage of the Fox “News” “debate”; great job.
Ron Paul has been treated shabbily in these forums. He has substantive answers to the questions asked of the other candidates but never gets a chance to address them.
As others have said, whether you agree with him or not, he is a genuine candidate without an entourage of consultants and pollsters.
Many mock the “Ron Paul Revolution” but his volunteer organization is truly a sight to behold, really unprecedented in modern politics.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Why did you not mention the electability question? That was when Ron Paul shone brightest, in my opinion.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Hi Blaze… unless I’m mistaken, I think that’s the same one I have up there as “politically viable.” Anyway, I agree. I thought Paul responded well. Although tactically I don’t know that his mention of the elimination of the Department of Education - which may or may not have merit - is likely to win him votes. To convince people of that, you’d need something much longer than a sixty second response.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Bill: A word of caution on your rejoinder to Ron Paul about urging caution in situations like the recent Iranian encounter. Paul suggested that speedboats aren’t much of a threat against American naval vessels. Your comment was: Tell that to the USS Cole.
Here’s a more applicable comment: Tell that to the Iranians who fished the bodies of 190 men, women and children out of the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.S. Vincennes shot down a regularly scheduled routine civilian flight in the air corridor from Bandar to Dubai on July 3, 1988.
The USS Cole was hit by alQaeda, not Iranians. The Americans DID bloodlessly kill 190 Iranians, however. Another US commander in the area was horrified by the recklessness of the Vincennes commander, having witnessed him opening firing on small boats a few weeks before. He said it was a pattern of recklessness that had been ongoing for weeks. He couldn’t believe they were mistaking the direction and civilian nature of the Iranian airbus, and even used the right frequency to warn it that it was being mistaken for military aircraft and to get out of the way. It did. They shot it out of the sky anyway.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Hi Bevin, and I appreciate your taking the time to comment. I still think that Paul’s statement was poorly chosen, given that we have a direct counterexample where a small boat did do significant damage to an American warship, regardless of what group was driving it. Admittedly, the circumstances were very different - the Cole wasn’t underway at the time, in a supposedly friendly port, etc. And also, Paul can probably be forgiven the comment; it’s got to be tough to think on your feet during a live national TV broadcast. Heck, my response was partially due to the same need to get a thought out quickly and without time for reflection, though obviously without the national spotlight in my case.
Your point is well taken, though, or at least my interpretation of it… which is that just the kind of aggression that the other candidates endorsed was a significant factor in the shootdown of that Iranian airliner. It was and is a shocking and tragic incident, which as I understand it should never have happened had the commander and crew of the vessel properly interpreted the information available to them at the time. But of course they were put in an untenable position, and some reports have the Captain suffering from the same sort of war fever that Ron Paul was cautioning against. I suspect Paul would say that if our foreign policy was such that we hadn’t been there, the incident wouldn’t have happened in the first place, a point which is inarguable. The larger question, of course, is whether or not our presence there was justified; again, I suspect Paul would say it was not… for myself, I don’t know the answer.
January 12th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Ron Paul is the only one I agree with on foreign policy.
Davron
PS: Giuliani should quit laughing in the mic
January 16th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I think it is funny that you included the fact that Mitt Romney joked about Ron Paul reading Iranian press releases and left out the reason why he said it. In response to Ron Paul’s off the wall remark about how every other candidate was a war-monger and wanted to start WW3. Just thought I would throw that out there.