The Republicans, Episode 7
Once again the Beachwood Mystery Debate Theater team of Andrew (Sleepy) Kingsford, Tim Willette and Steve Rhodes gathered at Beachwood HQ to monitor the movements of our presidential candidates. This time it was the Republican CNN/YouTube debate from St. Petersburg, Florida.
Andrew ate a cup of yogurt and took a nap on my couch until I called him on his cell phone and asked him if he was coming over for the debate. Tim tanked up on Red Bull and lines from A Few Good Men. Steve manned the laptop in disgust. Anderson Cooper moderated.
As always, this transcript has been edited for length and sanity.
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COOPER: There’s been some concern among the campaigns about what kind of questions are going to be asked tonight.
STEVE: Arrrrrrmy questions, sir.
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ERNIE NARDI: This is Ernie Nardi from Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, New York, with a question for the ex-Mayor Giuliani.
Under your administration, as well as others, New York City was operated as a sanctuary city, aiding and abetting illegal aliens.
STEVE: Here we go.
NARDI: I would like to know, if you become president of the United States, will you continue to aid and abet the flight of illegal aliens into this country?
GIULIANI: The reality is that New York City was not a sanctuary city . . . [blah blah blah]
COOPER: Governor Romney, was New York a sanctuary city?
ROMNEY: Absolutely. It called itself a sanctuary city. And as a matter of fact, when the welfare reform act that President Clinton brought forward said that they were going to end the sanctuary policy of New York City, the mayor actually brought a suit to maintain its sanctuary city status.
COOPER: Mayor Giuliani?
STEVE: I’ve got news for Mitt: all Mormons are illegal aliens.
GIULIANI: It’s unfortunate, but Mitt generally criticizes people in a situation in which he’s had far the worst record.
For example, in his case, there were six sanctuary cities. He did nothing about them.
There was even a sanctuary mansion. At his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed, not being turned into anybody or by anyone. And then when he deputized the police, he did it two weeks before he was going to leave office, and they never even seemed to catch the illegal immigrants that were working at his mansion. So I would say he had sanctuary mansion, not just sanctuary city.
ROMNEY: I think it is really kind of offensive actually to suggest, to say look, you know what, if you are a homeowner and you hire a company to come provide a service at your home – paint the home, put on the roof. If you hear someone that is working out there, not that you have employed, but that the company has.
If you hear someone with a funny accent, you, as a homeowner, are supposed to go out there and say, “I want to see your papers.”
Is that what you’re suggesting?
GIULIANI: If you’re going to take this holier than thou attitude . . .
TIM: Yeah, we’re Republicans, it’s not like we ever do that.
ROMNEY: I ask the mayor again. Are you suggesting, Mayor, that if you have a company that you hired who provide a service, that you now are responsible for going out and checking the employees of that company, particularly those that might look different or don’t have an accent like yours, and ask for their papers . . .
TIM: It’s not like there’s a law against that.
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THOMPSON: Now, there are parts of what both of these gentlemen have just said that I would like to associate myself with.
First of all, of course, Governor Romney supported the Bush immigration plan until a short time ago. Now he’s taken another position, surprisingly.
(Laughter)
As far as Mayor Giuliani is concerned, I am a little surprised the mayor says, you know, everybody’s responsible for everybody that they hire, but we’ll have to address that a little bit further later. I think we’ve all had people probably that we have hired that in retrospect probably is a bad decision.
(Laughter)
He did have a sanctuary city. In 1996, I helped pass a bill outlawing sanctuary cities. The mayor went to court to overturn it. So, if it wasn’t a sanctuary city, I’d call that a frivolous lawsuit.
GIULIANI: New York City was not a sanctuary city. New York City did three exceptions. The three exceptions were to allow children to go to school, to allow those illegal immigrants who were the victims of crime to report the person who assaulted them, beat them up, mugged them.
And third, to allow emergency care in the hospitals, which we were required to do by federal law. We had a policy of reporting every single illegal immigrant other than those three who commit any kind of crime or were suspected of crime, and we reported thousands of them to immigration service. Few of them were deported.
McCAIN: This whole debate saddens me . . . And I want to assure you that I’ll enforce the borders first, that as president of the United States, we’ll solve this immigration problem. And we won’t demagogue it. And we won’t have sanctuary cities.
And we won’t have all this other rhetoric that unfortunately contributes nothing to the national dialogue.
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TANCREDO: Well, I tell you, this has been wonderful. Because all I’ve heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo.
STEVE: Hey, he’s using our material.
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TIM: Where did Alan Keyes go? Did they invite him just for that one debate at Howard University?
STEVE: That was affirmative action. And now they can say they had a black man on their stage.
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HUNTER: I built that border fence in San Diego.
STEVE: All by himself?
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ASHLEY SOMETHING: Governor Huckabee, while governor of Arkansas, you gave a illegal aliens a discount for college in Arkansas by allow them to pay lower in-state tuition rates. However, we have thousands of military members currently serving our country in Iraq with children at home. If these children chose to move to Arkansas to attend college, they would have to pay three times the tuition rate that illegal aliens pay.
Would you support a federal law which would require any state that gives these tuition rates to illegal aliens to give the same rates to the children of our military members?
STEVE: Actually we don’t have colleges in Arkansas yet.
ROMNEY: He basically said that he fought for giving scholarships to illegal aliens. Mike, that’s not your money. That’s the taxpayers’ money.
HUCKABEE: You know something, I worked my way through college. I started work when I was 14 and I had to pay my own way through.
TIM: That’s great. I’ve read about people like you. You guys are great. You do the jobs that most Americans don’t want.
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COOPER: We’ve got another question from a YouTube watcher. Let’s watch, please.
YOUTUBE QUESTIONER: Good evening, candidates. This is (inaudible) from Arlington, Texas, and this question is for Ron Paul.
I’ve met a lot of your supporters online, but I’ve noticed that a good number of them seem to buy into this conspiracy theory regarding the Council of Foreign Relations, and some plan to make a North American union by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico.
These supporters of yours seem to think that you also believe in this theory. So my question to you is: Do you really believe in all this, or are people just putting words in your mouth?
TIM: Well, if you flip to page 73 of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . . .
PAUL: It’s not so much as a sinister conspiracy. It’s just knowledge is out there. If we look for it, you’ll realize that our national sovereignty is under threat.
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SARAH LEDERACH: I’m 18 years old. I’m from Scarsdale, Pennsylvania. And I’m a student at Penn State University.
Often, I’ve heard both politicians and voters express their concern with providing a better future for their children. A concern of my generation is the trillions of dollars of national debt and what kind of responsibility we will have for that in the future.
My question for you all is, if elected, what measures will you take to tackle the national debt and control spending?
STEVE: I would pay the minimum balance due every month.
McCAIN (pulling pen out of pocket): As president of the United States, I’d take an old veto pen that Ronald Reagan gave me, and I’d veto every single pork barrel bill that comes across my death. I’d make the authors famous.
TIM: He’ll use a Sharpie?
ROMNEY: Every bill that comes forward that’s got pork in it and earmarks that are unnecessary, we’ve got to veto them and send them back.
TIM: Any bill that comes across my desk that has something I mildly disagree with, I’m going to veto. Because I want to get Washington moving again.
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LEEANN ANDERSON: I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and these are my kids Evan and May. Maya is from China and we adopted him to give her a better life. We never dreamed that she would that she’d be exposed to lead after leaving China, and now we find trains like this that are covered with lead in our home.
My question for the candidates are, what are you going to do to make sure that these kind of toys don’t make their way into our homes and that we have safe toys that are made in America again and we keep jobs in America?
STEVE: Well, you have to differentiate between the lead toys and the date-rape toys. How does that work? Hey baby, I brought a toy train for you to lick. Or maybe you just drop the toy in their drink.
TIM: There’s another date-rape drug that’s popular. It’s called vodka.
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COOPER: All right. We’re going to have three commercial breaks throughout this entire debate.
STEVE: I wish they’d have more.
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HUCKABEE: [As governor of Arkansas] I did do a number of tax cuts that helped a lot of people all over the place, like eliminating the marriage penalty.
TIM: Eliminating the marriage penalty? You mean you get married but you don’t have to live with each other?
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YOUTUBE QUESTIONER: Hi, this is me and my son Prentiss. We’re from Atlanta. I want to ask you guys a question (inaudible) every year. But what about the war going on in our country, black on black crime? Two hundred to 400 black men die yearly in one city alone. What are you going to do about that war? It feels like the (inaudible) is right outside.
COOPER: He’s talking about black-on-black crime, crime in the inner cities.
STEVE: There’s no such thing as black-on-black crime. There’s poor-on-poor crime. Blacks aren’t shooting other blacks because they’re black.
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JOURNEY: Hi. My name is Journey. I’m from Texas. And this question is for all (inaudible) pro-life candidates.
In the event that abortion becomes illegal and a woman obtains an abortion anyway, what should she be charged with, and what should her punishment be? What about the doctor who performs the abortion?
STEVE: I’d like a show of hands. Who on stage is willing to perform an abortion on me.
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TYLER OVERMAN: I have a quick question for those of you who would call yourselves Christian conservatives. The death penalty, what would Jesus do?
HUCKABEE: I believe there is a place for a death penalty.
STEVE: So Jesus would pull the switch . . . wasn’t Jesus given the death penalty?
TIM: He rose again. They weren’t worried.
STEVE: The critics said he’d be out on parole in three days.
COOPER: I do have to press the question. What would Jesus do? Would Jesus support the death penalty?
HUCKABEE: Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.
COOPER: That’s what Jesus would do.
STEVE: What, dodge the question?
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JOSEPH: I am from Dallas, Texas.
STEVE: I was there! I’ll tell you what Jesus would do . . .
JOSEPH: Do you believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book?
STEVE: It’s a King James version. Is this a trap for Romney?
GIULIANI: The reality is, I believe it, but I don’t believe it’s necessarily literally true in every single respect.
STEVE: Sometimes God could have been more clear about what he meant. Like with that Second Amendment thing.
GIULIANI: I think there are parts of the Bible that are interpretive. I think there are parts of the Bible that are allegorical.
STEVE: Isn’t the part about Jesus just an allegory?
HUCKABEE: I think what the question tried to make us feel like was that, well, if you believe the part that says “Go and pluck out your eye,” well, none of us believe that we ought to go pluck out our eye.
STEVE: You know who plucked out their eye? Bill the Butcher. Because the Priest was the best opponent he ever had.
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ANDREW JONES: I’m a college student from Seattle, Washington.
Recently, Senator McCain has come out strongly against using waterboarding as an instrument of interrogation.
My question for the rest of you is, considering that Mr. McCain is the only one with any firsthand knowledge on the subject, how can those of you sharing the stage with him disagree with his position?
ROMNEY: Well, he certainly is an expert and I certainly would want to get his counsel on a matter of this nature, but I do not believe that as a presidential candidate, it is wise for us to describe precisely what techniques we will use in interrogating people.
I oppose torture. I would not be in favor of torture in any way, shape or form.
COOPER: Is waterboarding torture?
ROMNEY: And as I just said, as a presidential candidate, I don’t think it’s wise for us to describe specifically which measures we would and would not use.
McCAIN: Well, governor, I’m astonished that you haven’t found out what waterboarding is.
ROMNEY: I know what waterboarding is, Senator.
McCAIN: Then I am astonished that you would think such a torture would be inflicted on anyone in our – who we are held captive and anyone could believe that that’s not torture. It’s in violation of the Geneva Convention. It’s in violation of existing law.
And, governor, let me tell you, if we’re going to get the high ground in this world and we’re going to be the America that we have cherished and loved for more than 200 years. We’re not going to torture people.
We’re not going to do what Pol Pot did. We’re not going to do what’s being done to Burmese monks as we speak. I suggest that you talk to retired military officers and active duty military officers like Colin Powell and others, and how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me.
ROMNEY: I did not say and I do not say that I’m in favor of torture.
I am not. I’m not going to specify the specific means of what is and what is not torture so that the people that we capture will know what things we’re able to do and what things we’re not able to do.
TIM: Why even say you’re against torture, then? Don’t let them know whether we torture.
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BUZZ BROCKWAY: My name is Buzz Brockway from Lawrenceville, Georgia. All the talk about the war in Iraq centers around how quickly we can get out. I think that’s the wrong question. We need to make a permanent or long-term military commitment to the region.
By staying in Iraq, we provide long-term stability to the region, we provide support for our allies, and we act as a deterrent to the trouble-makers in the region. Which presidential candidate will make a permanent of long-term military commitment to the people of Iraq?
TIM: I don’t think we should say how long we’re going to be there, because why should they know how long we’re going to be there?
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SAM GARCIA: I’m from Colorado Springs, Colorado. The following question is for Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani, a while back, a friend and I were having a discussion about you and some of the other Republican candidates.
He blatantly made this statement somewhere along the line: Rudy Giuliani is using September 11, 2001, to propel himself into the White House. My question to you is: How do you respond to this accusation and other accusations similar to it?
GIULIANI: I was mayor of a city that was described as one of the greatest turnarounds of any city in the history of America. George Will said I ran the most conservative government in this country, most successful conservative government in this country in the last 50 or 60 years. This is all before September 11th, 2001. I reduced taxes. I reduced spending. I reduced welfare. I reduced abortions.
STEVE: I reduced black people.
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(Begin videotape)
HUCKABEE: Faith doesn’t just influence me. It really defines me. I don’t have to wake up every day wondering what do I need to believe?
Let us never sacrifice our principles for anybody’s politics. Not now, not ever.
I believe life begins at conception.
We believe in some things. We stand by those things. We live or die by those things.
I’m Mike Huckabee, and I approve this message.
(End video clip)
TIM: I’m Mike Huckabee, and Jesus approves this message.
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STEVE NIELSON: This question comes to you from Denver, Colorado.
JFK’s vision put a man on the moon from a nonexistent space program in about seven years. The new vision for space exploration has provided about 15 years for that same feat.
Meanwhile, Congress is pulling funding for human-to-Mars research altogether.
Is there a candidate amongst you willing to take a pledge on behalf of the Mars Society of sending an American to the surface of Mars by 2020?
HUCKABEE: Whether we need to send somebody to Mars, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what: If we do, I’ve got a few suggestions, and maybe Hillary could be on the first rocket to Mars.
STEVE: That’s such a kind, loving thing for a minister to say.
TIM: Maybe Jesus is on Mars.
COOPER: Congressman Tancredo, 30 seconds, please.
TIM: I want to build a fence around space.
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LEROY BROOKS: I am from Houston, Texas and my question is for all the candidates.
Whether this [Confederate] flag right here represents the symbol of racism, a symbol of political ideology, a symbol of Southern heritage, or is it something completely different?
STEVE: It represents the Southern heritage of racism.
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Beachwood Analysis
A particularly aggressive Romney started out very strong, setting Giuliani back on his heels for perhaps the first time in the campaign. Guiliani never really recovered, turning in his worst performance since his unsteady initial appearance. Romney, however, frittered away his gains as the night went on, as he was caught equivocating several times and looked like a weasel.
Huckabee did fairly well, though he was overly scripted and got away without directly answering a few questions.
Thompson had his best performance of the campaign, which may not be saying much, but this had to be a glimmer of hope for his team.
Tancredo and Hunter continue to be non-starters.
Paul is both the craziest guy up there and the guy who speaks the most truth, a stunning bipolarity.
And McCain had his moments when he awoke from his coma, basically breaking even for the night.
Overall, Thompson and Huckabee gained the most and Paul will certainly retain his support.
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Catch up on every episode!
Posted on November 29, 2007