Between Rick Santorum's temper tantrums, Ron Paul's wise cracks, and Gingrich and Romney trying to one-up (or maybe one-down) each other, it could be hard to keep track of what they actually have to say about the issues. This article attempts to forgo the rhetoric and mud-slinging and restate each candidate's stance on the issues discussed. The entire transcript can be read here. Don't forget to check out parts one and two.
On a lighter subject, I want to ask each of these gentlemen why they think their wife would make a great first lady.
Paul: We have 5 children and 18 children, and she wrote a cookbook.
Romney: She is a survivor of breast cancer and MS, and would be empathetic to people who are suffering. She would also teach young women that marriage should become before child bearing.
Gingrich: She cares about the arts and would bring strong focus to art and music education and why it matters. She has also written a best-selling children’s book.
Santorum: We have seven children. My wife is well-educated. She was a neo-natal nurse and then studied law. She has also written two books.
Do you think you [Romney] can claim the Reagan mantle more than Speaker Gingrich?
Romney: No. I started off building a successful business and being involved in the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. Then I became governor.
Mr. Speaker, you've heard the criticism lately that you weren't necessarily as close to the president as you suggest?
Gingrich: Michael Reagan has endorsed me and will be campaigning with me here in Florida. When we were at the Goldwater Institute, Nancy Reagan said, "Barry gave Ronnie the torch, and now Ronny's passing the torch to Newt and his team in Congress.” I am vastly closer to Reagan.
[Gingrich and Romney begin bickering again]
What would be your position as president toward the island of Cuba?
Santorum: I would oppose it. I've been 100 percent in support of the Cuban people and their right to have a free Cuba and the United States should stand on the side of the Cuban people against these despots who are not just reigning terror, continuing reign of terror in Cuba.
Paul: I would ask what can we do to improve relations, cause I wouldn't see them as likely to attack us.
Romney: I think we have to have economic initiatives to build trade throughout Latin America, particularly with Colombia and Panama, now part of free trade agreements. I want more of that throughout Latin America. I'll use every resource we can to make sure that when Fidel Castro finally leaves this planet, that we are able to help the people of Cuba enjoy freedom.
Gingrich: I would argue that we should have, as a stated explicit policy, that we want to facilitate the transition from the dictatorship to freedom. We want to bring together every non-military asset we have, exactly as President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher and Pope John Paul II did in Poland and in Eastern Europe.
How would a Republican administration help bring peace to Palestine and Israel when most candidates barely recognize the existence of Palestine or its people?
Romney: And I believe America must say -- and the best way to have peace in the Middle East is not for us to vacillate and to appease, but is to say, we stand with our friend Israel. We are committed to a Jewish state in Israel.
Gingrich: My goal for the Palestinian people would be to live in peace, to live in prosperity, to have the dignity of a state, to have freedom. and they can achieve it any morning they are prepared to say Israel has a right to exist, we give up the right to return, and we recognize that we're going to live side-by-side, now let's work together to create mutual prosperity. On the first day that I'm president, if I do become president, I will sign an executive order directing the State Department to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to send the signal we're with Israel.
Where do you stand for Puerto Rico to become a state? And secondly, how do you -- where do you stand on domestic trade between Florida and Puerto Rico, between Tampa Bay and Ponce ports which have been neglected?
Santorum: I’ve been to Puerto Rico. Your governor, Luis Fortuno, is a friend of mine. The Puerto Rican people should have the opportunity to be able to be able to speak on this. I have supported that. I don't take a position one way or the other on statehood, commonwealth, independence, that's for the people of Puerto Rico to decide.
How would your religious beliefs, if you're elected, impact the decisions that you make in the office of the presidency?
Paul: My religious beliefs affect my character in the way I treat people and the way I live. The only thing it would affect me in the way I operate as a president or a congressman is my oath of office and my promises that I've made to the people.
Romney: I would also seek the guidance of providence in making critical decisions. When they said, for instance, that the creator had "endowed us with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I would seek to assure that those principles and values remain in America and that we help share them with other people in the world, not by conquering them, but by helping them through our trade, through our various forms of soft power, to help bring people the joy and opportunity that exists in this great land.
Gingrich: Three ways: 1. I would seek guidance from God. 2, that we have a real obligation to recognize that, if you're truly faithful, it's not just an hour on Sundays or Saturdays or Fridays. It's in fact something that should suffuse your life, to be a part of who you are. And in that sense, it is inextricably tied in with how you behave. 3, I want to stand up against the war against religion and in particular, Christianity.
Santorum: The Constitution is there to do one thing: protect God-given rights. If our president believes that rights come to us from the state, everything government gives you, it can take away. The role of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away.
I want you to tell voters who are watching or are here on this campus right now why you are the one person on this stage that is most likely to beat Barack Obama.
Paul: The freedom message in the Constitution is very appealing to everybody in all political beliefs because it includes free markets, which conservatives endorse, but it also protects civil liberties, the way people run their lives. If it is a God-given life, and it's your life, you should have the right to run your life as you so choose as long as you don't harm other people. This means a lot more tolerance that some would like to give.
Romney: I believe to get America back on track, we're going to have to have dramatic, fundamental, extraordinary change in Washington to be able to allow our private sector to once again reemerge competitively, to scale back the size of government and to maintain our strength abroad in our military capacities. I have lived in the private sector. I know how it works. I've competed with businesses around the world. I know how to win. I know what it takes to keep America strong. I know how to work in government. I've had experience for -- four years, rather, working as the governor of Massachusetts.
Gingrich: I pose for the American people a simple choice: Do you want freedom and independence and a paycheck and a job, or do you want dependence and big government and food stamps and a lack of future? And I believe, if we have a big election with truly historic big choices, that we can defeat Barack Obama by a huge margin. But it won't be by running just as a Republican. It will be an American campaign open to every American who prefers a paycheck to food stamps, who prefers the Declaration of Independence to Saul Alinsky and who prefers a strong national security to trying to appease our enemies.
Santorum: I just think I'm a lot better than the previous two speakers to be able to make that case to the American people. I'm not for a top- down government-run health care system. I wasn't for the Wall Street bailouts like these two gentlemen were. Manufacturing has been the center point of my campaign. The center point of my campaign is to be able to win the industrial heartland, get those Reagan Democrats back, talking about manufacturing, talking about building that ladder of success all the way down so people can climb all the way up.
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