GOP candidates clash during CNN/YouTube debate

Republican presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, replies to a remark made by Republican presidential hopeful, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, during the CNN/YouTube debate in St. Petersburg, Fla. Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007. (Photo: Chris O'Meara/AP)

Republican presidential rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney scornfully debated immigration Wednesday in a provocative, no-holds-barred CNN/YouTube debate just over a month before the first votes are cast.

Giuliani, the front-runner in national polls, accused Romney of employing illegal immigrants at his home and running a "sanctuary mansion." The testy personal exchange came after Romney said Giuliani had retained New York's status as a sanctuary city while he was mayor.

Romney said it would "not be American" to check the papers of workers employed by a contractor simply because they have a "funny accent." He had landscapers at his Belmont, Mass., home who turned out to be in the country illegally.

Giuliani shot back, calling Romney's attitude "holier than thou."

"Mitt usually criticizes people when he usually has the far worse record," Giuliani said.

The audience, however, booed Giuliani as he tried to persist in his criticism of Romney.

The confrontation came at the start of an innovative CNN/YouTube debate that forced the candidates to confront immigration immediately, signaling the volatility of the issue among Republican voters. The eight Republican candidates encountered a range of questions, including abortion, gun control from a gun wielding NRA member, and farm subsidies from a man eating an ear of corn.

They were even asked if they believed every word in the Bible by a man holding the holy book, and a question on the powers of the vice president from a gun-toting cartoon-version of Dick Cheney.

No one was exempt in the free-for-all as the candidates squabbled over interrogation techniques, the Iraq war, crime and who wields the most conservative record. The candidates tried to position themselves to the right of each other, knowing full well that conservatives hold sway in selecting the GOP nominee.

At the outset, immigration dominated the questions submitted online and swept in the remainder of the Republican field.

Fred Thompson took the opportunity to distinguish himself from both Romney and Giuliani, arguing that Romney had supported President Bush's plan to provide a path to citizenship for some immigrants in the United States illegally now. He took Giuliani to task for attacking Romney's employment of illegal immigrants.

"I think we've all had people who we've hired who in retrospect was a bad decision," he said, alluding to Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's disgraced former police commissioner who is under federal indictment on multiple charges.

Sen. John McCain, for whom the immigration issue has proved particularly vexing, defended his support for an unsuccessful overhaul of immigration laws that included a temporary worker program and a path to citizenship.

"We must recognize these are God's children as well," McCain said. "They need our love and compassion, and I want to ensure that I will enforce the borders first. But we won't demagogue it."

Mike Huckabee, who has also come under GOP criticism for some of his immigration policies while governor of Arkansas, defended benefits he supported for children of illegal immigrants, including allowing children to be eligible to apply for college scholarships.

"Are we going to say kids who are here illegally are going to get a special deal?" Romney asked.

Huckabee objected, saying the benefit was based on merit. "We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did," he said.

The most fierce exchanges were among the candidates with the most at stake with only five weeks left before the first voting in the presidential contest begins. Giuliani leads in national polls but trails Romney in early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney faces challenges from Huckabee in Iowa and from Giuliani and McCain in New Hampshire.

Thompson, in what amounted to one of the first video attacks of the campaign, questioned the conservative credentials of two of his rivals in a YouTube clip. The video challenged Romney on abortion and Huckabee on taxes.

"I wanted to give my buddies here a little extra air time," Thompson said to laughter as he defended the video.

For Thompson, Romney and Huckabee are his biggest obstacles toward establishing himself as the candidate of conservatives.

"I was wrong, I was effectively pro-choice," said Romney, who has said he changed his stance in 2004 during debates on stem cell research. "On abortion, I was wrong."

"If people are looking for somebody in this country who has never made a mistake ... then they ought to find somebody else," he said.

As the front-runner, Giuliani faced questions about gun control, abortion and whether New York taxpayers foot the bill for security he received while the married mayor visited his then-girlfriend, Judith Nathan, now his wife.

Giuliani said he had 24-hour protection as mayor because of threats against him and said all costs incurred were proper.

"I had nothing to do with the handling of their records," he said of how his security detail reported the expenses. "And they were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately."

McCain, who has shown no love for Romney during the campaign, seized on Romney's response to a question about the legality of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Romney said that as a candidate he would not publicly discuss what techniques he would rule out. That prompted McCain, a former Vietnam POW, to assert that waterboarding is indeed torture and should not be tolerated.

"Governor, let me tell you, if we're going to gain the high ground in this world ... we're not going to torture people," McCain said. "How in the world someone could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted on people who are in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

McCain also engaged Ron Paul, a Texas congressman whose libertarian views and opposition to the war have attracted thousands of donors, millions of dollars and a devoted online following.

McCain said Paul is promoting isolationism in calling for the United States to disengage from the war. "We allowed (Adolf) Hitler to come to power with that attitude of isolation," he said.

Paul objected, saying McCain had misunderstood his support for nonintervention with isolationism.

"I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel," Paul replied. "But I don't want to send troops overseas using force to tell them how to live." Later he made clear he would not run as an independent, despite demands from many of his supporters.

One questioner, Keith Kerr of Santa Rosa, Calif., a retired Army colonel who served as a brigadier general in the reserves, asked the candidates about their views on gays in the military and revealed himself to be gay. Not mentioned was his membership on a steering committee of gays and lesbians for Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Huckabee, Romney, McCain and Rep. Duncan Hunter all said they supported the current "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The debate ended as it began, with Romney and Giuliani in a deeply personal dispute — over the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox.

"When I was mayor of New York City, the Yankees won four world championships," Giuliani said. "Since I've left being mayor of New York City, the Yankees have won none."

Romney, who was off by one year — 87 instead of 86 — on the length of the Red Sox World Series drought, replied: "Like most Americans, we love our sports teams and hate the Yankees."

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Some quotes from Wednesday night's Republican debate:

RUDY GIULIANI

In response to a question asking whether, as president, he would sign a national ban on abortion, Giuliani said: "I probably would not sign it. I would leave it to the states to make that decision. I think that that — the problem with Roe against Wade is that it took the decision away from the states. If Roe against Wade were overturned because it was poorly decided, if the justices decide that, it would then go back to the states, and it would seem to me that that would be the answer. The answer is that each state would make a different decision. I don't believe, in the circumstance that you asked before, that it should be criminalized. I think that would be a mistake unless we're talking about partial birth abortion or late-term abortion. I think you should have parental consent. I think we should have access to adoptions instead of abortion. But, ultimately, I think these decisions should be made on a state-by-state basis."

On illegal immigrants: "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."

———

MITT ROMNEY

"If people in this country are looking for someone who's never made a mistake on a policy issue and is not willing to admit they're ever wrong, why then they're going to have to find somebody else, because on abortion I was wrong. And I changed my mind as the governor. This didn't just happen the last couple of weeks or the last year. This happened when I was governor the first time a bill came to my desk that related to life. I could not sign a bill that would take away human life. I came down on the side of life every single instance as governor of Massachusetts. ... I'm proud to be pro-life, and I'm not going to be apologizing for people for becoming pro-life."

On what the Confederate flag represents: "That's not a flag that I recognize so that I would hold up in my room. ... My own view is that this country can go beyond that kind of stuff, and that instead we can do as a party what we need to do, which is to reach out to all Americans. Every time I listen to someone like John Edwards get on TV and say there are two Americas, I just want to — I just want to throw something at the TV, because there are not two Americas. There's one America. We are a nation united. We face extraordinary challenges right now. And Democrats dividing us and tearing down this country are doing exactly the wrong thing."

———

MIKE HUCKABEE

In response to a question about a bill he supported that, had it passed, would have offered conditional scholarships to certain children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas, Huckabee said: "I worked my way through college. I started work when I was 14 and I had to pay my own way through. I know how hard it was to get that degree. I am standing here tonight on this stage because I got an education. If I hadn't had the education, I wouldn't be standing on this stage. I might be picking lettuce. I might be a person who needed government support, rather than who was giving so much money in taxes I want to get rid of the tax code that we've got and make it really different. ... In all due respect, we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country than that."

When asked "what Jesus would do" about the capital punishment, Huckabee said: "I believe there is a place for a death penalty. Some crimes are so heinous, so horrible that the only response that we, as a civilized nation, have for a most uncivil action is not only to try to deter that person from ever committing that crime again, but also as a warning to others that some crimes truly are beyond any other capacity for us to fix. Now, having said that, there are those who say, how can you be pro-life and believe in the death penalty? Because there's a real difference between the process of adjudication, where a person is deemed guilty after a thorough judicial process and is put to death by all of us, as citizens, under a law, as opposed to an individual making a decision to terminate a life that has never been deemed guilty because the life never was given a chance to even exist."

———

JOHN McCAIN

"We never lost a battle in Vietnam. It was American public opinion that forced us to lose that conflict. I think it's important for all Americans to understand the fundamental difference. After we left Vietnam, they didn't want to follow us home. They wanted to build their own workers' paradise. If you read Zarqawi, if you read bin Laden, if you read Zawahiri, read what they say. They want to follow us home. They want Iraq to be a base for al-Qaida to launch attacks against the United States. Their ultimate destination is not Iraq. Their ultimate destination is New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Phoenix, Ariz."

When asked whether President Bush has given too much authority to the Vice President Dick Cheney: "This president came to office in a time of peace, and then we found ourselves in 2001. And he did not have as much national security experience as I do. So he had to rely more on the vice president of the United States, and that's obvious. I wouldn't have to do that. I might have to rely on a vice president that I select on some other issues. He may have more expertise in telecommunications, on information technology, which is the future of this nation's economy. He may have more expertise in a lot of areas. ... But the vice president of the United States is a key and important issue, and must add in carrying out the responsibilities of the president of the United States."

———

FRED THOMPSON

"We have thousands of people standing in line at embassies around the world to become United States American citizens, to come here to get a green card, to come here and to assimilate and be a part of our culture. They are part of what has made our country great. Some of our better citizens. We all know them and love them. Now, it's our country together — theirs and ours, now together. It's our home. And we now get to decide who comes into our home. And to place somebody above them or in front of them in line is the wrong thing to do."

On Iraq: "We shouldn't be in there longer than necessary, and we don't know how long that will be. But we should be there absolutely as long as it takes to complete our mission there. It will make for a safer United States of America. We're all focused, understandably, on Iraq and Afghanistan right now, but it is part of a much bigger picture. Islamic terrorism has declared war on us and Western civilization. They would like nothing better than to kill millions of people as they bring us down. They would like to be able to advertise to young radicals around the world that you, too, could help bring down the United States of America. Iran is waiting there to fill that vacuum. You think $90, $100 a barrel is high for oil now, wait until that happens. But more importantly, it would make for a less secure United States of America. We have to do what's necessary. We have to take the opportunity that we have now."

———

DUNCAN HUNTER

On gays in the military: "I believe in what Colin Powell said when he said that having openly homosexual people serving in the ranks would be bad for unit cohesion. The reason for that ... is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military and make that ... decision with their family, most of them are conservatives. They have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. To force those people to work in a small tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual goes against what they believe to be their principles, and it is their principles, is I think a disservice to them. I agree with Colin Powell that it would be bad for unit cohesion."

When asked how he would improve the perception of the United States in the Muslim world, Hunter said: "When you were faced with disease and starvation, the Americans brought food and medicine. When you had earthquakes and tsunamis and floods, the Americans came and helped you. And when you were threatened from outside, the Americans left the safety of their own homes to come and defend you. I will never apologize for the United States of America."

———

RON PAUL

"To the statement earlier made that we all went to Washington to change Washington and Washington changed us, I don't think that applies to me; Washington did not change me. I would like to change Washington, and we could by cutting three programs, such as the Department of Education — Ronald Reagan used to talk about that — Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security is the biggest bureaucracy we ever had. And besides, what we can do is we can have a stronger national defense by changing our foreign policy. Our foreign policy is costing us a trillion dollars, and we can spend most of that or a lot of that money home if we would bring our troops home."

When asked whether in the event abortion becomes illegal a woman undergoing the procedure should be charged with a crime: "I don't personally think so. I'm an O.B. doctor, and I practiced medicine for 30 years, and I of course never saw one time when a medically necessary abortion had to be done. But so I think it certainly is a crime. But I also understand the difficulties. I think when you're talking about third trimester deliberate abortion and partial birth abortions, I mean, there has to be a criminal penalty for the person that's committing that crime. But I really think it's the person who commits the crime. And I think that is the abortionist."

———

TOM TANCREDO

When asked about whether he would commit to sending an American to the surface of Mars by the year 2020, Tancredo said: "Look, we've been how many times up here, how many questions have dealt with the issue of deficit spending, debt out of control, and yet we have somebody saying 'but would you spend more money on going to Mars?' and the suggestion that we need to spend more money on space exploration. This is it folks. That's why we have such incredible problems with our debt because everybody's trying to be everything to all people. We can't afford some things. And, by the way, going to Mars is one of them."

When asked about protecting children from lead-contaminated toys from China, Tancredo said: "It is illegal to import that kind of thing. The problem is, of course, no one really pays a lot of attention to a lot of our laws, with regard to immigration of both people and, now in this case, of course, items, goods and services. I voted against permanent normalized trade relations with China — this is one reason why. It wasn't — that was never devised simply to be a place for us to sell our products; it was devised to be a place where we could get cheap labor to then import products to the United States. So, one of the things you'd have to do, and I certainly would intend to do, is to change our trade arrangement entirely — with China, by the way, in particular, but with other countries, as well, that violate those agreements."

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