Here are a few quotes from the Democratic Presidential Debate.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
_On Republican attacks: “In a perverse way, I think that the Republicans and their constant obsession with me demonstrate clearly that they obviously think that I am communicating effectively about what I will do as president. I am trying to do that because it matters greatly. We’ve got to turn the page on George Bush and Dick Cheney. In fact, we have to throw the whole book away. This has been a disastrous period in American history, and we hope it will be an aberration.”
_On Iran: “I believe we should be engaged in diplomacy right now with the Iranians. Everything should be on the table, not just their nuclear program. I’ve been advocating this for several years. I believe it strongly. But I also think when you go to the table to negotiate with an adversarial regime, you need both carrots and sticks. The Revolutionary Guard is deeply involved in the commercial activities of Iran. Having those economic sanctions hanging over their heads gives our negotiators one of the set of sticks that we need to try to make progress in dealing with a very complicated situation.”
CHRIS DODD
_On the passage of a resolution designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group: “I believe that this issue is going to come back to haunt us. We all learned … back in 2002, that by voting for an authorization regarding Iraq, that despite the language of that resolution which called for diplomacy at the time, this administration used that resolution, obviously, to pursue a very aggressive action in Iraq. … What you didn’t learn back in ’02, you should’ve learned by now.”
_On his support for decriminalizing marijuana: “We’re locking up too many people in our system here today. We’ve got mandatory minimum sentences, they are filling our jails with people that don’t belong there. My idea is to decriminalize this, reduce that problem here. We’ve gone from 800,000 to 2 million people in our penal institutions in this country. We’ve got to get a lot smarter about this issue than we are. And as president, I’d try and achieve that.”
JOHN EDWARDS
_On energy independence: “We need to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war. And I want to be the president who says to America, we’re in this together. We’re going to have to be willing to sacrifice. If we love this country enough, we’re going to have to conserve, in our homes, in our workplaces, and alter our behavior to make America what it’s capable of being.”
_On Hillary Rodham Clinton: “I think, that voters have to ask themselves is: Do you believe that the candidate who’s raised the most money from Washington lobbyists, Democrat or Republican, the candidate who’s raised the most money from the health industry, drug companies, health insurance companies, the candidate who’s raised the most money from the defense industry, Republican or Democrat—and the answer to all of those questions is: That’s Senator Clinton. Will she be the person who brings about the change in this country? You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I really don’t.”
DENNIS KUCINICH
_”It is time that the United States government enforced and participated in fully the Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We must lead the way, and we must have a president who understands the danger of these nuclear weapons and have America lead the way among all nations towards nuclear abolition. When we do that, we will have the credibility to go to an Iran and any other nation that may have desires for nuclear power to say, Look, we want to take it in another direction.”
_”If we cut the Pentagon budget 15 percent, $75 billion will go into a universal pre-kindergarten program so our children ages 3, 4 and 5 will have access to full-time day care and more money would go into elementary and secondary education.”
BARACK OBAMA
_”There is no doubt that my background is not typical of a presidential candidate. I think everybody understands that. But that’s part of what is so powerful about America, is that it gives all of us the opportunity—a woman, a Latino, myself—the opportunity to run. … As we travel all across the country, we have received enormous support, in states where, frankly, there aren’t a lot of African- Americans, and there aren’t a lot of Obamas.”
_”Part of the reason that Republicans, I think, are obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that’s a fight they’re very comfortable having. It is the fight that we’ve been through since the ’90s. And part of the job of the next president is to break the gridlock and to get Democrats and independents and Republicans to start working together to solve these big problems like health care or climate change or energy. And what we don’t need is another eight years of bickering.”
