The Reagan Library 2008 Presidential Debate: What the Republican Candidates Said About Your Civil Liberties by Tom Head

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The Reagan Library 2008 Presidential Debate: What the Republican Candidates Said About Your Civil Liberties
Read more: The 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates on Civil LibertiesIt has been said that every generation rebels against its parents in a way that pleases its grandparents. Certainly this was the case at last night's Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California (transcript available), as ten Republican presidential candidates praised the legacy of Ronald Reagan (an average of once every four minutes) while for the most part working to distance themselves from the unpopular presidency of George W. Bush.Before we look at what this debate tells us about Republican candidates' positions on key civil liberties issues, it's worth mentioning some parallels--and non-parallels--with last week's Democratic debate.Both debates were held in states that consistently go to the other party. Republicans held their first presidential debate in California, which no Republican presidential candidate has carried since 1984; Democrats held their first presidential debate in South Carolina, which no Democratic presidential candidate has carried since 1976. But both were held on sites in those states that represented their strengths--the Republican debate in the memorial library dedicated to President Ronald Reagan, the most popular president of our generation, and the Democratic debate in the auditorium of South Carolina State University, one of the strongest historically African-American universities in the country.Both debates focused on the Iraq War. This makes sense from a political standpoint--Democrats want to reiterate President Bush's failure, Republicans want the opportunity to distance themselves from it--but it makes less sense from a policy standpoint, since the Iraq War of November 2008, if in fact there is still an Iraq War at that point, will presumably look very different from the Iraq War of May 2007. We can hope so, anyway--and since candidates on both sides seem to be making "optimism" the buzzword of the day, let's try to pretend it's a well-founded hope.On to demographics--maybe the most striking difference between the Democratic and Republican slates.On the Democratic side of the aisle, I count eight presidential candidates ranging in age from 45 to 76, with a median age of 60. Six of the eight candidates (75%) are white; one candidate is black, another Latino. Seven of the eight candidates are men, while one is a woman. Six of the eight candidates are primarily known as current or former U.S. senators, one as a U.S. representative, and one as a governor.On the Republican side, I count ten presidential candidates ranging in age from 50 to 71, with a median age of 60.5. All ten of the candidates (100%) are white. All ten of the candidates (100%) are male. Two of the ten candidates are known primarily as current or former U.S. senators, three as U.S. representatives, four as governors, and one as a mayor. The Democratic field is much more diverse with respect to race, gender, and age, but all but one of their candidates come from Congress. The Republican field is exclusively white and male, but only half of their candidates come from Congress.Both debates were 90 minutes long and featured some platform-defining statements relevant to civil liberties issues.Last week, I discussed what the Democratic candidates said in their debate. Here's what the Republicans said:
Abortion
Relatively early in the debate, moderator Chris Matthews asked: "Would the day that Roe v. Wade is repealed be a good day for Americans?" Here were the candidates' answers, along with their other remarks on the subject:
Sam Brownback: "Be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom." Brownback did state, however, that he would be able to support a pro-choice nominee on the basis of "the Ronald Reagan principle that somebody that's with you 80 percent of the time is not your enemy."
Jim Gilmore: "Yes, it was wrongly decided."
Gilmore later reiterated his belief that abortion should be legal during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, but expressed support for waiting period laws, "informed consent" laws, parental notification, and the ban on live intact D&X.
Rudy Giuliani: "It would be okay." Matthews: "Okay to repeal?"Giuliani: "It would be okay to repeal. Or it would be okay also if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as precedent, and I think a judge has to make that decision."Matthews: "Would it be okay if they didn't repeal it?"Giuliani: "I think that -- I think the court has to make that decision, and then the country can deal with it. We're a federalist system of government, and states could make their own decisions."
Giuliani later reiterated that he is pro-choice--"you have to respect a woman's right to make that choice"--but supports the ban on live intact D&X.
Giuliani also highlighted efforts he had made, as mayor of New York City, to make adoption a more realistic option for women experiencing unplanned pregnancies. He claimed that these policy changes contributed to a 16% decrease in the number of abortions in New York City during his tenure.
Mike Huckabee: "Most certainly."
Duncan Hunter: "Yes."
John McCain: "Repeal."
Mitt Romney: "Absolutely."
Romney explained that his views on abortion changed two years ago (from "effectively pro-choice" to "pro-life") during the debate over embryonic stem cell research. "I took the same course that Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and Henry Hyde took ... I said I was wrong and changed my mind and said I'm pro-life." He later stated that he believes abortion should be dealt with on a state-by-state basis, and should be neither banned nor protected by the federal government.
Romney reiterated his support for "informed consent" laws and the ban on live intact D&X abortions. He also called on a loosening of restrictions on anti-abortion protests that take place outside of clinics, restrictions that were enacted after several notorious incidents of clinic violence during the 1990s. He took a potshot at the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, which he argued "prevents ... those that care about this issue [from being] heard before Election Day."
Tom Tancredo: "After 40 million dead because we have aborted them in this country, I say that that would be the greatest day in this country's history when that is in fact overturned."
Later, when asked a reader's question regarding women's rights, including both fair wages and reproductive rights, Tancredo said: "The right to kill another person is not a right that I would agree with and support." Even though he still had another 13 seconds on the clock, Tancredo otherwise passed on the question and did not mention any measures he would take to protect women's rights in other areas.
Tommy Thompson: "Yes." Thompson later stated that he believes that individual states should have the right to make abortion legal or illegal, as they see fit.
Curiously, nobody mentioned a rape or incest exemption.
Church and State
I could catalogue some vague comments that were made back and forth, including numerous references to God and a debate between Brownback and Romney over the degree to which one's faith should influence one's political platform, but the church-state moment of the night had to do with a specific policy-related issue: creationism vs. evolution. In a show of hands, the ten candidates were asked whether they believe in the theory of evolution. Gilmore, Giuliani, Hunter, McCain, Paul, Romney, and Thompson indicated that they do; Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo indicated that they do not. This is significant to me, because I don't feel that any candidate who is completely beholden to the fundamentalist wing of the party would have been comfortable answering that question in the affirmative.
Gun Rights
Nobody mentioned gun rights.
Immigrants' Rights
Immigration came up a number of times during the debate. The key difference seemed to be between Giuliani and McCain, who favored a humane immigration policy, and Hunter and Tancredo, who focused on border security and enforcement, respectively.
Giuliani said as part of his response to the first question of the debate:
"[W]hat we can borrow from Ronald Reagan, since we're in his library, is that great sense of optimism that he had. He led by building on the strengths of America, not running America down. And we're a country that people love to come to. They want to come too this country. We're the shining city on the hill. So we should solve our immigration issue, including illegal immigration, from our strengths--not our weaknesses."
Duncan Hunter said: "I built that border fence" along the San Diego-Mexican border, and "I wrote that law that extends the San Diego fence for 854 miles ... that the president signed in October."
McCain was asked if he would be comfortable with the idea of Tancredo as head of the INS. McCain responded: "In a word, no." He later said: "I'm happy to say that we've been working very hard for a couple of months with Democrats and Republicans, led by the president and his Cabinet, to come up with a comprehensive solution and resolution of this terrible problem ... We have to secure our borders, but we also need a temporary worker program, and we have to dispose of the issue of 12 million people who are in this country illegally."
Tom Tancredo made many comments about the dangers of illegal immigration, but did not say anything out of the ordinary except remarking that the issue had made him a persona non grata at the White House, where President Bush favors a friendlier immigration policy.
Lesbian and Gay Rights
When asked if he believed that lesbian and gay employees working in the private sector should be protected from firings and other forms of discrimination, Tommy Thompson said no.
This was the only time that gay rights came up during the entire evening. Nobody even mentioned the idea of banning same-sex marriage or civil unions.
Read more: Lesbian and Gay Rights 101
Race and Equal Opportunity
The subject only explicitly came up once, in a question to Tommy Thompson:
"Governor Thompson, is racism still a problem in our society? And can a president do anything about it?"Thompson: "A president can do a lot of things. A president can -- can set a vision that's going to abrogate as much as possible racism in our society. A president's got to be able to get out and speak and be able to unite. And the great thing about Ronald Reagan was that he was a uniter, and that's exactly what I tried to do as governor of the state of Wisconsin. I tried to bring people together. And if you do that, you can reduce and abrogate racism to a very great degree, and the president of the United States has got to be the number-one person in doing that."
This stands in sharp contrast with last week's Democratic debate, in which race relations was a major theme.
Read more: Race Relations a Central Issue in the First 2008 Presidential Debate
War on Terror
Last week, civil liberties issues in the War on Terror did not come up during the Democratic debate. Last night, they did come up in response to the last question of the Republican debate, as answered by Ron Paul:
I would work very hard to protect the privacy of American citizens, being very, very cautious about warrantless searches, and I would guarantee that I would never abuse habeas corpus.Good for Rep. Paul. This is, perhaps, the only civil liberties issue addressed in the night's debate where a Republican candidate clearly outperformed the Democratic field.