Hotline After Dark -- Show Us The Candidates
Lots of '08ers on TV again last night:
ABC's Tapper talked with Rudy Giuliani in IA for "Nightline":
Asked if he's worried the Bernard Kerik indictment will cause people to disregard his own record as a prosecutor: "No. I think that people are capable of looking at that and saying you have to look at that and judge that in the overall context of what I did and how many right decisions did I make and how many wrong decisions did I make. And the balance is very much in favor of -- I must have been making the right decisions if the city of New York turned around."
Giuliani: "People are complex but the fact is that the results for the city for New York were excellent results but there were these problems I should have known about but had I known about them at moment I knew about them I would not have gone ahead with him."
Asked if lessens the seriousness of what Kerik did to talk about the good things he did: "Not at all. ... It's the complexity of human life. And the reality of human life. Richard Nixon had this very serious problem but his breakthrough with China was one of the historical things that happened in the 20th century. You can't take that away from him. It was" (ABC, 11/8).
HUCKABEE HEARTS HIS TV TIME
Mike Huckabee played "Hardball" last night:
Asked why he's not getting endorsements from leaders of evangelical groups: "I'm not sure what's happening with the
leaders, but the good news for us is that out there in the grass roots answer and among the rank and file, people are with us and it's growing every day. And we're picking up some key endorsements, just today Don Wildmon of American Family Association. We're picking them up every day. But more important than the endorsements of just the leaders is out there the followers. And those are the folks who are going to be going to the caucuses on January the 3rd. And I'm more than content to let one leader go with another candidate. I just want the followers."
On Thompson calling him a "pro-life liberal": "I'm pro-life, but liberal? For heaven sakes, if you said that to a lot of people in Arkansas, they would slap their knees laughing. Look, here's the record. I believe in a secure border. I don't believe in amnesty or sanctuary cities. That's hardly weak on immigration. Now, the one area, I don't believe you punish the children for the sins or the crimes of the parents. Now, that doesn't make me a liberal. It makes me a human being. And I don't think that it's matter of, you know, having a hard line on immigration, which I do, but you don't extend the hard line to people who didn't actually break the law. That's where Fred has to be coming from. This idea of taxes, I cut 94 taxes when I was governor, the first-ever tax cuts in a 160-year history of my state. It's a darn good record. And I did something that nobody else on that stage has done. I balanced a budget every one of the 10-and-a-half years I was governor. I actually led a government. I have had more executive experience, running a government, than anybody running for president, Democrat or Republican."
On Giuliani: "We differ on some key issues. But it doesn't mean that I have anything but respect for him, because I do" (MSNBC, 11/8).
TEXAS TWO STEP
Ron Paul was in the "Situation Room":
On his record fundraising: "I don't claim a whole lot of credit for it. I think we have a very good platform that's very appealing to the people who care about what's happening in the country. I think we're also tapping into the sense of frustration that people are feeling. I think it's much more intense than anybody realized. Probably more intense than I had expected. So it's coming together and people have rallied around it."
On how he's using the money: "The money was sent to us to be spent, and we will be spending it. We've started to do that. We're buying television in the early primaries, we're doing a lot of direct mail. We're on the radio. And we're hiring a few more people. I know the other campaigns have had huge staffs, but I think they waste a lot of their money. But now we are getting more reasonable staffing positions. And we're spending the money in many ways in an ordinary way, but we will continue with this grassroots effort that has been going on, that's been ongoing here on the Internet."
Asked if he'd run as a Libertarian if he didn't get the GOP nod: "I have no plans, no intention of doing that. We have a very biased system here in this country against democracy really working. It's hard to get on ballots. Unless you're a billionaire, you might as well forget about it. You're excluded from the debates so it's very difficult. And I, right now, don't have a stomach for that, so I'm concentrating on exactly what I'm doing. And as long as we have this expansion of our campaign and these funds just rolling in without us doing very much, I better stick to my guns and what I'm doing right now."
Asked if he'd stay in Congress if he didn't get the GOP nod: "My plan B is I am still running for Congress in Texas. I'm allowed to run for both. So, yes, I would be glad if my people vote for me to stay in the Congress. I would" (CNN, 11/8). [EMILY GOODIN]
