[Transcript from Wisconsin Debate website]

For commentary on the debate, Sean Hackbarth blogged the whole thing live.

The debate was moderated by Mike Gousha. Panelists were Gousha; Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; Gloria Borger, co-host of CNBC’s “Capital Report” and columnist for U.S. News and World Report, and Lester Holt, MSNBC anchor.

Senator Kerry, we’ll begin with you tonight.

GOUSHA: The White House released the president’s full military records late Friday night, and a fellow guard officer from Alabama has now stepped forward to say he distinctly recalls the president reporting for duty in Alabama. Does that end the issue of whether the president fully served out his National Guard requirements?

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That’s not something that I’m qualified to comment on. I have not looked at the records, I haven’t seen the records, I’m not reading the records. It’s not for me to make that judgment. I think that all of us today are very proud of those who serve in the National Guard.

I would say that this president regrettably has perhaps not learned some of the lessons of that period of time during which we had a very difficult war, the longest in American history and one of the most contentious.

And one of those key lessons is in how you take a nation to war. I think this president rushed to war. I don’t believe he had a plan for winning the peace. I don’t think he kept his promises to America.

And most importantly, I think he’s cut the VA budget and not kept faith with veterans across this country. And one of the first definitions of patriotism is keeping faith with those who wore the uniform of our country. I will do that.

GOUSHA: Let me ask a follow up, Senator Kerry. The chairman of your party has charged that the president was AWOL, yet he was honorably discharged. Do you disavow that statement? Do you think your party and certain members of your party should drop this as an issue?

KERRY: I have suggested to some people who are my advocates who’ve gone that line of attack, it’s not one that I plan to do, it’s not one I have. I don’t plan to do that and I’ve asked them not to.

But the president has to speak for his own military record. And those of you in the news media, obviously, have asked questions about it and that’s where I’ll let it sit.

GOUSHA: Senator Kerry, thanks very much.

The next question goes to Craig Gilbert.

Craig?

CRAIG GILBERT, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL: Senator Edwards, Democrats are questioning the president about his service in the Guard and they are saying he misled the country about Iraq. Is President Bush’s honesty an issue in this campaign?

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, it is, absolutely it is. Because the — this president has said one of the most critical things, not only for a candidate for president, for the president of the United States is his integrity, whether he can be trusted.

We are in the middle, as you know, of investigating — starting an investigation, an independent investigation about why there is a disconnect between what the American people were told by the president and others and what’s actually been found in Iraq.

Now, I think integrity, character are critical issues in any presidential campaign.

And certainly the integrity and character of the president of the United States is at issue — no question.

GILBERT: What about military service — President Bush in the Guard, Senator Kerry in the Navy, the rest of you didn’t serve in the military — does whether a candidate have military experience or not, is that relevant to this campaign for president?

EDWARDS: Of course it’s relevant. I mean, we should honor the service of those who have served in the military. That includes John Kerry; it includes President Bush; it includes others.

We’ve also got to recognize, of course, that we’ve had great leaders, including at times of war, who didn’t have military service: Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, some of the great presidents of the United States. But they had the other characteristics of leadership: strength, conviction, character, willingness to lead and an ability to lead and convince the American people where they needed to go.

I think, honestly, those are the most critical components. But I, along with all of the American people, certainly honor the service of those who have served in the military.

GOUSHA: Gloria Borger, next question.

GLORIA BORGER, CAPITAL REPORT: This is for Governor Dean. I’m going to turn now to the question of money and its role in politics.

You have said on “Meet the Press” that John Kerry, and this is a quote here, “Gets his money the same way George Bush does.” You’ve also said that they are part of the same corrupt political culture.

The Bush-Cheney campaign now has an anti-John Kerry ad on its Web site about John Kerry and special interests. It is entitled “Unprincipled.”

Are you and the Bush campaign sounding the same theme about John Kerry?

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think George Bush has some nerve attacking anybody about special interests. Not only has he funded his campaign through special interests, but George Bush is systematically looting the American treasury and giving it to his friends — the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs and the insurance companies.

The Medicare bill, prescription benefits for seniors supposedly to help seniors gives the majority of the money to drug companies — over $100 billion — gives significant amounts of money to the HMOs and insurance companies — $85 billion. That is our money and he’s giving it away.

The same thing with the energy bill. We see $16 billion of our money going into the oil and gas business.

The farm bill — we see two-thirds of that going to American corporate farms. I don’t think George Bush has any right to attack anybody on this stage about special interest money, and certainly the Republican Party doesn’t.

BORGER: But let me follow up if I might. You are saying these things about Senator John Kerry. You say that he is part of a corrupt political culture and you said it’s the same one that George Bush is a part of.

DEAN: The way our campaign differs from folks from Washington is 89 percent of our money comes from small donors. We do need more campaign finance reform in this country.

The way I hope to win the Wisconsin primary is by pointing out that Wisconsin voters have elected people like Bob LaFollete and Bill Proxmire and Russ Feingold, who stood up against special interests in the Capitol. I think we have a major problem in both parties with special interest money making it impossible to do the things that we have to do such as health insurance for all Americans.

Wisconsin has a long history of voting for people like me and I hope they’ll do it on Tuesday.

BORGER: Senator Kerry, I’ll give you a chance to talk about the special interest money that you’ve raised, and why you are the best person to make the case on special interests against George Bush.

KERRY: Well, I’m the best person to make the case against George Bush because for 35 years I’ve had an uninterrupted record of taking on powerful special interests in American politics, beginning with when I led thousands of veterans and stood up against Richard Nixon and his war in Vietnam.

I led the fight against Ronald Reagan and his illegal, unconstitutional war in Central America. I blew the whistle on Oliver North and his private aid network. I took on Noriega, and drugs, and the CIA. I stood up against Gingrich and his efforts to attack the Clear Air, Clean Water Act. I led the fight that stopped the drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

I am the only United States senator who has been elected four times voluntarily refusing to ever take in any one of my races one dime of Political Action Committee, special interest money. The only money I’ve accepted is money from individual Americans, and 1 percent of it, approximately, in my entire lifetime has come from anybody who’s ever lobbied for anything.

Russ Feingold will tell you how I’ve stood with him and John McCain and others for campaign finance reform. Paul Wellstone and I wrote the most far-reaching campaign finance reform law in the country called the clean money, clean elections law.

And when I’m president, we will put back on the table the effort to get the money out of American politics and restore the voices of average Americans to the agenda of our country.

GOUSHA: Next question is Lester Holt.

HOLT: And my question is to Representative Kucinich. Good evening, sir.

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the RNC, says “Democrats are going to run the dirtiest campaign in history.” John Kerry’s Web site responds that “the Bush White House is going to run a gutter campaign.” We’ve still got nine months to go here, gentlemen. Is anything political or personal off-limits in your view?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I’m just hoping that Mr. Gillespie is not seeing the world in his own image. I’m hopeful that he has a desire to communicate to the American people what his party wants to do, to get people back to work, to get all the people in this country the health care they need, to enable our children to go to the public education schools that have the best education, and to enable us to bring our men and women back from Iraq.

I mean, if that’s what this debate ends up being about, the American people will be well-served.

I want to say further that if the debate ends up being about the president’s service record, you know, we should be worried about the National Guardsmen and Guardswomen who are in Iraq right now, who shouldn’t be there.

We should be worried about bringing them home, not worrying about what the president did or didn’t do 30 years ago. We have to be concerned about what he’s doing now. He sent those men and women there on a lie, and we have to bring them home.

LESTER HOLT, MSNBC: And Senator Kerry, if I could just follow up on this same line of questioning, has this campaign, in your view, already gotten too personal against you? Has it crossed any lines, inappropriate lines?

KERRY: Well, that’s for the American people to judge. Let me just say that I’m prepared to stand up to any attack that they come at me with. I’ve been in public life since I was about 27 years old.

KERRY: I have been in very visible, tough races in the course of my life. I am ready for what they throw at me.

But I will say this to the American people: They are resorting to that already because they don’t want to talk about jobs because they can’t.

They don’t want to talk about health care for all Americans because they don’t have a plan for health care for all Americans.

They don’t want to talk about the broken promise to children across this country as they are leaving millions of children behind every single day in our nation having broken the promise of No Child Left Behind.

They don’t want to talk about the environment because they are going backwards on clean air and backwards on clean water.

And they don’t even want to talk about the legitimate issues of international security, North Korea, the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, global warming, AIDS on a global basis, all of which are the real sum of our leadership in the world.

Those are the issues that I will talk about. I will talk about and give America a real debate about our future. And if all they do is resort to the personal, I think the American people will see through it very, very quickly.

GOUSHA: Senator Kerry, thank you.

The next question is for Reverend Sharpton.

Reverend, thanks very much for being with us tonight. The president said he is going to meet with members of the 9/11 commission. If you were a member of the commission and not a candidate for office, what is the first question you would ask the president?

REV. AL SHARPTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would ask him, “Where is bin Laden?”

(APPLAUSE)

And I would ask him why we went to Iraq and did not put all of our energies behind finding bin Laden. And I am not just saying that as a quip.

I live in New York. I was there the day the World Trade Center was attacked. A young men who is 11 years old, was at the time, stayed with my family and eight weeks dreaming every night his mother would come home. She worked there and died that day.

That night of September 11th, George Bush went on national television and promised America that we would go and get bin Laden. We are now two and a half years later. We don’t have him. We’ve gone and spent billions of dollars in Iraq in a distraction that had nothing to do with September 11th.

And if I was in the meeting with him in the commission, I would ask him, Where is bin Laden? Why did you promise us something you couldn’t deliver on? And since you couldn’t deliver, you ought not be re-elected because we need a president that will protect Americans from real threats rather than imagined threats, or rather than people, who may be bad people, but were not the people that attacked us on September 11th.

GOUSHA: I want to move on and talk about the economy and jobs because we did a poll here, our TV station and the Milwaukee Journal- Sentinel, and the number one issue clearly among Wisconsin voters was the economy, it was the uncertainty about jobs.

Let’s spend a few moments on that. And I want to say a couple of things before we get to the first question. This state has seen the loss of 90,000 manufacturing jobs since 1999. Just last week, Tower Automotive, a company that does business here in Milwaukee, announced that it was going to be shipping 500 jobs from Milwaukee to Mexico.

Given that backdrop, I’d like to have Craig Gilbert ask the next question.

Craig?

GILBERT: Senator Kerry, a lot of people here blame trade policy for those job losses. And you voted for all of these — a lot of these trade deals, NAFTA with Mexico and permanent trade relations with China.

Given all of the jobs that have fled to China and Mexico, would you vote the same way today?

KERRY: Let me make it very clear that in those trade agreements, we passed side-bar provisions, side agreements in NAFTA on labor and environment, central agreements in the China trade agreement on surge — if there’s a surge of imports, or if there’s a dumping that takes place, we have things that we can do.

This administration refuses to do them, number one.

Number two, there’s been a dramatic shift in the world and what has happened to jobs over the course of the last few years. Perhaps three or four years ago, I began talking about how it is critical that in any trade agreement, we now need to negotiate labor and trade, labor and environment standards.

I will order a 120-day review of all of our trade agreements. We’re going to see what’s working, what isn’t. I will not sign a trade agreement like the Central American Free Trade Agreement or the Free Trade of Americas Act that does not now embrace enforceable labor and environment standards. And we need to be creating more jobs here in the United States of America.

I have a $50 billion package that I’ll make available for manufacturing incentives and for relief for the states in order to help create the jobs we need in America, as well as a $4,000 tuition tax credit for kids to be able to go to college.

We’re going to refocus on science and technology on the United States. We’re going to do the stem cell research and all of the other kinds of commitments to science that will advance the creation of jobs here at home.

This president thinks it’s enough just to raise the stock market; I don’t.

I think a president needs to put America back to work, and that’s what I intend to do.

GILBERT: But no regrets about those votes?

KERRY: I regret the way that they haven’t been enforced, sure. I think…

GILBERT: Senator Edwards, let me just turn to you first. I mean, you said the other day that there are obvious differences between you and Senator Kerry on this issue.

What are they?

EDWARDS: This is one. This is — the one you just asked about is an obvious example.

You know, Senator Kerry is entitled, as is Governor Dean, to support free trade, as they always have. The problem is there what we see happening, and it’s NAFTA, which I opposed, plus a whole series of other trade agreements, have been devastating here in Wisconsin. Nobody has to tell me what the effect is of some of these bad trade agreements.

I have seen it myself. My father worked in a mill. I saw what happened when the mill in my home town closed. I saw the looks on the faces of the men and women who had worked there, many of them for decades, and had nowhere to go.

You mentioned Tower Automotive just a minute ago. I went to Tower Automotive, met with some of the employees who were about to be laid off. That vacant look, “What do I do now? I’ve worked hard and been responsible for decades to raise my family, done what I was supposed to. What do I do now?” It all looked very familiar to me.

And the voters of Wisconsin deserve to know this is something I will take very personally. I will stand up and fight every way I know how to protect these jobs, including the jobs that are being lost at Tower Automotive because I have lived with this my entire life and I take it very personally.

BORGER: Governor Dean, do you have something to say about what John Kerry just said — I mean, Senator Edwards?

DEAN: No, but I have something to say about what John Edwards just said.

BORGER: John Edwards, right.

DEAN: I think the free trade agreements were justified, but the problem is we’ve only solved half the problem. We’ve globalized the rights of big corporations to do business anywhere in the world. We did not globalize human rights, labor rights and environmental rights, and we need to do that.

Now, with all due respect, I’m the only person up here who’s ever balanced a budget, who’s ever had the kind of agreements that we create jobs.

Here’s what we need to do: One, we’ve got to balance the budget. People do not invest in countries that don’t balance their budgets. Two, we’ve got to do something to help small businesses and self- employed people. Small businesses and self-employed people create 70 percent of all the new jobs in America. We do virtually nothing for them. They need help with capital. They need help with health insurance. They need help with less paperwork.

If you want jobs in America, instead of giving $3 trillion tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this country, what we ought to be doing is investing in mass transit, in schools, in renewable energy, and things that create jobs now and build infrastructure so we can have more jobs later on.

BORGER: Well, Governor, let me ask you another related question. Last week, Democrats were out there criticizing the president’s economic adviser who said that outsourcing was actually good for America because it keeps prices down in this country. So would you be willing to make Americans pay higher prices for goods in order to stop sending those jobs overseas?

DEAN: Yes, I’ve repeatedly said that. The bad news is if we do what I want to with our trade agreement, you’re going to pay higher prices at Wal-Mart because their stuff is all made in China and labor costs are going to go up in China. The benefit is, though, that you’re going to keep good, high-paying jobs in the United States of America and that’s what this debate is all about.

BORGER: Well, Congressman Kucinich, what do you say to people here in Wisconsin who want to keep paying lower prices at Wal-Mart and don’t want to lose jobs?

KUCINICH: I want the people of Wisconsin to know that my first act in office as president of the United States will be to cancel NAFTA and the WTO and return to bilateral trade conditioned on workers’ rights, human rights and environmental quality principles. That what we have here is an argument not nation-to- nation, but a series of intra-corporate transfers that are occurring where corporations are seeking cheap wages. Everyone knows this, and I’m the only one up here so far who’s been willing to say that I’ll cancel NAFTA and the WTO.

That’s specific action that will regain real power for the American workers and for workers everywhere and to give the American people the ability to buy American-made goods.

I mean, let’s face it. It’s either we buy America or it’s bye bye America. And I’m insisting that we have to provide a manufacturing base in this country so that people can have American- made goods to buy. They’ll buy it if we make it here.

GOUSHA: Next question is for Reverend Sharpton.

HOLT: Reverend Sharpton, we’ve heard about canceling NAFTA. We’ve heard about the need to protect jobs. Are those jobs that have been lost gone forever, or as president could you bring at least some, if not all, of them back?

SHARPTON: I think you can.

But let me say this: Not only would I cancel NAFTA, I‘ve participated in those movements that opposed NAFTA in the beginning when Democrats were passing it and we raised the issue then that human rights was not part of what was being globalized.

So not only would I rescind NAFTA and the WTO, we were against it and had rallied against it in the beginning.

And the argument used that if you protect American workers it’s protectionism, but if you protect American corporations it’s patriotism — I think it’s patriotism to protect American workers.

And I think that it is some kind of jaded proposition to say, “Should Americans want to pay more to not get products at a K-Mart from cheap labor, or even in some cases, slave labor abroad?”

That’s, to me, as a descendent of slaves, like saying, “Well, let’s not end slavery because the product will be where we can afford it better.” It is immoral; it is against our interests; it is outright indecent to work people around the world at those wages to justify K-Mart prices.

(APPLAUSE)

HOLT: But back to my original question: Can you bring those jobs back, and can you be specific as how you would bring them back beyond canceling NAFTA?

SHARPTON: I think we bring the jobs back, one, by canceling NAFTA; two, by creating manufacturing jobs; three — which would save those corporations where they can begin hiring people back — three, by creating jobs.

I’ve proposed throughout this campaign a $250 billion- a-year infrastructure redevelopment plan: Rebuild highways, roadways, bridges, tunnels in the name of homeland security. Rebuild the ports.

I think if you create jobs, if you cut off these trade agreements and you bring these manufacturing companies back, you can bring some of those workers back. But I think you cannot do it without an unequivocal end to these free trade agreements that have exported American jobs and that have put laborers around the world at below human rights standards.

GOUSHA: Thank you.

Senator Edwards, before we go to a break, just let me ask that same question of you. Do we not, at some point, have to be honest with some of the workers who you met with…

EDWARDS: Oh, absolutely.

GOUSHA: … and tell them that some of these jobs, many of these jobs are not coming back?

EDWARDS: That’s absolutely true. I mean, we need to be completely honest with them. The truth is, some of these jobs are gone. We are not going to get them back.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t change what we’re doing. It doesn’t mean the trade policy we are using now is working. These environmental and labor standards in the text of the agreement, not in a side agreement, in the text of the agreement that can be enforced, really matter. That’ll have an enormous impact on the flow that we are seeing now.

Changing our tax policy — the very idea that we give tax breaks to American companies who are leaving and going overseas and taking jobs with them is absolutely crazy when we are losing millions of jobs. What we should do instead is give tax breaks to American companies that, in fact, are keeping jobs right here in America.

And I will say, I think jobs is the single most important issue for voters here in Wisconsin. I have heard it every single place that I have gone. And they are looking for a president and a presidential candidate who they know will get up every day and go to work at the White House and fight for their jobs.

GOUSHA: Thank you very much, Senator.

Probably the second most important issue in this state may be health care. And when we come back, we will talk about health care with the Democratic presidential candidates.

We’ll be right back.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE)

GOUSHA: And welcome back, everyone. We’ve been talking about the economy, trade practices. And since we’re from Wisconsin, we have to spend a little time on taxes, because Wisconsin is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 states in the country for the highest tax states.

Governor Dean, you want to repeal all of President Bush’s tax cuts. How do you think that’s going to win you votes in Wisconsin?

DEAN: Well, because the middle-class people never got a tax cut. If you make a million dollars a year, you got $112,000 back from the president. Sixty percent of us got $304.

And my question to Wisconsinites is, did your property taxes go up more than $304 because the president cut higher education money?

How about your health care premiums? Did they go up more than $304 because the president cut half-a-million children off health care, and a million adults? Somebody had to pay that health care, so hospitals pass it to your insurance company and then right on to you.

How about your college tuition? Did that go way up because the president cut all that money out of the budget?

The middle-class people didn’t get a tax cut in this country. There was no middle-class tax cut. And I believe that the majority of the people in this country would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if only we could have the economy that we had when Bill Clinton was president.

GOUSHA: So you’re saying to repeal the Bush tax cuts is not a tax increase on the middle class?

DEAN: That’s exactly right. Since the middle-class people never got a real tax cut — they got increased college tuition, increased health care costs and increased property taxes — if you repeal the Bush tax cut, you would be able to balance the budget in this country and have jobs again, and have enough money left over to have every man, woman and child in America have health insurance, and fully fund special education, which would lower your property taxes even further.

GOUSHA: Let’s go to Craig Gilbert.

GILBERT: A lot of health care needs out there, seekers, prescription drugs, the uninsured kids, we’ve got a big budget deficit.

So let’s talk a little bit about priorities, Congressman Kucinich. What would you do first? What health care need would you take care of first as president?

KUCINICH: As a member of Congress, I’ve introduced legislation, H.R. 676, to create a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care system. Do you know that Americans are already paying for a universal standard of care? We’re not getting it — $1.6 trillion in this country goes for health spending.

Of that $1.6 trillion, $400 billion a year goes for the activities of the for-profit sector — corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, lobbying, the cost of paperwork — 15 to 30 percent.

I want to put all that money in the for-profit sector into health care so that everyone in America is covered for all medically necessary procedures, plus dental care, vision care, mental health care, long-term care, a fully-paid prescription drug benefit.

The American people can have that if they have a president who is ready to show the leadership toward that, and I am, and I will be.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

GILBERT: Senator Kerry, what do you take care of first? You can’t do it all. Do you take care of the uninsured? Do you get prescription drugs right? What do you do first?

KERRY: Actually, you can do a health care plan for America, and that’s exactly what I’ve proposed.

Next to creating jobs, this is the single most important priority in the country.

Just this morning I was on West Clyburn Street at Ms. Katy’s (ph) and I met a fellow who runs a business. He’s got 500 employees. He told me that his health care costs — what he pays in for his employees — has gone up 46 percent last year.

There is not an American I’ve met who doesn’t talk about the increase in premiums, co-pays, deductibles, loss of benefits.

I was very lucky last year. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I’m cured and cancer-free today because I had the best health care in the world.

Why? Two reasons: One I could afford it, and two, I’m a United States senator. And guess what? Thanks to everybody in Wisconsin and all across this country, senators and congressmen give themselves very good health care.

As president, I will roll back George Bush’s tax cut for wealthy Americans, close — not raise the taxes on the middle class. I don’t want to get rid of the child tax credit. That’s a tax increase. I don’t want to get rid of the 10 percent bracket. That’s a tax increase. I don’t want to reinstate the marriage penalty. That’s a tax increase.

But I will roll back the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, close the loopholes for companies like Tyco that buy a $27,000 mail box in Bermuda and take $400 million off the tax rolls of America and stick everybody else with the bill.

We’re going to have health care that will provide health care for 97 percent of all Americans within three years. It’s affordable. I’ll let the same health care plan that’s available to congressmen and senators be available to every American. We’ll cover every child.

And I will lower the cost of health care for that businessman and all people like him and others across this country by taking all of the catastrophic cases out of the system, paying for it with George Bush’s tax cut. And we’ll lower the premiums for everyone in America.

GOUSHA: Gloria?

BORGER: Senator Edwards, as president, would you encourage Governor Doyle of Wisconsin to go and cut deals with Canada for cheaper prescription drugs?

EDWARDS: Oh, yes, ma’am, I would. Yes, ma’am, I would, absolutely.

We need to do everything we can to bring down the cost of prescription drugs using the power of the government to negotiate a better price, making sure we bring drugs into this country from Canada, doing something about drug company ads, which is something that I’ve been fighting for.

One thing, though, I want us to be very careful about, you know, I listen to candidates talk about health care. They say, “Oh, we’re going to cover 97 percent. Everybody is going to be covered. All the kids are going to be covered. We’re going to give you all these tax cuts for the middle class, and oh, by the way, we’re also going to balance the budget in the next four years.”

It’s just not the truth. People need to know the truth about what we can afford and what we can’t afford. They have been listening to this talk over and over and over for years. It’s part of the reason they are so cynical about politics.

We need to set priorities, say what we can afford to do, which I believe I have done, both on tax cuts and on health care and on education, and then tell the American people the truth about what we can do to balance the budget, what’s achievable and what’s not achievable.

BORGER: Senator Edwards, what can we not afford?

EDWARDS: Well, we can afford to start down the road to universal health care, which I think is important. Dramatic steps, cover all kids, cover our most vulnerable adults, take on the insurance companies and drug companies to bring down costs.

We can afford to help working middle-class families be able to save, be able to create some security — financial security for themselves.

And the other thing we can afford, which I believe is one of the great moral issues that our country has today and you never hear anybody talk about, which is take serious steps to lift the 35 million Americans who live in poverty every day out of poverty.

It is such a moral issue for our country. We are not talking about. We need to lead on it. We need to show that we as a nation have a commitment to those who are struggling and suffering and living in poverty every day.

GOUSHA: Lester Holt?

HOLT: Question to Senator Kerry and on the issue of education and regarding the No Child Left Behind Act. You voted for it. Now you are outspoken against it. Similar pattern on the Patriot Act and war.

Since the candidates seem to agree credibility is an issue, how should voters reconcile those inconsistencies, or what the chairman of the RNC called hypocrisies?

KERRY: Well, they are not inconsistent at all. The goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are worthy goals. We want to raise accountability in our schools. We want to raise standards. We want teachers to be highly certified.

But what we don’t want is to have it implemented the way it is being implemented by George Bush. He’s making it punitive. He’s disrespecting teachers. And he’s walked away from his own promise to fully fund No Child Left Behind.

I will change it. I will change No Child Left Behind so that it is not punitive, so that we don’t have a one size fits all testing standard and turn schools into testing factories. We’re going to implement it properly.

Secondly, on the Patriot Act. The problem with the Patriot Act are two words: John Ashcroft. If we had an attorney general of the United States who respected the Constitution, there’s no reason in the world that you can’t do the things necessary.

I will change the Patriot Act. And we have the good common sense, may I add, to put in the Patriot Act a sunset clause so it dies automatically at the end of this year and we’ll change it.

But let me just say about the budget also, I have promised to not balance the budget in four years. I don’t think anybody’s going to do that. If they’re telling you that, they can’t.

I have promised to cut the deficit in half in four years, which is precisely what George Bush — what Bill Clinton did. And the same people who helped Bill Clinton put together that plan, the very same people in the White House, the Treasury Department, the OMB, are the same people who are working with me right now to put my plan together. The numbers are real. It’s a promise that can be kept.

And if Americans liked the eight years of Bill Clinton’s economy, they’re going to love the first four years of John Kerry’s.

GOUSHA: Thank you.

Anybody else up there think he can balance the budget in less than four years? I’m curious.

Congressman Kucinich?

KUCINICH: Well, first of all, let’s look at what’s happening.

Over $1 trillion in tax cuts, most of it going to the wealthy, a war in Iraq that’s trending toward $200 billion, a $400 billion a year Pentagon budget. What this administration is saying is, “Let them eat war.”

And what I intend to say is this, the priorities of the country will be to do something about our trade deficit, to save our jobs — that’s why I have to cancel NAFTA and WTO, restart the American economy.

Reverend Sharpton and I agree on a massive public works program because the idea is you have to keep creating wealth. And you create more wealth by putting people back to work. We need to have a major energy initiative.

We can create 3 million new jobs just in changing America’s economy to solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, green hydrogen. I mean, we have to start looking, how can we create new wealth in this country? At the same time, stop the waste.

A tax cut to the wealthy is waste. A war is waste. Expanded Pentagon budget is waste. I’m talking about a new direction for America. That’s how you straighten out our budget.

GOUSHA: Reverend Sharpton, I’ll give you a couple seconds and then I want to ask a question. Go ahead.

SHARPTON: OK, I think that the other thing that you must raise when you’re discussing cutting the deficit — and I agree with Senator Kerry. No one can do it in four years. But it’s also what is your priorities while you are doing deficit spending?

If my family and I are in debt, it’s one thing for me in debt to invest in my two daughters’ college education. It’s another thing in debt for me to go to Las Vegas and roll the dice and have a gambling weekend. What this administration is doing is not only bringing us deeper in debt, they are irresponsibly spending money while we’re in debt.

And I think that we need to have the right priorities in terms of job development, in terms of health care, and in terms of public education, and in urban planning.

One of the things we’re not talking about is the overcrowding of cities, how we deal with housing. I hope, since we’re headed to Super Tuesday, we debate an urban agenda, an urban plan, that this administration has ignored.

And Governor Dean says he’s the only one up here who’s balanced the budget, I’m the only one in here that all my life had to deal with deficit spending. I was born in a deficit.

(LAUGHTER)

GOUSHA: Let me talk about your urban agenda. I want to go back to education for a moment. All of you, as my understanding, are opposed to school vouchers, but they’re very much a reality in the city of Milwaukee. There are more than 13,000 children right now who attend — they’re from low-income families — they attend private schools, in some cases religious schools, at taxpayers’ expense.

I’m wondering, Reverend Sharpton, what you would say to a parent who asks, “Why can’t I have the same opportunity that this family with money has to send our kid to a private school?”

SHARPTON: The only thing wrong with that question is that the parent who has a child who didn’t get a voucher can ask the same question, “Why can’t I have the same opportunity with someone with money and with a voucher?”

Government’s job is not to select some students, it’s to help give quality education to all students. And I don’t care how we cut it. Vouchers is selective.

And it is the job of government to try to bring quality education indiscriminately to all American young people. And it works for you if you happen to get a voucher. It doesn’t work if you’re one of the children, or if your children’s one of the children that didn’t get a voucher.

SHARPTON: Who determines the selection? How do we try to make up for that child not getting the same resources, not the same shot? I think that it is a reaction to a problem, but it is not the solution.

The solution is we must increase funds. We must have standards in public education. We must increase teachers’ pay. We must have college debt forgiveness for young people trying to be teachers.

We should not have a selective program for students, which ultimately pits students against students rather than government deal with its obligation to support all young people toward a quality education.

GOUSHA: Thank you.

Since we’re here on the Marquette University campus, we thought we’d hear from a couple of students tonight. They submitted some questions. They’d like to ask a couple questions of the candidates and we’re going to do that right now.

Would you please introduce yourself and tell us the question you have for the candidates?

QUESTION: Hello. My name is Elizabeth Conradson (ph) and I am a second-year law student here at Marquette. We’ve heard all of you speak often about elementary and secondary education. However, my question pertains to higher education.

With tuition costs dramatically rising for public universities, as president how would you ensure accessibility to higher education for lower- and middle-income students?

GOUSHA: I am going to try and have a couple of candidates respond to this. Governor Dean, why don’t you begin.

DEAN: First of all, let me just very briefly respond to a question that I didn’t get that I wanted to get which was on health care.

KUCINICH: I’d be glad to respond to her question.

DEAN: That’s fine, I am going to respond to her question too, Dennis.

But I — you know, since I am the only doctor up here and the only former governor, I just want to make the point, since we went through the health care section of the debate and I didn’t get a chance to do this: 99 percent of all our kids under 18 have health insurance in my state, all our low-income working people and a third of our seniors.

I have done what all the folks up here are talking about doing.

GOUSHA: Is Vermont a microcosm of the United States?

DEAN: Vermont — yes, because we are using exactly the same programs that exist in Wisconsin, in South Carolina and every other state in the country.

We can do this. I am determined to do this. And part of this election is about results, not just rhetoric.

Now, to answer the question about higher education.

There are a lot of people up here with good higher education plans. I’ll be very brief and tell you mine. We want to start working with eighth grade kids and let them know there’ll be money, $10,000 a year for every four — for each of the four years that they spend either in college or in post-high school technical training.

That money will be in the form of grant and loans. When you — depending on your income. When your loans come due after you graduate, you will never pay more than 10 percent of your income for 10 years and after that the loan will be forgiven. If you go into public service such as public defense, nursing, teaching, fire fighting, police, you will never pay more than 7 percent of your income to repay those loans. You’ll pay for a period of 10 years, after that your loan will be forgiven.

GOUSHA: Governor Dean, thanks.

Let’s have one other response on that. Senator Kerry, let me go down to you and ask you to respond to the student’s question.

KERRY: Well, let me sort of back up what Governor Dean has just said.

Every one of us up here has an approach that is vastly better than George Bush’s because George Bush has no approach. He’s cut the Pell grants. He has no plan for how you really make college affordable, and all of us here do.

Now, my plan is to provide a $4,000 tuition tax credit per pupil annually, number one. Number two, we will raise the Pell grants, Stafford loans, Perkins back up to the level they were and above to reflect inflation.

But we don’t just want kids coming out of higher education, graduate school particularly — which you need nowadays — saddled with debt. So, I like Howard, would like to see a pay-down program if you go into things that we need people in — teaching in urban communities that have no tax base, in rural communities that are troubled.

I also have a national service plan. We need to restore the concept of service to our nation, community building. And I’m going to ask anybody who graduates from high school who wants to work two years in their own community, and living at home — no expense to the government — two years of service working with kids at risk, tutoring, helping seniors who are shut-in, anything the community decides — we’re not going to tell them from Washington — we will pay in return for their full four-year in-state college public education.

And it will be affordable by a combination of rolling back George Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and closing the loopholes that reward companies for taking jobs overseas.

GOUSHA: Senator Kerry, thanks very much.

We have to take another break. When we come back, we’ll talk about the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE)

GOUSHA: And welcome again to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Marquette University campus. We continue the Wisconsin presidential debate tonight.

We want to spend some time on the war in Iraq. Let’s do that with the first question going to Craig Gilbert.

Craig?

GILBERT: Governor Dean, you said in a recent debate about U.S. casualties in Iraq that those soldiers were sent there by the votes, in this case, of Senator Lieberman, Senator Edwards and Senator Kerry. Do you believe that because of the way they voted to authorize force in Iraq that they share some degree of responsibility for the war and its costs and casualties?

DEAN: Sure. I think any of us who support — I supported the first Gulf War. I supported the war in Afghanistan and the interventions in Kosovo and Bosnia. I think if you support a war, whether the chief executive obviously makes the decision, but anybody who votes to support that or, in my case, supported it verbally since I wasn’t in Congress, I think we do all bear responsibility for the votes that we cast, and that includes sending people to war.

I think the most difficult job of any president of the United States is the decision to send people to war, because you know that you are almost certain to lose somebody, to deprive families of somebody they love.

And even if you don’t lose somebody, just the incredible hardship of sending National Guard and Reserves people over there, who I happen to think have no business being over there for 12 month periods at a time — even the hardship of doing that deprives those folks and their spouses of the kind of living they were making before they went.

So I think anybody who votes to send somebody to war, or in my case, supports — not in this case, I vigorously opposed the Iraq war, and I differ from Senator Edwards and Senator Kerry in that area. But I think any of us who support sending troops have a responsibility for what happens to those troops.

GILBERT: Let me turn to you, Senator Kerry, because you said your vote wasn’t a vote for what the president ultimately did. But you did vote to give him the authority, so do you feel any degree, any degree of responsibility for the war and its costs and casualties?

KERRY: This is one of the reasons why I am so intent on beating George Bush and why I believe I will beat George Bush, because one of the lessons that I learned — when I was an instrument of American foreign policy, I was that cutting-edge instrument. I carried that M- 16.

I know what it’s like to try to choose between friend and foe in a foreign country when you’re carrying out the policy of your nation.

And I know what it’s like when you lose the consent and the legitimacy of that war. And that is why I said specifically on the floor of the Senate that what I was voting for was the process the president promised.

There was a right way to do this and there was a wrong way to do it. And the president chose the wrong way because he turned his back on his own pledge to build a legitimate international coalition, to exhaust the remedies of the United Nations in the inspections and to go to war as a matter of last resort.

Last resort means something to me. Obviously, it doesn’t mean something to this president. I think it means something to the American people.

And the great burden of the commander in chief is to be able to look into the eyes of any parent or loved one and say to them, “I did everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter, but we had to do what we had to do because of the imminency of the threat and the nature of our security.”

I don’t think the president passes that test.

GILBERT: But what about you? I mean, let me repeat the question. Do you have any degree of responsibility having voted to give him the authority to go to war?

KERRY: The president had the authority to do what he was going to do without the vote of the United States Congress. President Clinton went to Kosovo without the Congress. President Clinton went to Haiti without the Congress.

That’s why we have a War Powers Act. What we did was vote with one voice of the United States Congress for a process. And remember, until the Congress asserted itself, this president wasn’t intending to go to the United Nations. In fact, it was Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft and others and the Congress who got him to agree to a specific process. The process was to build a legitimate international coalition, go through the inspections process and go to war as a last resort.

He didn’t do it. My regret is not the vote. It was appropriate to stand up to Saddam Hussein. There was a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it.

My regret is this president chose the wrong way, rushed to war, is now spending billions of American taxpayers’ dollars that we didn’t need to spend this way had he built a legitimate coalition, and has put our troops at greater risk.

GILBERT: You cast the same vote, Senator Edwards, is that the way you see it?

EDWARDS: That’s the longest answer I ever heard to a yes or no question. The answer to your question is of course.

We all accept responsibility for what we did. I did what I believed was right. I took it very, very seriously.

I also said at the same time that it was critical when we got to this stage that America not be doing this alone. The president is doing it alone. And the result is what we see happening to our young men and women right now. We need to take a dramatic course. We will take a dramatic course.

And by the way, Senator Kerry just said he will beat George Bush; not so fast, John Kerry. We’re going to have an election here in Wisconsin this Tuesday. And we’ve got a whole group of primaries coming up. And I, for one, intend to fight with everything I’ve got for every one of those votes.

And back to your question. What we will do, when I’m president of the United States, is we will change this course. We will bring in the rest of the world; we will internationalize this effort. We will bring NATO in to provide security.

For example, we could put NATO today in charge of the Saudi Arabian border, the Iranian border, allow us to concentrate on the Sunni Triangle, where so much of the violence has been occurring.

We do need to change course. And ultimately, we have to get on a real timetable for the Iraqis to govern themselves and provide for their own security.

GOUSHA: Gloria?

BORGER: This is to Congressman Kucinich.

President Bush last week said that yes, he had expected to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that he was using the same intelligence that had been provided to President Clinton, also the same intelligence that had been used by the heads of other nations.

Do you believe that the president knowingly lied to the American people? And if so, why would he do that?

KUCINICH: I think that this administration knew full well that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, with al Qaeda’s role in 9/11, with the anthrax attack on this country, that Iraq had neither the capability nor the intention of attacking the United States, that Iraq was not trying to get uranium from Niger and that, in fact, Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

This is the singular issue upon which this election will turn. And I, as the only one up here who voted against the war and voted against the Patriot Act, as the ranking Democrat on a subcommittee that has jurisdiction over national security, an investigative subcommittee, I never saw any evidence that suggested that there was a reason for this country to go to war against Iraq.

It was wrong to go to in; it’s wrong to stay in; it is time that we start talking about bringing our troops home, bringing those guardsmen, guardswomen, those reservists back home. Stop this war; get out of Iraq.

BORGER: So I take it the answer is yes that the president knowingly lied to the American people?

KUCINICH: The president lied to the American people.

BORGER: And why would he do that?

KUCINICH: Well, you know what, I can’t speak for the president. But I can speak as the next president of the United States…

(LAUGHTER)

.. to say that I intend to bring those troops home by going to the U.N. and giving up control of the oil, letting the U.N. handle that on an interim basis on behalf of the Iraqi people, letting the U.N. handle the contracts.

KUCINICH: The United States must renounce privatization. We have to ask the U.N. for help in developing a constitution and new elections in Iraq. We must pay for what we destroyed, pay for a U.N. peacekeeping mission, and provide reparations for innocent civilian non-combatants who lost their lives.

This is the plan to get out of Iraq. We can get out of Iraq, and I’ll lead the way.

GOUSHA: Lester?

HOLT: I’d actually like to let Reverend Sharpton follow up on that very question. Do you think that the president knowingly lied, and if so, why?

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, I think that if he did know he was lying and was lying, that’s even worse.

(LAUGHTER)

Clearly, he lied. Now if he is an unconscious liar, and doesn’t realize when he’s lying, then we’re really in trouble.

(LAUGHTER)

Because, absolutely, it was a lie. They said they knew the weapons were there. He had members of the administration say they knew where the weapons were. So we’re not just talking about something passing here. We’re talking about 500 lives. We’re talking about billions of dollars.

So I hope he knew he was lying, because if he didn’t, and just went in some kind of crazy, psychological breakdown, then we are really in trouble.

Clearly, you know, I’m a minister. Why do people lie? Because they’re liars. He lied in Florida; he’s lied several times. I believe he lied in Iraq.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

HOLT: And Reverend, you’ll recognize, obviously, calling someone a liar is a very serious charge. So it does lead to that question…

SHARPTON: I think he lied.

HOLT: So it does lead to the question: Why would he lie?

SHARPTON: Why do people lie? I mean, if in my judgment…

HOLT: I mean, knowing he would be in the position that you’re putting him in now, why would he…

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, Lester, let us look at the facts. The facts are that what they presented to the United Nations, what they presented to the world was not so. You can only assume that they had to know if they said that they knew where the weapons were, that they knew they didn’t know where they were.

And now to come back and tell us that Saddam Hussein is a cruel, despicable person, which we all agree, but we believed him when he told us he had them. Can you imagine me telling you that I believe somebody that you should never believe, and I brought 500 people to their deaths believing in a man that was as despicable as Hussein, and this is who we’re going to have over the troops’ lives in this country?

I think that this is absolutely outrageous. Why he lied? I think we should give him the rest of his retirement to figure that out and explain to us.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

GOUSHA: We’re going to have to take another break. We’ll continue with this debate in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE)

GOUSHA: We have been talking about the war in Iraq and the aftermath of that. And also we want to spend some time on the threat of terrorism in this country.

This question goes to Governor Dean.

Governor, in a recent Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel poll, the people who we surveyed ranked their fears of terrorism dead last in what concerns them today. Doesn’t that mean the president has done his job pretty well?

DEAN: I don’t think so. I certainly don’t think so. The president gave away $3 trillion of our tax dollars to his pals who are financing his re-election, but he didn’t have enough money to inspect the cargo containers that come into this country every single day. Last September, ABC News smuggled uranium from Jakarta, Indonesia to Los Angeles and we didn’t find it.

He had $3 trillion of his tax dollars to give away — our tax dollars to give away to his friends, but he didn’t have enough money to buy the enriched uranium stocks, which we’re entitled to buy, left over from the former Soviet Union. Under the cooperative threat reduction, we’re supposed to be buying that so it doesn’t get into the hands of terrorists.

I think this president has done an exceptionally weak job in defending this nation against terrorism. And the poll in Wisconsin may say that the fear of terror isn’t so great, but I can tell you in New York it is very great indeed.

GOUSHA: If Osama bin Laden were captured today, would we be safer?

DEAN: If Osama bin Laden were captured?

GOUSHA: Yes.

DEAN: I think that’s important. I have said and I will say again that I don’t believe we’re any safer because Saddam has been captured. I think Saddam is a terrible person. I am glad we have him. But in the next two weeks, we lost another 30 Americans and had American airliners escorted into American air space with F-16s.

I do believe if we were able to capture Osama bin Laden, we would be safer. Al Qaeda is a very dangerous organization. It’s the organization that the president should have been spending his time on, instead of sending 135,000 troops and $160 billion to Iraq.

If we capture Osama, which is where our energy should be going, we have begun the process of dismantling al Qaeda. And I think that’s important.

GOUSHA: Governor, thank you.

Craig Gilbert?

GILBERT: Senator Kerry, President Bush a week ago on “Meet the Press” described himself as a war president. He said he’s got war on his mind as he considers these policies and decisions he has to make. If you were elected, would you see yourself as a war president?

KERRY: I’d see myself first of all as a jobs president, as a health care president, as an education president and also an environmental president. And add them all together, you can’t be safe at home today unless you are also safe abroad. So I would see myself as a very different kind of global leader than George Bush. Let me be precise.

He has ignored North Korea for almost two years. I would never have cut off the negotiations of bilateral discussion with North Korea. I think he’s made the world less safe because of it.

He has ignored AIDS on a global basis until finally, this year, for political reasons, they’re starting to move. They still haven’t adopted the bill that we wrote three years which could’ve done something.

He’s ignored the cooperative threat reduction that Howard just referred to. We didn’t buy up the nuclear material we could have to make the world safer.

He walked away from the global warming treaty. He abandoned the work of 160 nations that worked for 10 years to try to make the world safer.

He didn’t continue the efforts in the Middle East with an envoy who stayed there and helped to push that process forward.

I think there is an enormous agenda for us in fighting an effective war on terror. And part of it is by building a stronger intelligence organization, law enforcement, but most importantly, the war on terror is not going to be completely won until we have the greatest level of cooperation we’ve ever had globally.

The worst thing this president does is his lack of cooperation with other countries.

So I will lead in a different way, and I will not just sit there and talk about the war. I’ll talk about all of the issues and provide solutions for America.

GOUSHA: Congressman Kucinich?

KUCINICH: As president, I will see myself as a peace president. And I think we have to change this metaphor of war in our society. We have to quit talking about addressing problems “a war on this, a war on that.” We already see this last war was not necessary.

I think we’re in a new era in the world where we can see the world as one, the world as interconnected and interdependent. The world’s waiting for a United States president who’s ready to create a sustainable structure for peace, and as president, I will do that.

I’ll work to eliminate all nuclear weapons and confirm the Non- Proliferation Treaty. I’ll sign the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the small-arms treaty, the land mine treaty.

America will join the International Criminal Court. I’ll sign the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty.

And furthermore, in getting rid of the Patriot Act, I’ll call upon Americans to bring forth the essential courage which we have in our hearts.

My presidency will be about the end of fear and the beginning of hope, about a new hope in America for a nation that can work with the nations of the world so that we can achieve security here at home.

(APPLAUSE)

GOUSHA: Gloria?

BORGER: This is a question I’m going to pose to Governor Dean and then to Senator Edwards. How do you believe that history will ultimately judge the war in Iraq?

DEAN: I think we don’t know the answer to that question yet. I think we — the first question is, does the means justify the end, or the ends justify the means? And I think it does not.

I do not think we were told the truth about why we went to war in Iraq, and I think that’s a huge problem.

Secondly, we don’t know what the outcome is. I did not support the war in Iraq because I didn’t think the president made a convincing case. And, of course, as time has gone along, it turns out he made no case whatsoever.

We now have 135,000 troops over there. We cannot pull out. While there was no al Qaeda in Iraq when we went, there almost certainly is now.

So the test is going to be first to see if we really can construct a democracy in Iraq, and second, to see if Iraq becomes a danger to the United States. For example, if we were to pull out our troops immediately — which nobody here suggested — but if we were to do that, al Qaeda were to develop a cell in Iraq as it did in Afghanistan, the president would have created a greater danger to America than we had under Saddam Hussein.

We simply don’t know how history will judge the war in Iraq, but we do know that we’re going to pay with a lot of lives and a lot of American money to find out.

BORGER: Senator Edwards, too early to say?

EDWARDS: I think it’s impossible to know. It depends entirely on what course of action we take. If I’m president and we do the things that need to be done to internationalize the effort, get on a real time table for the Iraqis governing themselves and providing their own security, there is at least the potential for a foothold for democracy — I think at a minimum, the presence of a pluralistic government that will move us in that direction.

But if I can go back just a minute to a question that you raised just a minute ago on the poll and the fact that the war on terrorism was dead last on the list of issues on the poll — and the president calling himself the war president. Why in the world would we let George Bush define the terrain of this debate?

What we know is the American people are enormously dissatisfied with the loss of millions of jobs, the fact that he has no health care plan of any kind. They’ve seen the damage being done by No Child Left Behind.

They know there are hundreds of thousands of young people who want to go to college and can’t go.

We should not allow him to define the terrain of this debate. We should define the terrain of this debate, and not just what’s wrong with what he’s done, but what will we do when we lead.

You know, we talk about No Child Left Behind and we talk about his tax cuts. What is it that we — what is our bigger, broader vision for America? That’s what I want to talk about: my positive, optimistic vision about what we can do for America when we have leadership, not just getting rid of George Bush.

He’s an enormous obstacle to progress. But that’s what he is, he’s an obstacle.

The end here, the end here is to really change this country, which we can do when we’re in the White House.

GOUSHA: Senator Edwards, thanks.

Let’s hear from another student from Marquette University.

Your name and your question, please?

QUESTION: My name is Quincy Cotten (ph), and I’m a senior here at Marquette.

You all say you value diversity. Could you please give us a specific example of your past work that demonstrated that commitment and how that will be reflected in your presidency?

GOUSHA: Senator Kerry, start with you.

KERRY: Well, it’s — first of all, Quincy, thank you for the question.

It has been reflected in every aspect of my life ranging from when I served in the military to when I served as the chief prosecutor in one of the largest district attorneys offices in America and I hired and reached out and exercised affirmative action to make sure that prosecutors were hired who reflected all of the minority base of our country.

I have supported affirmative action throughout my career in the United States Senate.

But let me give you the best — one of the examples I’m proudest of. I went to Harlem in 1992 or so at the request of a friend. I visited a building where 15 kids were working, all of them out of gangs, out of street — drop outs, at-risk programs, court diversion programs. And these kids were learning how to rebuild that building. They were getting a skill and getting their high school equivalency at the same time for a one-year program.

I was so impressed by it, I went back to Washington, I wrote it into the law. Today it’s in 43 states in our nation, in 173 cities. There are 25,000 graduates. They are full citizens, not inmates of a jail, not drug addicts. They have families; they’re paying taxes.

And there is a need to make certain that every child in America gets that kind of opportunity, and I will do that.

GOUSHA: Reverend Sharpton, you’ve talked a lot about this issue.

SHARPTON: Well, I’ve spent my whole life fighting this cause for diversity. I started at 13 years old as a youth director of SCLC Operation Bread Basket in New York, an organization Martin Luther King founded.

And to this day, that has been a focus in my life.

But I’ve also demonstrated it in my own career. I have people that are nonblack at key levels both in my campaign and in our organization, because you can’t preach one thing and live another.

I’ve also, against the wishes of fellow clergymen, stood up for the rights of gays and lesbians, which I consider also a question of morality and nondiscrimination.

I’ve also gone to jail fighting for the rights of Latinos.

So I don’t just support affirmative action, I help lead the fight. I don’t just support diversity, I’ve helped lead the fight.

I think that there are great civil rights issues of today. One is D.C. I don’t know how we’re in Iraq fighting for the right to vote for the people in the capital of Iraq, Baghdad, and the people of the District of Columbia still don’t have a federal right to vote in this country.

SHARPTON: And I think unless we make civil rights something that is normal and expected and unchallenged, we have to continue to fight.

The civil rights movement didn’t end in the ’60s. A lot of people want to put it in the past. We still have challenges and we must meet those challenges today, which is why I intend to go all the way to this convention with delegates to make sure this party does not sell out its commitment to civil rights and diversity.

GOUSHA: We’re going to talk about the cultural divide in America. We’ll continue on the Wisconsin presidential debate in just a moment.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL

Posted by Michele at February 15, 2004 09:16 PM | TrackBack