Mike Huckabee is 'Clear Winner' of Florida Republican Debate
Orlando, FL – Former Arkansas Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee scored big points tonight during the first-in-Florida Republican Presidential debate in Orlando – proving that he is the "Ronald Reagan conservative" the party is looking for.
Invoking the spirit of Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, Huckabee rejected the idea of attacking his fellow Republicans in the debate. "I'm not interested in fighting these guys – I want to fight for the American people," Huckabee said.
"For the first time in nine debates, I'll be more than happy to sit back and let them fight and shed each other's blood, while I run for president," he said.
"There are some real issues out there we need to be fighting for. One of them is the sanctity of human life – it's one of the core issues of our humanity and our civilization. When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, they said we have certain inalienable rights given us by our creator – and among these, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – one of them being life – and I still believe that."
When asked about health care, Huckabee's signature issue – he said he would allow individuals to control their health care and the focus would be on prevention. "We don't have a health care system in this country, we have health care maze," Huckabee said. "We don't have a health care crisis – we have a health crisis."
"When 80 percent of the two trillion dollars we spend on health care goes to chronic diseases, if we don't focus on prevention, we'll never catch up." Huckabee said.
"The best way to deal with health care is not to turn it over to the government or entirely to the private sector, but to turn it over to the individual. I trust me more than I trust health care companies or the government," Huckabee said.
"I just want to remind you of something, when all the old hippies find out they get free drugs, wait to see what that costs us," Huckabee joked.
Huckabee also asserted that the G.O.P. needs to do a better job of reaching out to minorities. "We need to make sure that the G.O.P. is the most inclusive party because our message touches more people and helps more people climb up the next rung."
Huckabee said one subject that is "not funny" is the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming President of the United States . Under that scenario, he said, "Taxes go up, health care becomes the domain of the government, spending goes up, and our military loses its morale. I'm not sure we will have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country has faced: Islamo-facism. We've got an enemy that wants to kill every last one of us. We cannot be soft, we must be strong."
"We also must also stop the Law of the Sea Treaty because it gives away our sovereignty," he said.
Huckabee also addressed the issue of the violence on the Turkish border. "As President, I would do two things: First, I would dispatch the Secretary of State to the area to convince Turkey not to go into Iraq, and second, I would have our military train and equip the Kurds to fight the PKK," he said.
"We don't have to put our military in harm's way but we also need Turkey to realize that there is nothing to be gained by crossing that border and creating another hostile situation," he said.
