What the GOP hopefuls said
Sampling of speeches by the five 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls who appeared at the S.C. GOP convention on Saturday in Columbia:
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: “Restoring security means we need to be engaging the world in an appropriate way. By the way, to do that, you shouldn’t have any experience in the Obama administration. You shouldn’t be riding shotgun with the guy who pulled us back. So I guess that (Democratic front-runner) Hillary Clinton is not going to be proper person to bring us back to a stable world. ... She has her fingerprint on all these foreign policy disasters.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: “We need a president who doesn’t serve as an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists. We need a president who says ISIS is the face of evil. ... The single greatest threat to our national security is the threat of the nation of Iran with nuclear weapons. ... Let me give you the very simplest principle of history: If somebody tells you that they want to kill you, believe them.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham: “I see a country that’s going to come back stronger; a country with a military that can take on anybody anywhere and crush them; a country that understands that Israel is not the problem, Israel is the solution; a country where a poor kid in Baltimore has a school worth going to, finally.” (Graham also announced that he will retire from the Air Force next month after 33 years of active and reserve service.)
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry: “We cannot accept one in 10 Americans either being out of work or unemployed or just giving up hope in finding a job. It’s not acceptable for one in five children in the country to live in a family on food stamps. It’s time revive the American economy and to cut corporate tax rate to bring those jobs we throw away overseas ... back home, (and) bring prosperity to Main Street, not just Wall Street.”
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum: “We understand we need a vision that’s inclusive of those Americans without a college degrees that they have the opportunity to rise. ... You’ve got great jobs here in South Carolina manufacturing. ... Those job that are family jobs. Those are jobs of small-town America so we can create the vibrant society we need. ... But what about putting vocational education back in our high schools to get our kids the training they need? That’s common sense.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 5:39 PM with the headline "What the GOP hopefuls said."