Democratic Spanish-language Univision debate September 9 transcript

The transcript contains some real valuable nuggets.

Here's John Edwards:

Just a few months ago, I was in Canton, Mississippi, as part of a poverty tour, and I met with poultry workers who worked in a poultry plant in Canton, Mississippi. And one of them was a man named Daniel who had been badly hurt on the job. And because of his injuries, he wasn't able to work. And when he asked about trying to get health care or workers' compensation, the first question they asked him was, "What's your immigration status?" This is a perfect example of what's wrong with Washington and why the government is not working for the American people, and not working for Latino families. (Applause.)

Kucinich would make Spanish the second official language of the U.S.

Here's Richardson on the same question:

You know, language is important, but you know, Latinos are always asked these questions. Latinos care about civil rights and immigration, but we care about all issues. We care about health care, about the war in Iraq. We're mainstream. And I do want to say at this point that I was under the impression that in this debate Spanish was going to be permitted because I've always supported Univision all my career, but I'm disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country, for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish -- (applause) -- is unfortunate. In other words, Univision has promoted English only in this debate. (Applause.) (Speaks Spanish.)

Before promoting amnesty, Barack Obama gets "tough" in his response to the "why not a 'wall' on the Canadian border" question:

That is going to involve some elements of border security because we've got to make our borders more secure. We can't just have hundreds of thousands of people coming into the country without knowing who they are.

Before also promoting amnesty, Hillary Clinton gets slightly "tougher":

Well, actually, I do favor much more border patrolling and much more technology on both of our borders, and in certain areas, even a physical barrier, because I think we've got to secure our borders.

Then, John Edwards wants a giant infrared security beam across the borders, or something:

When you walk into a Blockbuster to -- to rent a movie, you don't see anybody, but you hear a voice saying, "Welcome to Blockbuster." We can figure out when somebody's walking into a Blockbuster. It seems to me we can figure out when somebody's coming into the United States of America, and especially if we use the technology that's available to us.

Then, not just name-dropping from Hillary but a promise to dramatically increase legal immigration through chain migration:

I am proud to work with my friend, Senator Menendez, on trying to make sure that in the process of doing immigration reform, we don't separate families, we try to have family unification as one of the goals. So in addition to giving people a path to legalization, we want to make sure their families can come along with them.

She also promises to propagandize a strawman version of the issue:

And finally, we have to educate the American people about why immigration, as important as it was when my family came through into Ellis Island, it is just as important today.

Obviously, by "American people" she means Americans who aren't Hispanic.

Obama gets in on the action:

One other thing, though, that I think has not been mentioned -- and I've been working with my dear friend and colleague Congressman Luis Gutierrez on this -- is we've got to fix a broken immigration system not just for the undocumented but for legal immigrants.

Then, Richardson does say he would stop the immigration raids (Question: "Governor Richardson, the same question. Would you stop the raids?"):

Yes, I would, because it shows that -- the fact that a dysfunctional relationship between the Congress and the president caused the breakdown of a potential compromise. Now we have to wait till 2008 and 2009, and these raids are ineffective, they're a symbol of what's wrong with a broken immigration policy.

Then, John Edwards supports serf labor (question from a viewer: "Do you believe Americans will work on a farm 10 hours in 105- degree weather for only 8.50 per hour? He would like to know if undocumented immigrants are necessary for the U.S. workforce?"):

And it is enormously important that we have comprehensive immigration reform so that those who in fact are working 10 hours a day in 105-degree heat have the same sort of worker rights that other Americans have.

Then, speaking at a event that excluded all Americans who don't speak Spanish, Hillary supports unity as a nation:

Well, I think this is a very serious problem, and as I said earlier, there are many in the political and frankly in the broadcast world today who take a particular aim at our Latino population. And I think it's very destructive. It undermines our unity as a country.

Then, she lies about HR 4437:

There was a particularly egregious example of that in the House- passed bill last year. When the House passed a bill, they tried to criminalize anyone who helped an illegal immigrant, anyone who gave them medical care, any church that opened up to give them food at a dinner or breakfast. And I said that I would have criminalized the Good Samaritan. It would have criminalized Jesus Christ.

And, Mike Gravel rounds the bend in his answer to "Do you consider Hugo Chavez a
dictator? Would you break relations with him?":

MR. GRAVEL: No, not at all. In fact, I would reach out to him. Do we forget that on a weekend our CIA tried to depose him? Do we forget that? And of course -- so, is he an enemy? No, he's not an enemy. We've created him as an enemy. We're doing the same thing with Iran. What's the difference if Chavez deals with Iran? We hope that a lot of countries begin to interchange their leadership and begin to think about the globe as one entity. There's nothing wrong... The same thing with Fidel Castro. Why can't we recognize Cuba?

Then, after both Dennis Kucinich and Obama promote massive educational spending, Obama remembers to pander, this time using the extremely anti-American DREAM Act:

I think that it is important for us to pass the DREAM Act -- (applause) -- something that my colleague Dick Durbin and I and others have been working on for a very long time, so that those children who may be undocumented because of decisions by their parents still have an opportunity to pursue a higher education.

Bill Richardson fully supports bilingual education, then rips a page from the Rob Reiner/Soviet Union playbook:

One, preschool for every child. You have to get the kids before they're 4.

He'd also "scrap" NCLB because it "hampers bilingual education". And:

What we also need to do is find universal education, a DREAM Act for college students. And I have a plan that deals with college loans: in exchange for partially paying off college loans, one year of national service for this country... ...[another question]... ...But we've got to start with kids. We've got to get rid of junk food in schools. We have to have healthy breakfasts for every child, mandatory physical education. We have to start early.

We must exert control over all aspects of their lives!

On healthcare, Chris Dodd says:

Well, it has to be here. This is again a matter of just basic rights in my view here. Not to provide health care for undocumented workers is not only wrong for them. It's dangerous for the country as well. And so my plans include the undocumented workers as part of health care.

Hillary panders by:

Well, I am very proud that we tried to provide universal health care to every American back in 1993 and 1994, and -- (applause). I learned a lot from that, and I'm going to be presenting a plan next week that will be universal. It will cover everyone, and it will make it clear that we as a rich nation with the values that should be the best in the world will once and for all make it absolutely positive that everyone will have health care.

The panderfest ended with the question: "what would each one of you consider to be the greatest contribution of Hispanics in the United States?"

Bill Richardson:

Latinos are the heart, I believe, of American mainstream. The biggest contribution has been the political leadership of individuals like Henry Cisneros and Gloria Molina. Henry Cisneros I always thought would be the first Hispanic president... I am of the view that Latinos can make a difference in this presidential election. Forty-three million of us all around the country can decide not just what is best for Latinos but what is best for America, in crucial states like Florida, like California, like Nevada, like New Mexico. But we are growing as a community in states like Arkansas. The fastest-growing community there is Latino. So the greatest contributions we can make -- and I made that point about dehumanizing Latinos. The American military, today the most Congressional Medal of Honor members have been Latinos. And I say that because I hate the dehumanizing of our people. And we must recognize that Latinos today are such a key part of American commerce --... ...We should not be put in a box.

The other candidates offered up useless platitudes, with Gravel being especially incoherent.

In the whole transcript, there are two instances of "African" (Obama and Edwards) and two "black" (Obama, Richardson).

Comments

So Hillary, Obama and Edwards envision a virtual border fence consisting of an automated voice in Spanish saying "Welcome!!! You have now entered United States Territory .... Please state your name and your intentions...."

Whores, all of them. Disgusting, pandering, lying whores.

Democrats, in their debate tonight, made certain that the war in Iraq and immigration were the central issues. In doing so, they expose a frightening truth about Democratic presidential candidates; terrorism is not a serious theme for those Democrats hoping to sit in the White House. I go into more detail here... http://www.livebreatheanddie.com/2007/09/10/democratic-presidential-candidates-ignore-the-threat-of-terrorism/ Thank you for pointing out the truth in this debate that most watching it just don't get. Truthteller

In the coming months it now looks like there could be a massive scandal rocking the GOP concerning a murder suicide involving Gay prostitutes, Gay porn, high level Gay GOP political campaign operatives known for pushing Anti-Gay campaign strategies and both current GOP House and Senate members in a number of Southern states such as Georgia, Florida, Virgina and North and South Carolina. See http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/another-gop-gay-scandal-brews-in-murder.html My point is this: Lots of Netroots Democratic activists think there is no way the Dems can lose in 2008. Because unlike in 2004 the winning GOP strategy of hoodwinking the rubes using a time tested full proof Rovian "God, Guns and Gays" campaign will be off the table. The sad truth is the Democrats will lose big time. And it is exactly because the Republicans will be forced to abandon what has worked for them in the past. Instead they are sure to use the massive growing public outrage over "Open Borders" to literally pound the crap out of corrupt DLCers. shameless Latino panderers and loony New Left influenced Democrats. Yes, as more gay scandals rock the GOP. The careers of the remaining Closet Cases like Huckleberry Graham, Bitch McConnel, Botox Boy Dan Drier, Pretty Boy Ralph Reed will be over. Bushco's and the Club for Growth's Gay Mafia of Open Borders supporters will be ruined politically. That clears away for the Immigration Restrictionists like Bilray, Hunter and Tancredo to assume even larger and more prominent positions in the Republican party just as the fight against Open Border becomes the critical winning populist issue the Republicans have going for them. Back in 1988 I knew lots of Democrats who were absolutely certain that after Iran-Contra there was no way the party could lose. They never counted on the party's ablity to nominate a fatally out of touch idiot like Dukakis. In the middle of a growing urban crime wave involving crack cocaine that the MSM was yet to fully understand or report upon for fear of being labeled racist, Dukakis sat around for a couple of years refusing to do anything about a insanely stupid state prison furlough system that included violent offenders. Even after Dukakis own supporters warned him to do something about it before declaring his candidancy, he did nothing. Only after Al Gore bravely brought it up in the primaries he did finally end the furlough system. But as we all know it was too late and had long became fair game for the election. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton Last night the Democratic candidates competed against each other to fatally expose themselves as Open Borders supporting fools and shameless panderers However, come next spring the Democrats will all start shitting their pants. Because, instead of going away, outrage over Open Borders will have only grown exponentially. But then it will be too late to do anything about it. The summer of

truthteller, The Iraq War is an ineffective means of fighting terrorism. In fact it may be the best recruiting tool Al Queda could ever dream for. Worse it continues to obscure the fact that the 9-11 were serial violators of immigration laws that were simply not being enforced. No, the sad truth for Democrats is that the public is sick of the the Bush admininstration's and the Neo-Con's insane agenda of invading the world while at the same time we are inviting the world no questions asked. Quickly ending the Iraq occupation was what the public wanted the Democrats to due in the 2006 elections. Yet the Democrats have all but completely alienated the American public including many of their most loyal supporters by refusing to end the Iraq war and shifting the wasted resources towards securing our nations broken borders and ports and overhauling the mess of a disfunctional Open Borders immigration system.

_Bill Richardson fully supports bilingual education, then rips a page from the Rob Reiner/Soviet Union playbook: One, preschool for every child. You have to get the kids before they're 4._ In any sort of sane world a true Democrat would be saying something like "You have to start teaching the children of Non-English speaking LEGAL immigrant parents to speak ENGLISH before they're 4 so they are not a burden on the public school system and headed for academic failure and life as a dropout." That would be public money well spent. My immigrant Scillian grandparents worked hard and payed extra so my father could begin pre-school a year early so he would be able to speak English before entering the first grade.

llamajockey, you should blog. It is a grave failure of our political system that one of our two major parties provides no voice for the obviously popular sentiment within its ranks to close the border. Instead on this issue and the Iraq war the Ds present no choice. The Party of Choice presents none when it comes to either of two of the most critical questions of our time: immigration and the jihad. You're either with them or you have to vote Republican. Wonderful. The Rs are half corrupt. The Ds are completely gone. A fine mess.

I just love it when a Hispanderer bemoans the divisiveness of the immigration debate. The only divisiveness is brought by the Ladeeenyos, who are bent on reconquista. But of course they don't see their ethnocentric megalomania as divisive. They aim to settle all the problems. In Spanish. Actually, as it's becoming clear that they won't be satisfied with Aztlan, we should start calling it _conquista_ now rather than reconquista.

'so that those who in fact are working 10 hours a day in 105-degree heat have the same sort of worker rights that other Americans have.' -- John Edwards OTHER Americans? What a telling slip (or pander). Americans all have the same worker rights so by 'other Americans' he must be referring to actual Americans. Like Harry Reid, in his mind, illegals are Americans. Do you know what illegal aliens who were anticipating amnesty said? Stuff like 'I can't wait for amnesty to come AND THEN I WILL NO LONGER HAVE TO WORK AS A (INSERT VARIOUS CRAP JOB)! I just watched some documentary on garment workers and one said that is the only kind of job you can do if you don't speak English and are undocumented. The second you give general amnesty or ag amnesty or enforce comparable 'worker rights', the newly amnestied will want a better job or, at worst, the same job at higher pay and better working conditions. But employer will not want them anymore under those circumstances. They want cheap and disposable workers (those with no recourse) and thus will simply go get the next wave of illegals to exploit. So if the amnestied can't get a better job due to lack of language/skills but their old jobs are now going to new illegals, what becomes of the newly amnestied then?

amanda, That applies to not just low skilled jobs anymore. It also goes for high skilled tech jobs as well. What do you think will happen if the hundreds of thousands of H1-Bs who have been in this country for almost a decade now get a green card under the STRIVE Act. That is exactly why Bill Gates and others are calling for a UNLIMITED supply of H1-Bs. They anticipate a massive ROLLOVER of H1-Bs once a generous mass Green Card Amnesty is granted. Combine the STRIVE act with chain migration and a large segment of India's middle class will have a claim on a path to US Citizenship. A potentially almost limitless supply of cheap labor to undermine the American middle class. They don't call her Hillary of the Punjab for nothing.

_...The American military, today the most Congressional Medal of Honor members have been Latinos..._-the idiot Richardson http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_030303.htm (...) _According to the website of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, there have been 41 Hispanic, 87 African-American, 31 Asian-American, and 22 American Indian MOH recipients. Based on the process of elimination, I presume that virtually all of the other 3,200+ MOH recipients are white. _ _According to www.thewildgeese.com (a web site devoted to Irish history and culture), 258 MOH recipients listed their birthplace as Ireland and 128 listed their birthplace as Germany or Prussia. Of course, these numbers represent only tiny portions of the total numbers of Irish-descended and German-descended MOH recipients._ _Even if we assume that Mr. Donahue meant to say that there have been proportionally more Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients, it would still be untrue. Proportionally, there have even been more Asian-American and American Indian recipients than Hispanic recipients._ (...) BTW, only two MOH's have been awarded in the current war- both to white guys with Anglo-Saxon names.

expat, Are you tell me nobody on Richardson's campaign staff has the balls to point him to snopes.com.

Tanstaafl, Lots of Republicans thought their chances to win in 2008 were remote because of Bush. However, Bush nor Cheney will not be on the ticket in 2008. Even better for Republicans would be if the entire Open Borders promoting, Bushco ass-kissing, Gay Mafia goes down in "flames" in an ever growing series of scandals. Think no more Bitch McConnel, Huckleberry Graham, Pretty Boy Dan Drier and a half dozen or more other closet cases. Each one replace by a Secure Borders Immigration Restrictionist. Also as leaders of the Moral Majority continue to die off like Falwell and that Coral Ridge Ministry idiot James Kennedy or end in scandal like Teddy Haggard, for the first time since Goldwater the Republicans may have to actually find away to win over Middle America with something other than Flag Burning, fear of Gay people, and Abortion. After last night you now have to agree with me that the odds are at least even that my party, the Democrats, are likely to needlessly commit political suicide by pandering. Through NumbersUSA I will be contacting Democrats like Webb, Tester, Elsworth, Sanders and Dorgan that they either take a stand to move the party away from mindless Globalism and Open Borders or the party chances are really dim in 2008. Sad to say it is up to them to put their foot down and scream no more of this pandering insanity. Right now I hold out no hope for the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates. Edwards had his chance to really distance himself for Hillary and Obama. He could have walked away from the Open Borders crowd and still locked up the 30-35% of Latino voters who do not buy into La Raza's agenda and let Hillary, Obama, Richardson and the rest split the remainder. Edwards would have endured lots of "negative" publicity from the Open Borders loving corporate MSM, but won the hearts and respect of the working and middle class Americans of all backgrounds. I will be honest my man blew it. There was no way Edwards was going to win any more than 10% of the Latino vote by pandering anyway. Instead he just lost a significant number of white and black Democrats who will simply sit out the primaries. Whoever Edwards is paying millions to advise him on campaign they need to be taken out and shot. Right now barring a major scandal there is no hope of stopping Hillary. And nothing will rally disaffected Republicans like having Hillary on the Democratic ticket. Please Please Please just shoot me I can barely take it any longer.

Who cares if the D party is committing suicide? The much bigger problem is that they want to kill the whole country, or at least turn it into a Latin American sh*thole, which is pretty much the same thing. If they win the election they'll do it immediately. But even if they don't the message they've just sent to the whole world is: "COME ON IN!"

Tanstaafl, You are welcome to your own partisanship. However, if you are a careful student of history you will remember that the success of the post WWI Immigration Restrictionist movement involved a coalition from both political parties. It took a complex yet eventually overwhelming voting block including beyond the KKK which unfortunately clouds the historical memory, joined with good government Republicans, Liberals and Progressives, nationalist Labor Unionists and African Americans against the Corporate Plutocrats, Radical Libertarians, Wobblies and the corrupt Immigrant pandering Urban Democratic machines. Sounds a lot like today doesn't it??? Neither of us should be wishing for the destruction of either the Republican or Democratic party. What we should both be advocating for is the rebirth and reform of both parties and the rejection of those who have corrupted our institutions and undermined our Constitution.

The demoncratic party has gone way too far to the left to be salvaged...the Republicans have gotten way too greedy to be salvaged as well.We really need an Independant Party with LOU Dobbs running to save the nation.

At this point, if you're a pro-sovereignty Democrat I guess the best long term outcome is for the 2008 Democratic nominee to lose and for that loss to be attributed, in significant part, to backlash against open borders positions and pandering. The lesson must be that open borders is a political LOSER and future winning Democrats must be more Byron Dorgan-like. As Tanstaafl says, maybe if we get more than the current handful of Dems to abandon open borders (along with more Republicans too), we can then get a coalition from both parties to pass something with teeth instead of the current tact of just playing defense and stalling. Whether it's immigration or SPP/NACC, it will take extraordinary effort from the grass roots against the decided anti-sovereignty bias of elites.

amanda, There are lots of Democrats like me who will simply refuse to vote for any Open Borders Democrat. If losing the 2008 presidental election is necessary to wake the party up then I am all for it.

'There are lots of Democrats like me who will simply refuse to vote for any Open Borders Democrat.' If registered Democrats in significant numbers wrote their representatives and made that threat, maybe they'd pay attention. Maybe.

amanda, It is worse than that. Experienced long time grassroots GOTV Democrats are yelling about how the Open Borders stands of the current candidates will cost the party the election. Did you see the article in the WaPo last Sunday. A 30+ year Democratic local party leader in Virginia was screaming out how Immigration will sink the Democrats in 2008. Nobody is listening. If folks like myself throw up our arms and refuse to do GOTV for the party, the Democrats are sunk. I would have better luck going door to door as a Jehovah Witness than trying to sell Hillary to the same working class factory/agricultural towns in Wisconsin I canvassed in 2004 for Kerry. You simply can not make excuses for NAFTA, CAFTA, CHINA PNTR, the heinous Bankruptcy Bill, voting for the Iraq Invasion, the H1-B, H2 and L1 visa programs, NCLB, and "CIR" and tell folks the Democratic party is still the party of FDR and Truman. Because that is what it looks like, the Democrats will nominate Hillary. The Netroots are too chickensh*t to stop her. The effect will be that inspite of the corruption scandals and further Gay outings of Republicans, it will not be very hard to turn out the Republican base against a third Clinton presidency. Replace every Gay Outed, Indicted or Retiring Republican like Hastert, Graham, Warner, Hagel and Larry Craig with a Immigration Restrictionist candidate and the Republican party's chances in the House and Senate do not look so bad either. Put a Tancredo, Bilray or Hunter on the ticket as VP and the Republicans will lock up a majority of the Independent vote as well. Putting one of these guys on the ticket and you also eliminate a Pat Buchanan/Perotist third party candidancy. It even gets worse. Ralph Nader swears he will run a third time if Hillary get the nomination. I think it is highly likely Nader would do as well or better than he did in 2000 against a Clinton the arch nemisis of the Greens. In fact Nader has a better Immigration Restrictionist Anti Globalism, pro sovergnity position than any of the current Democratic candidates. Wild prediction time: Right now if the Republicans can make a credible case that after the convention in 2008 when Bush would be now irrelevant, that they would be in better position a la Nixon in 1972 to end the Iraq Occupation than the Democrats, they will crush the Democrats. I predict Hillary will get no more than 45% of the vote.

just buy Gun, the system is totally insane, listen to savage Nation.

John Kerry...I live in MA and Kerry isn't worth a damn! Talk about a leech...lives off the people and rich wives....A LOSER...As much as I despise BUSH now , I still wouldn't vote for Kerry...He'd be Open Borders AND USELESS!

Fred, I think Savage is about to GO Insane! He is one who saw this coming for a long time....and the frustration of watching the countrys meltdown must tear him apart! They can say what they want about Savage...he tells it like it is, and is not afraid to speak his mind ,unlike the pandering bunch who believe a different thing everyday depending on who they are talking to!