Iowa GOP Debate: "Waiting for Godot" Version

Iowa GOP Debate: "Waiting for Godot" Version

Iowa GOP Debate: "Waiting for Godot" Version

Politics and policy.
Jan. 15 2000 6:55 PM

Iowa GOP Debate: "Waiting for Godot" Version

Dennis Ryerson: Get started with opening statements.

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George W. Bush: Talk about tax cuts today.

Orrin Hatch: I really want to see the Clinton-Gore team go.

Gary Bauer: The sanctity of human life.

Steve Forbes: Logged 12,000 miles in your great state.

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John McCain: Father was born in Council Bluffs.

Alan Keyes: This is the father who is fighting for the life of his son.

Richard T. Meyer, Burlington: Forty-seven year-old brother with Downs syndrome.

Bauer: Provide the long-term care your family needs.

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Hatch: I'm not just talking about it.

Keyes: Shouldn't have government or other bureaucracies dictating to people.

McCain: Medical Savings Accounts, et cetera.

Forbes: Vouchers and coupons.

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Bush: Encourage the purchase of long-term care insurance.

Ryerson: You each have 30 seconds.

Bauer: I don't want HMO bureaucrats running it either.

Hatch: Hatch-Waxman bill.

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McCain: Republicans are gridlocked by the big money from HMOs.

Forbes: You should be able to choose own doctor.

Bush: Administration has used Medicare as a political football.

Ryerson: Ask a question of one of the others.

Bauer: On the China Issue, you've taken the same position.

Hatch: I was there in China.

Bauer: Being naive.

Hatch: Deng Xiopeng rolled out the red carpet for me.

Bauer: Might be the problem.

Hatch: I slammed Jiang Zemin so hard that he gave me an hour and a half.

Keyes: Texas American town is to be conducted in the Spanish language.

Bush: No es la verdad.

Keyes: Es la verdad, señor.

Bush: Un momento.

McCain: Vamanos.

Bush: Plus, we respect other people's heritage in this country.

Keyes: Made insulting and derogatory remarks about black Americans.

Bush: Comments are out of line.

McCain: How anybody could defend our present system?

Bauer: Politicians in Washington ought to be ashamed of themselves.

McCain: Influence of special interest money.

Bauer: Have to raise $30,000 a day.

Hatch: A 28-minute fireside chat.

Forbes: I hope the fire survived.

Hatch: The corruption of this administration.

Forbes: It's tawdry scheme to try to make money for their friends.

Forbes: Opening up Alaska for exploration?

Keyes: Exploit God's precious resources for the good of our people.

Bush: What do you say to the single mom who's working?

McCain: I've got a tax cut for you and Gov. Bush doesn't.

Bush: Not true.

McCain: Yes it is.

Bush: Not true.

McCain: All hat and no cattle.

Bush: Cute but.

McCain: Cutest when they're true.

Bush: Not true.

McCain: Texas two-step here.

Ryerson: The family farmer is self-employed.

Forbes: Administration talks about but doesn't do.

Hatch: Ten years ago, 22 million farmers.

McCain: People in Beijing eating Iowa pork.

Keyes: Whole centralized banking system.

Bush: That's what ethanol does, John.

Bauer: Food controlled by a handful of corporations.

Forbes: Whole worlds written on grains of sand.

Hatch: Fourteen billion gallons of gas.

McCain: Helped neither consumers nor the environment.

Keyes: Consolidated control of the banking system at the federal level.

Bush: We may have biomass fuel.

Bauer: Ethanol isn't being subsidized.

McCain: Everybody else thinks it is.

Adam Glawe, Des Moines area: How to improve the dignity of the Oval Office?

Bauer: Ronald Reagan would not go into the Oval Office without a coat and tie on.

Hatch: Elaine and I have been married for 43 years.

Keyes: Radical homosexual agenda.

McCain: Feckless photo op foreign policy.

Bush: Women who will see service to our country as a great privilege and who will not stain the house.

Forbes: People of seemingly limited abilities could rise to the occasion.

Jessie Clark, student: Concerned about the government overstepping.

Forbes: Trust the parents, not politicians

Keyes: Abolish the Department of Education.

McCain: Choice and competition, that's the answer.

Bauer: Ronald Reagan.

Bush: No second-rate children, no second-rate dreams.

Hatch: The founding fathers were much wiser than people today.

Ryerson: Married couples and families paying an additional tax of $1,400 a year.

McCain: The Social Security Trust Fund is a ticking time bomb.

Keyes: All these folks are going to give you something.

Bauer: Moving chairs around on the deck of the Titanic.

Hatch: I like all the tax plans that have been given here.

Forbes: Flat tax would help stay-at-home moms.

Bush: Plan that is realistic. That is doable.

McCain: The president of the United States is not a hapless bystander.

Keyes: What do we call that? Slavery!

Bauer: Under my flat-tax plan, American families make out well.

Hatch: I can be for any of these programs.

Forbes: Most Texans have never seen those tax cuts.

Bush: Sixty-nine percent of the Texans said overwhelmingly, "You're the man!"

Forbes: Six out of 10 districts in Texas never saw the tax cuts.

Bush: Not true.

Ryerson: How do you post the Ten Commandments in schools?

Forbes: The basis of Western civilization.

Hatch: Muslims treat Moses as a great prophet.

McCain: Begin proceedings every day with prayer.

Keyes: Schools in the hands of people who pray.

Bush: Seems like to me "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is pretty universal.

Bauer: Giving each other the Nazi salute in the hallway.

Ryerson: Tougher laws are needed to protect our environment?

Bush: Standards set by agencies that rely upon science.

Forbes: Fashionable things that have no real proof like global warming.

Bauer: Out of control federal regulators.

Hatch: Kyoto Accords could add $3,000 to everyone's fuel bills.

Keyes: Is there any shortage of chickens in the world?

McCain: Theodore Roosevelt was my hero and is.

Ryerson: Trim the closing remarks.

Bush: Message that's positive and hopeful.

Forbes: I'm an independent outsider.

Keyes: Join me in a prayer to Our Creator.

McCain: Give the government back to you.

Bauer: Son of janitor.

Hatch: I was a janitor.

Ryerson: Goodbye.