AP News, August 13th, 2007
What the 2008 presidential candidates have been saying about Theodore Roosevelt:
JOE BIDEN
July 6, answering a voter question in New Hampshire about corporate ownership of the media: "I think we should be looking at not unlike what Teddy Roosevelt did roughly 100 years ago in terms of trust-busting. It's not that bad, but the idea of concentration of power, ... I think that's a real problem. They don't own the airwaves, we own the airwaves."
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HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
May 29, economic policy speech in New Hampshire: "Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, the progressives busted trusts and fought for safe working conditions and fair wages. They created the national park system, and replaced a government rife with cronyism with a merit-based civil service. They understood, as the great progressive President Teddy Roosevelt once said, that 'the welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.'"
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RUDY GIULIANI
July 8, answering a foreign policy question in New Hampshire: "What we're going to have to do is figure out how to be on offense against the Islamic terrorists and reach out to the rest of the Islamic world as friends. It is possible to do that. It is possible to speak softly and carry a big stick _ it was a great Republican I think who had that saying."
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JOHN McCAIN
Video posted on his campaign Web site titled "Roosevelt and Reagan": "Theodore Roosevelt obviously is my ultimate hero. He and Ronald Reagan had this in common: They had a belief in the greatness of America, in the role it would play in the world as the greatest force for good. It's become lately a little bit fashionable to say, `Hey, this idealism it only works for certain people' ... I don't agree with that."
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BARACK OBAMA
June 22, ethics reform speech in New Hampshire: "Early in his presidency, Teddy Roosevelt gave a famous speech before farmers and factory workers that laid out his vision of what government at its best should be. He said, 'The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life, that man is the best representative ... whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class or interest, but to represent all ... by working for our common country.' It's time to get to work once more for our common country."
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MITT ROMNEY
Aug. 5, presidential debate in Iowa, asked about efforts to spread democracy abroad: "We help draw these folks toward modernity, as opposed to having them turn toward the violence and the extreme. ... And that kind of a campaign of values, combined with our strong arms, speaking softly but carrying a strong stick, as Teddy Roosevelt said, that will help move the world to a safer place."
