Thread: Duncan Hunter: GOP Dark Horse or White Knight?

Duncan Hunter: GOP Dark Horse or White Knight?
Phil Brennan
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Presidential hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is a rock-ribbed California conservative in the Ronald Reagan mold.

He has been a member of Congress since 1980, and he is Vietnam veteran. Hunter successfully sought a seat on the House Armed Services Committee and has served on this committee throughout his career for the past 26 years, becoming chairman of the full committee in 2002, which oversees a $532 billion defense budget.

During his chairmanship from 2002-2006, and now as ranking member of the committee, Hunter has focused on providing President Bush with the necessary resources to win our nation's military conflicts, protecting our men and women in uniform, and developing modernization initiatives that will move new and more effective technologies into the field of battle.


Hunter is an ardent proponent of U.S. border security, and has sought to make the region safe for communities on both sides of the border by providing the necessary resources to our border enforcement agencies.


After 9/11 Hunter led efforts in Congress to seal a porous border susceptible to illegal aliens, drug trafficking and terrorism. His efforts have resulted in more than 59 miles of fencing and border infrastructure to date in San Diego County.

He also wrote the Secure Fence Act, extending the San Diego fence 854 miles across California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. These fence provisions were signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 26, 2006.


Hunter provided great insight into his many accomplishments and what he hopes to accomplish.

NewsMax: Most conservatives have complained that they are not happy with the current slate of GOP presidential candidates. How can this dissatisfaction be overcome?



Hunter: The best way to overcome the top three candidates, the ones who are being given most of the news coverage right now [John] McCain [Mitt] Romney, and [Rudy] Giuliani . . . all who have real differences with the majority of Republican voters . . . is to vote for me.

Overcoming the Big Three

I'm strong on national defense; I've been chairman of the armed services committee the last four years; and I've been on that committee for 26 years. I'll work to maintain peace through strength by maintaining a strong American military.

I also built the border fence in San Diego which has been very successful in reducing the smuggling of people and narcotics there by more than 90 percent, and I wrote the bill which extends the San Diego border fence 854 miles across the smugglers routes of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas . . .

We have a border that is out of control. We do not have an enforced border and we need to have one. We need to have one for national security purposes as well as immigration purposes.

I am not an absolute free trader like these folks who think that that this massive trade deficit that we have with Communist China [is acceptable] . . . They're buying ships and planes and missiles with American trade dollars, so China is arming with American trade dollars.




NewsMax: How do you stand on the current state of the war in Iraq?



I think we're winning in Iraq, if we continue to stand up the Iraqi army . . . as long as we continue to stand up the Iraq military that government will hold, and Iraq will be a success for the United States.


It's going to be a long, tough road — it already has been . . . But I think the operation is worthwhile, and right now America's military are doing everything right in Iraq and we should back them up.


A Head-on Approach to the Border


NewsMax: Aside from the border fence, what other steps would you take to deal with the border issue?



Hunter: Along with the border fence you need to have a larger number of border patrolmen and you need to have the other infrastructure including lights, roads, and communications. Very simply along the border, along the entire border of the Southwest, our border with Mexico, that 2000 mile border needs the same apparatus as the border fence in San Diego.


In San Diego, we had most of the illegal drugs and most of the people who were being smuggled into this country coming to that narrow smuggler's corridor between San Diego and Tijuana, and when we put the fenced in, and it's a double fence . . . That's how we've reduced smuggling by more than 90 percent in San Diego.


And incidentally, when we built that border fence in San Diego the by FBI statistics, the crime rate in the city of San Diego dropped by 53 percent. We need to extend that border fence 854 miles across the smuggler's corridors of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. As president of the United States, I will finish the border fence in six months.


NewsMax: Has the morale of the border patrolmen suffered as a result of these two border patrolmen who have been imprisoned?



Hunter: I support agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. And when the president didn't give them a pardon, I initiated a congressional pardon in the House of Representatives and we have right now 91 members of Congress who have co-sponsored a congressional pardon.

The extreme injustice of their conviction is that they have been given more time in federal prison for slightly wounding a drug dealer bringing across 750 pounds of marijuana. The got 11 and 12 years sentences respectively, when the average convicted murderer is given about eight and a half years. It's an extreme injustice — one that calls out for a pardon, and I would pardon them.


NewsMax: To what do you attribute the presidential election to pardon them?



Hunter: I can't understand why the White House is reluctant to move on this pardon; and so when it's clear that they are not going to do it, is time for us to take action and that's why I introduced the congressional pardon.

NewsMax: How do you stand on such issues as abortion and stem-cell research?


Hunter: I'm pro-life and I've offered the "Life begins at conception" bill. I do not believe in embryonic stem-cell research. I think that's really a thinly veiled agenda for those who are pro-choice, and I think that it's very clear that there are enormous opportunities for stem-cell research without using embryonic stem cells for research. There's lots of adult stem cells available and I believe that the president has the right philosophy.


NewsMax: Despite your stellar service in the Congress you are still largely unknown around the country. What do you plan to do to overcome this lack of name recognition?



Hunter: Well, the first thing to do is do more interviews like this NewsMax interview. Last week I was on 17 national radio and television programs and we figure we talked to about 15 million voters. You simply have to do that every day. You have to get out; you have to campaign hard and you have to move a lot of electrons; and that's what we're doing.


NewsMax: Are you using the Internet in your campaign, as your colleague Ron Paul has said he is doing in his campaign?



Hunter: We have a great Internet campaign. But let me go beyond that. They just had the big straw poll in South Carolina that all the candidates campaigned in.

Romney spent a lot of money there; McCain had lots of paid staff and consultants; Giuliani the same. Yet in that straw poll — which is the biggest east of the Mississippi to date — I came in six votes from the top, right behind McCain and Giuliani — only six votes from winning that thing. McCain, Giuliani, and I each had 22 percent of the vote. Brownback had about 12 percent; Romney about 11 percent. So that shows that when I get my message out, I can win.



NewsMax: If you were at the head of the ticket how much effect do you think you could have in returning control of the Congress to the Republican Party?



Hunter: I think the reason I could bring control of the Congress to the Republican Party is because I think I can reach out and grab the hearts of those Reagan Democrats who would join with us to elect a conservative majority.

That is, people who believe in a strong national defense as lots of Reagan Democrats do, and also people who believe that we should bring back more of those high paying jobs to the United States that have gone off to China because China is cheating on trade.


I'd junk those bad trade deals, bring back those good high paying jobs to America, and at the same time, deprive China of those billions of American dollars that they are using to buy military equipment which some day could be aimed at American troops on the battlefield.

Weighing in on Hillary and Barack

NewsMax: What's your opinion of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?



Hunter: I don't think I have to criticize either Hillary or Obama. I think that they are doing a great job together of carrying out that task themselves.





© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.


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As I read more about republican platforms like Hunter's and Tancredo's I realize that my views really don't match up with 90% of their platform...yet Illegal Immigration has become such an important issue for me I'm willing to make the next election a single issue vote because I am so fed up.

I wonder how many other people in this country feel the same way?

Originally Posted by duece212

As I read more about republican platforms like Hunter's and Tancredo's I realize that my views really don't match up with 90% of their platform...yet Illegal Immigration has become such an important issue for me I'm willing to make the next election a single issue vote because I am so fed up.

I wonder how many other people in this country feel the same way?

I feel the same way because unless this problem is solved all the others won't matter much, since the country will be sliding into Third World oblivion.

I like Congressman Hunters stand on the border fence and his support on the two imprisoned border guards but I wonder how he stands on the "pathway to citizenship","guessworker plan",and amnesty?Maybe I've just missed seeing his stand on these issues,but these are questions that bear answering.

ChromeDome wrote:

I like Congressman Hunters stand on the border fence and his support on the two imprisoned border guards but I wonder how he stands on the "pathway to citizenship","guessworker plan",and amnesty?Maybe I've just missed seeing his stand on these issues,but these are questions that bear answering.

Perhaps this will help, ChromeDome:

http://immigrationstance.diggersrealm.c ... liens.html