Barack Obama in Obama-Keyes

On Civil Rights: Marriage not a human right; non-discrimination is

A: I don’t think marriage is a civil right, but I think that not being discriminated against is a civil right. I think making sure that we don’t engage in the sort of gay-bashing that, I think, has unfortunately dominated this campaign-not just here in Illinois, but across the country-is unfortunate, and that kind of mean-spirited attacks on homosexuals is something that the people of Illinois generally have rejected.

On Energy & Oil: Conserve, develop alternative fuels, increase efficiencies

KEYES: We need to develop proper alternative fuels. We need to develop ethanol. We need to push on the research, where breakthroughs are occurring, to get hydrogen from ethanol. By pushing on that kind of research we’ll be able to have a win for our farmers, in the agricultural sector, to improve the profitability of their product. We’ll be able to have a win on the environment, because hydrogen, for instance, is more clean-burning.

OBAMA: We could save as much, in terms of our fuel, if we increased our fuel efficiency standards, as much as we would from getting Alaska drilling going immediately. And that’s been the Bush strategy increasing production for oil and gas companies, subsidizing them to the tune of 20 billion dollars, as opposed to thinking about how, not only, we can develop alternative fuels, but also how can we conserve energy and increase efficiencies available right now but have not been invested in.

On Homeland Security: We are currently inspecting 3% of all incoming cargo

A: Our inspections of ports. We are currently inspecting 3% of all incoming cargo. Terrorists could load up a cargo container and drive it straight into the middle of the Loop without significant risk of them being inspected. Our chemical and nuclear plants are still unsecured, despite how vulnerable they are. There are a whole host of domestic priorities that have been neglected by the Bush administration.

On War & Peace: Saddam did not own and was not providing WMD to terrorists

On War & Peace: Initial military was extraordinarily successful in Iraq

A: The initial military was extraordinarily successful in moving into Iraq, and it exceeded all expectations, even those of us who expected the military to be successful were stunned and impressed by how efficient our military and our brave fighting forces were in executing it. But missing 380 tons of explosives being used on roadside bombs is an enormous error, particularly when the Bush administration had been warned by the Atomic Energy Commission. Keyes has suggested that somehow I’m naive to question how we’ve gone about this war in Iraq. It strikes me that the Bush administration has been naive throughout. It was naive to think that we’d be greeted as liberators in Iraq. It’s been naive in thinking that somehow this would actually diminish recruitment for terrorism. In fact, it’s accelerated it. It’s been naive with respect to how difficult it’s gonna be to secure the peace, and our troops and our taxpayers are suffering from those errors.

On Health Care: Allowing seniors to bulk purchase will save taxpayers’ money

A: It was fundamentally flawed as a piece of legislation. The central premise of this prescription drug bill that was passed by Bush was that the federal government, through the Medicare program, and senior citizens could not negotiate for the best possible price with the drug companies, so that they could actually get the kinds of discounts the Canadians enjoy for the drugs that are manufactured here in the US. That was done because the drug companies didn’t let it happen. What we have is a bill that’s bad for taxpayers and bad for senior citizens. Taxpayers are hit with a half-a-trillion-dollar tab that was originally estimated at three hundred billion. And about 3 weeks later, seniors have a big donut hole in the middle of their benefits. What I would do is I would say that senior citizens, through the Medicare program they can go and negotiate the best possible price as a consequence of being bulk purchasers.

On Health Care: Crises happen in our lives and healthcare is necessary

On Technology: Invest on transportation and clean coal technology projects

On War & Peace: Terrorists are in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran

KEYES: That’s the fallacy, because you did make an argument just then from the wisdom of hindsight, based on conclusions reached now which were not in Bush’s hands several months ago when he had to make this decision.

On War & Peace: Invading Iraq was a bad strategic blunder

On War & Peace: We must make sure that Iraq is stable having gone in there

A: The War on Terror has to be vigorously fought. Where we part company is how to fight it, because Afghanistan in fact was not a preemptive war, it was a war launched directly against those who were responsible for 9/11. Iraq was a preemptive war based on faulty evidence-and I say that not in hindsight, or Monday-morning quarterbacking. Six months before the war was launched, I questioned the evidence that would lead to us being there. Now, us having gone in there, we have a deep national security interest in making certain that Iraq is stable. If not, not only are we going to have a humanitarian crisis, we are also going to have a huge national security problem on our hands-because, ironically, it has become a hotbed of terrorists as a consequence, in part, of our incursion there. In terms of timetable, I’m not somebody who can say with certainty that a year from now or six months from now we’re going to be able to pull down troops.

On War & Peace: Advance the training speed and get the reconstruction moving

We have to do three things in Iraq.
1. We have to advance the speed with which we are training Iraqi troops and security forces so that they can stabilize the country, and that’s going to require our help.
2. But it’s also going to require the help of the international community, which is why we have to internationalize this process. I’m under no illusions that the Germans and the French are going to be sending troops in any time soon, but we can get them to put more resources into the training and infrastructure required to secure the Iraqi borders and the Iraqi streets.
3. Finally, it’s important that we get our reconstruction moving. The reconstruction process that has taken place has been completely inept. And that’s not simply my estimation, that’s the estimation of the two ranking Republican Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who issued a blistering attack on the Bush administration. Highly unusual and it indicates how badly botched this job has been.

On War & Peace: Democratizing Iraq will be more difficult than Afghanistan

A: It is an absolutely hopeful sign for the people of Afghanistan. As I have stated unequivocally, I have always thought that we did the right thing in Afghanistan. My only concerns with respect to Afghanistan was that we diverted our attention from Afghanistan in terms of moving into Iraq, and I think would could have done a better job of stabilizing that country than we have in providing assistance to the Afghani people. All of us should be rooting for the Afghani people & making sure that we are providing them the support to make things happen. With respect to Iraq, it’s going to be a tougher play. I don’t think any of us should be rooting for failure in Iraq at this point. This is no longer Bush’s war, this is our war, and we all have a stake in it.