Gary Bauer on Principles & Values

	Gary Bauer on Principles & Values 2000 Republican Primary Candidate for President

Withdraws after NH Primary

Bauer abandoned his presidential bid after his last-place finish in the New Hampshire primary. “I was in it to actually get the nomination,” Bauer said. “When it became clear to me that I could not see a realistic way to do that, it seemed to me that the better part of valor was to move aside.” As he bowed out, Bauer gave a final plug for his defining issues, including opposition to abortion and to trade with China. He said he felt good about pushing the debate toward conservative issues. “Sometimes in the debates. I heard my words even when my lips weren’t moving. So I think my message was catching on,” he said.

Bauer declined to endorse any of the four Republicans still vying for the GOP nomination. Bauer noted those who remain: the son of a president, the son of an admiral, and the son of a tycoon. “I’m the son of a janitor,” he said.

Source: Associated Press, in Sacramento Bee, p. A9 , Feb 5, 2000

America needs to return to the ethics of Ronald Reagan

Q: How specifically would you as president improve the dignity of the Oval Office and restore the moral excellence of our great nation? A: I worked for Ronald Reagan for 8 years and Reagan would not go into the Oval Office without his coat and tie on. That office meant something, it was not just his office. It belonged to the American people. Presidents had sat at that desk and had sent our sons off to foreign battlefields. I will bring reliable standards of right and wrong to the White House. Source: GOP Debate in Johnston, Iowa , Jan 16, 2000

First priority is to outlaw abortion

The first issue [of values] is the sanctity of innocent human life. We’ve got to make a place at the table for all of our children. I will do that. My judges will be pro-life, my running mate will be pro-life. I will make sure that our children are welcomed into the world and protected by the law. I’ve got a 30-year record on this. I’m serious. I will end abortion on demand in my first president’s term. Source: GOP Debate in Johnston, Iowa , Jan 16, 2000

Conservative values: pro-life; marriage; Commandments

BAUER [to Bush]: You won’t agree to a pro-life running mate. You won’t agree to put pro-life judges on the court. Your China policy puts trade ahead of national security & human rights. Why should GOP conservatives believe that you will defend conservative values?

BUSH: I fought for and signed the two largest tax cuts in my state’s history. I fought for charter schools and public school choice. I reformed welfare by insisting upon work. I fought for tort reform. I’ve got a record of accomplishment.

BAUER: Governor, you left off every values issue at stake, the sanctity of life, maintaining marriage as being between a man and a woman, preserving religious liberty so we can hang up the Ten Commandments again.

BUSH: I’m against same-sex marriage. I signed a parental notification law. Republicans need to elect somebody who has gotten results, tangible results that people can see, that people can put their arms around and say this man’s a leader.

Source: (Cross-ref to Bush) Republican Debate in Durham, NH , Jan 6, 2000

Better off than 4 years ago financially, but not culturally

Q: Ronald Reagan famously said in 1980, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” A:I think people would answer the question “yes” when it came to some economic issues. But in other ways, we’re hurting. The culture is more coarse now than it was. Source: New Hampshire GOP Debates , Dec 3, 1999

Virtue deficit needs to be paid off

America is a great nation militarily, it’s a great nation with wealth, but it also has a terrible virtue deficit. If we’re going to be a shining city on a hill the way the Founders wanted us to be, we need to put our families back together, we need to make sure that every child has an adult that’s crazy about him, and we need to balance virtue and liberty. That’s what my Presidency will be dedicated to. Source: Republican Debate at Dartmouth College , Oct 29, 1999

Return power from Wall Street to America’s families

Bauer said that his tax plan would make the Republicans the party “for the working American, blue collar and white collar, not just for the big corporate interests.” Mr. Bauer said, “I propose that we take power out of the hands of Washington, and return it, not to the huge corporations and Wall Street investment managers, but to America’s families, to the people who built this great country and who alone are responsible for its prosperity.” Source: New York Times, p. A19, col. 2 , Sep 24, 1999

Legislating morality ok, if it’s our best values

Dismissing the view that Government should not legislate morality, Bauer said that all Government policy, like protections for the poor, involved “a moral judgment about how we should treat each other.”

“So the question is not whether you legislate morality,” Bauer said. “The question is whose morality you’re going to legislate.”

“Somebody’s values are going to win,” he said. “We just have to have the confidence to get in the public square and say that our values will be best for the country.”

Source: New York Times, p. A12, col. 4 , Aug 17, 1999

Character counts; virtue is not old-fashioned

I’d like to see a country where reliable standards of right and wrong mattered again; where character counted; where virtue wasn’t seen as something hopelessly old-fashioned but as something to treasure and pass on from one generation to another. I’d like a country where women who choose to be mothers and wives weren’t somehow looked down upon or seen as behind the times. I’d like a country where criminals are behind bars again, instead of the average American living behind barred windows. Source: www.bauer2k.com/html/indepthissues.html 5/24/99 , May 24, 1999

Something is wrong, despite good economy

Despite the Dow Jones Industrial Average over 10,000, a growing economy and despite all of the things to our credit, you and I know there is something wrong in America, Bauer said. Source: Boston Globe, Thursday April 22, 1999, p.A21 , Apr 22, 1999

Freedom requires virtue; freedom means “liberty under God”

The founding fathers believed that only a virtuous people could remain free. The founders believed they could give us limited government, because virtue would restrain us from doing things we might otherwise be inclined to do. I think that’s a very important moral principle that we need to remember.

The liberty the founding fathers imagined for us was not the liberty that said you could do whatever you wanted, as long as it felt good. [It was] ordered liberty under God.

Source: Speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government , Apr 13, 1998

It’s the “American Century” because of America’s values

Why is it that this century is being called the American century? Our technological breakthroughs, our medical breakthroughs, our space program? Well, those things play a role. The triumphs of democratic capitalism? Is that what’s made it the American the American century? In part. Triumphing on the field of battle? Even that didn’t make it the American century. It was that we had ideas, that American values were sweeping the globe. I don’t mean the values of Hollywood. I’m talking about founding valu Source: Speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government , Apr 13, 1998

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