Debate Quotations | Page 2

We were committed at the time of the convention, and through the last debate, to put a free vote to the next Parliament on this issue, ... It will be a genuinely free vote when I am prime minister. I will not whip the cabinet; cabinet can vote as they want.

When we saw the Melbourne pitch helping spinners and knowing that Sydney is typically a spinner-friendly wicket, we began to debate whether we should consider two spinners as an option.

When this report is issued and the debate then begins ... the National Association of Home Builders is going to do its damnedest to protect the preferred treatment of housing in the tax code.

What we're doing is protecting elderly disabled immigrants in nursing homes, ... They're not part of the welfare reform debate. The welfare reform debate is about moving people from welfare to work.

What we plan to do with that money is fund our state highway new-construction program for the next 10 years. So, there's a lot of debate about the use of that money. And, of course, there's some debate about leasing the toll road itself.

We need to punch back against the extremes of both the left and the right and define the terms of the debate ourselves.

There are some rights that are so fundamental to our society that you'd think the public debate would be closed on them. The right of every American citizen to vote - regardless of age, race, or income level - is one of them.

There are some parallels in the sense that the (USA) Patriot Act represents some retrenchment of our civil liberties and free speech. It is not as raw and blatant as the Sedition Act, but it represents an effort by government and the Congress to bolster security at the price of liberty - not just the Patriot Act, but the language and rhetoric and debate over who is more patriotic.

There are Democrats everywhere, ... We need a message. It has to be clear. The framing of the debate determines who wins the debate. Running away from issues is how you lose elections.

We're going to have two debates in Iowa in January, ... You can't have a debate in Iowa without agriculture being a major part of it. So we're going to debate agriculture in Iowa.