(Reuters) — Republican U.S. presidential candidates were in Manchester, New Hampshire, to test their messages at a forum on Monday (August 3) broadcast live on U.S. cable network C-SPAN.
Fourteen of the 17 candidates faced off in Manchester, N.H. for the Voters Issues Forum at Saint Anselm College. Each candidate was asked questions by a moderator based on a random draw. While Donald Trump decided not to attend, illegal immigration was a dominant theme.
Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio and a former leading U.S. congressman, has been touting a compassionate conservative vision for the nation.
“Obviously the border needs to be secured, there needs to be an expanded guest worker program so people can move in and out and support their family but do it in a legal way. With the 12 million, we need to find out who they are. If they are law abiding, god fearing folks, they’re going to have to pay a penalty towards legalization and they’ll have to wait,” Kasich said.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush spoke about the threat posed by Islamic State.
“I think we need special forces. The idea of boots on the ground, I’m not sure that’s necessary but special forces, embedding our troops and our trainers with the Syria Free Army. Training them at a much faster rate. We’ve spent a half a billion dollars to have sixty people ready to go. I mean this is absurd. If this is a serious effort then we need to treat it seriously,” Bush said.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was critical of Obama’s Clean Power Plan that the U.S. President announced on Monday.
“It’s not the Clean Power Plan, it’s the Costly Power Plan. It would be like a buzzsaw to the nation’s economy. The states like mine and many of the governors here would be devastated by that. I’m an Eagle Scout. We were taught a long time ago that you leave your campsite should be cleaner when you leave it than you find it. So I want to balance a sustainable environment with a sustainable economy but the two have to go hand in hand,” Walker said.
Most of the leaders in the Republican field participated, including Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio, but not poll leader Trump, who declared he would not attend in outrage over a critical editorial published by the Union Leader, the Manchester newspaper that is one of the sponsors of the event.
The forum allowed candidates to see how they would do against each other ahead of the first official Republican debate of the 2016 season on Thursday night (August 6) in Cleveland.
Others who did not attend the forum are former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, who entered the race last week.
