Nov. 28 Republican debate transcript

Giuliani: We probably haven't done a good enough job as a party in pointing out that our solutions, our philosophy, is really the philosophy that would be the most attractive to the overwhelming majority of people in the African American and Hispanic community.

Whether they are upper middle class, rich, middle class or poor, the -- good education is something that everyone in all these communities and all communities want. The idea of choice in education is something that would totally turn around education in this country. It's something that large percentages of African American and Hispanic parents support. They would like to be able to choose a private school, a parochial school, a charter school, home-schooling for their children.

Instead, they have the government telling them that their child has to go to an inadequate school.

So there are many, many issues on which we can reach out. I found that one of the best was moving people off welfare. I moved 640,000 people off welfare, most of them to jobs. I change the welfare agency into a job agency, and all of a sudden I had people that had a future, people that had great hope in life.

I think the reason that crime not only declined in New York more than anyplace else, but continues to decline, is that many of those people who were hopeless 10, 12 years ago, now have hope. They have a future. They have gotten the genius of the American way of life. We haven't made it available to all people, and we have to do that.

We will be a very popular party in those communities.

Cooper: Time. Governor Huckabee, 30 seconds.

(Applause)

Huckabee: Well, according to your network's exit polls, some 48 percent of the African-Americans in my state did, in fact, vote for me, which is unusually high for African-Americans voting for a Republican. Here's the reason why: because I asked for their vote, and I didn't wait until October of the election year to do it.

And, while I was governor, I tried to make sure that we included people not only in appointments and employment, but also in the programs that would truly make a difference, like putting disproportionate amounts of help for health problems specifically targeted to African-Americans like hypertension and AIDS and diabetes. So there's a reason. And I just want to express that our party had better reach out not just to African-Americans, but to Hispanics and to all people of this country.

I don't want to be a part of a Republican party that is a tiny, minute and ever decreasing party, but one that touches every American from top to bottom, regardless of race.

Cooper: Our next question -- let's watch:

(Applause)

Leroy Brooks: Hello, my name is Leroy Brooks. I am from Houston, Texas and my question is for all the candidates.

Whether this flag right here represents the symbol of racism, a symbol of political ideology, a symbol of Southern heritage -- or, is it something completely different?

Cooper: He's talking about the stars and bars.

Governor Romney?

Romney: Right now, with the kinds of issues we got in this country, I'm not going to get involved with a flag like that. That's not a flag that I recognize so that I would hold up in my room.

The people of our country have decided not to fly that flag. I think that's the right thing.

(Applause)

My own view is that this country can go beyond that kind of stuff, and that instead we can do as a party what we need to do, which is to reach out to all Americans.

Every time I listen to someone like John Edwards get on TV and say there are two Americans, I just want to -- I just want to throw something at the TV, because there are not two Americas. There's one America.

We are a nation united. We face extraordinary challenges right now. And Democrats dividing us and tearing down this country are doing exactly the wrong thing.

We're succeeding in Iraq. We've got tough challenges. We can overcome them. But we do not need to have that kind of divisive talk. And that flag, frankly, is divisive, and it shouldn't be shown.