Quotes from the Republican debate in Orlando, Fla.:

RUDY GIULIANI

_ "It seems to me the thing that's wrong right at the core of No Child Left Behind is the enforcer of standards should not be the bureaucrat in Washington or on the board of education. It should be the parent. We should have choice. We should empower parents. They should decide _ private school, parochial school, public school, charter school, home school."

_ "I think we should make it very, very clear that we understand that we can both engage a country, commercially, like we are doing with Russia, or at the same time, we can be very, very firm in our own defense. Ronald Reagan gave us the best answer to how to deal with these situations. The answer is a very, very strong military that no other country on earth would ever consider challenging. ... Right now, an increase in military spending, increasing the size of our military in all aspects in a sensible way, would send a heck of a signal both to Russia and to China to not think about challenging us down the road."

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MIKE HUCKABEE

_ "There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president. Let me tell you why. If she's president, taxes go up, health care becomes the domain of the government, spending goes out of control, our military loses its morale, and I'm not sure we'll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country's ever faced in Islamofascism. ... We'll sign crazy bills like the Law of the Sea Treaty and give away our sovereignty. And that's why, with all of the fun we're going to have talking about it, there's nothing funny about Hillary being president."

_ "We don't have a health care system. We have a health care maze. And we don't have a health care crisis. We have a health crisis. Eighty percent of the $2 trillion we spend on health care in this country is spent on chronic disease. If we don't change the health of this nation by focusing on prevention, we're never going to catch up with the costs no matter what plan we have. ... And we've got a situation with 10,000 baby boomers a day signing up for Social Security, going into the Medicare system. And I just want to remind everybody when all the old hippies find out that they get free drugs, just wait until what that's going to cost out there."

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DUNCAN HUNTER

_ "We have a $161 billion deficit this year. We have an $800 billion trade deficit. And that is closely linked with the ability to take care of our seniors, to take care of Medicare, and to pay Social Security, absolutely."

_ "President (Vladimir) Putin did give us one opening, and I think we should exploit it. And that is that he offered to work with us on sea-based missile defenses. ... missiles launched from Iran at western Europe would go over the Black Sea. I think we should undertake an initiative with Putin's people and discuss the prospects of putting our Aegis missile defense cruisers in the Black Sea, ask them if they're interested in an partnership that would protect Western Europe, also protect us."

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JOHN McCAIN

_ On Russian President Vladimir Putin: "This is a dangerous person. And he has to understand that there's a cost to some of his actions. And the first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don't care what his objections are to it. And he's going to cause us to set up a league of democracies to address issues from Darfur to Burma to Iran and others, because he and the Chinese are blocking meaningful action to keep us in a peaceful world in the United Nations. It's going to be some tough times ahead."

_ On health care plans: "I think it is important that that will be one of the defining issues of this campaign, because we know that there will be Hillary-care resurrected. There will be efforts to raise your taxes. There will be efforts to have a single-payer big government solution by the Democrats. They've already espoused those causes. If you believe them, please take a trip to Canada or England before you decide to support such a thing."

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RON PAUL

_ "We in this party have to realize the American people are sick and tired of big government, big government overseas, an empire we can't maintain, the bankruptcy of this country, and also the attack on our personal civil liberties. We don't have privacy left anymore, and Hillary Clinton offers no solution to that, and neither does any of the Democrats. And we are not doing a very good job either."

_ On whether there should be a constitutional ban on gay marriage: "To amend the Constitution is totally unnecessary to define something that's already in the dictionary. We do know what marriage is about. We don't need a new definition or argue over a definition and have an amendment to the Constitution. To me, it just seems so unnecessary to do that."

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MITT ROMNEY

_ "The decision to take our men and women to war is the most grave decision and I would do that on a very deliberate and careful basis, not a half-cocked basis. This president went to Congress. Hillary Clinton is trying to rewrite history, that somehow he did this all by himself, going to Iraq. He went to Congress and got their support. Let's not forget that."

_ "The status of marriage, if it's allowed among the same sex individuals in one state is going to spread to the entire nation. And that's why it's important to have a national standard for marriage. And I'm committed to making sure that we reinforce the institution of marriage in this country by insisting that all states have a right to have marriage as defined as between a man and a woman; and we don't have unelected judges, liberals, standing up and saying we're going to impose same-sex marriage where it was clearly not in their state constitution."

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TOM TANCREDO

_ "I do think that there are organizations that should be looked at that actually rate people for their conservative history. And the American Taxpayers Union, for one, gives me the highest rating; the American Conservative Union, highest rating of anybody running for president of the United States; an A rating from the National Right to Life; an A rating from every organization _ every conservative organization that gives ratings to those of us who are here on this stage. Now, those are objective."

_"Let me tell you what health care means with illegal immigrants: $1 billion a year in California, 86 or more hospitals closed, maybe up to hundreds of hospitals closed, throughout this country, because they've had to provide care for illegal immigrants and cannot be reimbursed."

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FRED THOMPSON

_"The only problem with Democrats is that everybody who works for a living is rich, according to them. They say that all we've got to do is bring the troops home, and the world will leave us alone. They're the party that insults our generals and tries our troops in the newspaper. And when they're exonerated, they're on page 15 or 20. So what I meant was, if we stick to our basic principles, we will win next November. "

_ On education: "We can't lay all this at the feet of any government. We have to accept some hard truths. Part of the problem in our education system and with our children has to do with the societal breakdown that's going on in this country. We need more fathers to stay and raise their kids."

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