Hunter makes it official: He's a candidate

Hunter makes it official: He's a candidate

By Finlay Lewis
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
10:38 a.m. January 25, 2007

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, hoping to become the first San Diegan to occupy the White House, became an official candidate for president Thursday morning with a forceful pledge to carry forward Ronald Reagan's policy of “peace through strength.”

Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, best known for his advocacy on behalf of the military, launched a longshot bid for the presidency Thursday in this early voting state.Speaking at a breakfast rally in a ballroom filled with about 250 enthusiastic supporters, Hunter offered a staunchly conservative message that attacked unfair trade deals, warned about China's mounting military might and voiced support for President Bush's troop surge in Iraq. He also said he would toughen border security and to appoint judges opposed to abortion to the federal bench.

Hunter's announcement propels him into the 2008 race for the GOP nomination as an extreme underdog – one who registers only 1 percent in most polls.

With the campaign sorting itself into a top tier of two front runners – former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain – with everybody else below, Hunter clearly begins his effort on the bottom rung.
Hunter made an earlier announcement of his campaign intentions in October in San Diego. He billed his appearance Thursday in South Carolina as his formal announcement. South Carolina is an early primary state with a strongly conservative, protectionist, anti-abortion, pro-military tradition.

The 58-year-old Alpine Republican presented himself as a Vietnam combat veteran and as the son of one Marine and the father of another. He cited his service on the House Armed Services Committee – including a four-year stint as chairman that ended three weeks ago – as having helped to reverse the policies of the Clinton Administration. He said those policies caused the deterioration of the armed services.

He listed some of the winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor in combat and the estimated 600,000 Americans who died in 20th Century wars and then declared, “Our obligation is to stay strong. That's what they want us to do.”

He listed security threats now being posed by North Korea, Iran and China, and said, “We have lots of problems. We're going to have to work on those. We're going to have to look over the horizon.

“But, you know something? We can do it. We can do it with a policy of peace through strength. And, ladies and gentlemen, I want to lead that policy of peace through strength.”

Afterward, Roger Milliken, 91, a wealthy textile magnate, applauded Hunter, in particular his stance against trade agreements he and others have blamed for the loss of U.S. manufacturing and its factory jobs to lower-cost rivals overseas.

“What's happened is that we've lost three million manufacturing jobs over the last six years. That's a disaster,” said Milliken, a prominent bankroller of conservative Republican causes. “Nobody is worried about how we defend our manufacturing strength and our middle class, Duncan Hunter understands that.”

Hunter also won the support of Carole Wells, 63, a Spartanburg resident who recently left a position as South Carolina's Commissioner for Employment Security.

“I believe he carried my thoughts and how I feel about the situation,” said Wells, an unsuccessful candidate for Congress two years ago. “It's very important to be strong on immigration, and I'm pro-life. That's my two defining issues.”

Hunter mentioned his support for legislation to build a border fence along San Diego County's that he credited with halting the “smuggling of hundreds of thousands of people” and of “tons of illegal narcotics.” And he mocked Washington bureaucrats he said are blocking efforts to fence off an additional 700 border miles in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

He said border security has now become a national security as well as an immigration issue and urged swifter action, saying, “Let's do it.
“We have just one message: . . . When you want to come to the United States, come knock on the front door, because the fence is gonna be up and the back door is gonna be closed.”

Hunter definitively sides with the president on Iraq at a time when a number of prominent Republicans, including another presidential candidate, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, are opposing Bush's determination to bolster U.S. forces in Baghdad by 21,500 additional troops. “In Iraq, freedom hangs in the balance,” Hunter said.

“Any political party that tries to cut off reinforcements or supplies in shooting war will never be forgiven by our troops and will never be forgiven by the American people,” Hunter said.

But Hunter also had harsh words for the administration on China. He said it had failed to confront the Chinese government over currency policies and cheating on trade deals that he said have made Beijing billions of dollars it could use to build up its military to a point from which it could threaten America's national security.

He referred to a recent delegation to China, led by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, that he said flinched at pressing the issue with high-ranking Chinese officials.

“I thought that Republicans didn't appease Communists, and that's what we did,” Hunter declared.

“Today starts the time for choosing, for every American manufacturer and laborer,” Hunter said. “You can either choose to give into China's cheating, or you can choose to join me to enforce fair trade.”

Many of those attending paid $250 into the coffers of the fledgling campaign, but others were invited as guests, and campaign officials did not have a final figure on how much the event grossed.

Hunter's official entry into the race – following the formation of an exploratory committee about three weeks earlier – was recorded by a bank of television cameras representing most of the local broadcast media outlets.

Later in the day, Hunter was to appear on CNN and Fox News before heading to Charleston, S.C., for events there on Friday and in Myrtle Beach, S.C. on Saturday. Hunter is then scheduled to campaign in New Hampshire before heading back to Washington.

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