Go to www.usglobalengagement.org for Candidate Positions and Quotes on Global Development and Health, Diplomacy, Aid Effectiveness, Trade and other Foreign Policy Issues

Washington, DC – With the latest polls showing the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire presidential primary races tightening and strong majorities of voters concerned about America’s role in the world, the candidates’ foreign policy views are playing a significant role in the 2008 campaign. The latest statements and quotes on foreign affairs from Democratic and Republican candidates are open to easy scrutiny and comparison on the new position tracker on the Center for U.S. Global Engagement’s website, www.usglobalengagement.org .

A non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, the Center will continue to track the candidates’ positions as part of its presidential initiative, Impact ’08: Building a Better, Safer World. Through Impact ’08, the Center has united Republican and Democratic business, civic, faith-based, political and military leaders in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and nationally who believe the next President should elevate and strengthen America’s non-military tools of global engagement. Former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Reagan Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci are the Impact ’08 co-chairs, and the effort has been endorsed by a bipartisan group of respected foreign policy and national security experts.

A sampling of recent quotes from the Center’s Presidential candidate position tracker:

Clinton – “As President, I will wage the fight against AIDS with the passionate commitment it demands. I will ask for $50 billion over five years to combat HIV/AIDS, and I will ask for more money to tackle tuberculosis, and malaria around the world as well.” –Speech at Saddleback Church, California, November 29, 2007

Edwards – “This strategy will keep America and our allies safe — while showing the world we are once again a strong country that can always win war, but that prefers peace over war. Most importantly, it will restore our legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Everyone knows we’re powerful. The question is what we use our power for — and whether the rest of the world will once again see us as a force for good, rather than the bully we’ve become under Bush.” –New strategy for Iran speech, November 5, 2007

Guiliani – “Well, the most important thing to do is to make certain we remain on offense against Islamic terrorism. And — and then make it clear that what that means is this is a small group of people — Islamic terrorists — who have defiled a great religion; that the vast majority of people who are Islamic, the vast majority of people who are Arab, the vast majority of people living in these countries are good people. We should be trading with them, we should have contact with them, we should expand our contacts with them.” –CNN/You Tube debate, November 28, 2007

Huckabee – “We have to attack the underlying conditions that breed terror by helping to improve health and a basic quality of life; creating schools that offer an alternative to the extremist madrasas that turn impressionable children into killers, then create jobs and opportunity and hope; to encourage a free press, fair courts, and other institutions that promote democracy.” –Speech at Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, September 28, 2007

McCain – “My friends, 95 percent of the world’s customers live outside the borders of the United States. While my Democratic opponents play politics with trade — using words like a trade “time out” to disguise their protectionism — I don’t intend to sit out opportunities and challenges of the world’s economy. I intend to seize those opportunities to ensure, as every American generation has done, that our children’s lives will be even more prosperous than were ours.” –Iowa economic conference, November 5, 2007

Obama -“To restore America’s standing, I will call on our greatest resource – not our bombs, guns, or dollars – I will call upon our people. We will grow the Foreign Service to renew our commitment to diplomacy. We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we’ll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity.” –Speech at Cornell College, Iowa, December 5, 2007

Richardson – ” The challenges that the world faces now are transnational: jihadism, terrorism, disease, climate change, our dependence on foreign oil. I believe that our foreign policy needs to employ our smart power tools – diplomacy, development, and making use of America’s moral leadership – to confront these issues.” –Speech at Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire, November 8, 2007

Romney – “We must open foreign markets to American goods and assure that trade agreements provide a level playing field. Opening markets to our goods and services is key to expanding opportunity here at home. Expanding trade is pro-growth, pro-industry, pro-agriculture, and pro-American leadership in the world.” –Op-Ed, Des Moines Register, November 27, 2007