TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Mitt Romney discusses the 2008 presidential race.
Former Gov. Mitt Romney talked about his bit for the Republican nomination
Feb. 3, 2008— -- STEPHANOPOULOS: Now we turn to the Republican trying to defeat John McCain, former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. He joins us from Minneapolis this morning.
And, Governor, let me begin by congratulating you. You won the Maine caucuses last night. But we also see, in our new ABC News poll, that John McCain is pulling away, nationally, 48 percent to 24percent. He's got big leads in the big states.
How do you stop him from building up an insurmountable delegate lead on Tuesday night?
ROMNEY: Well, I think the answer is that you make sure, as you go across the country, that you build the support among the base of our party to remind them that this is a battle, in some respects, for the heart and soul of the Republican Party, that, frankly, if we want a party that is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton on an issue like illegal immigration, that we're going to have John McCain as a nominee. That's the wrong way to go.
Instead, I believe that you're going to want to have somebody who can show a contrast on issues like campaign finance reform, like illegal immigration, like global warming. Senator McCain wants to add about a 50 cent per gallon charge to gasoline for everybody in America. I think those are the wrong directions.
I think the mainstream members of my party are going to choose somebody who stands for the same kind of principles that -- well, that built the house that Ronald Reagan built.
And I think the voices of conservatism across the country, radio talk show hosts, magazine columnists and so forth, who areconservative mainstream Republicans, are coming out for me in record numbers. And I think that's what you saw in Maine yesterday.
The kind of support that came from the caucus attendees, I think, had to shock the McCain folks. Because they had both senators -- both Senator Collins and Senator Olympia Snowe were fighting very hard for John McCain. And they were shocked that Republicans came out in record numbers in the caucuses and said, no way, we're not taking the left turn in the Republican Party; we're staying in the house that Reagan built.
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