10 presidential candidates were asked by Katie Couric to name their biggest mistake. The answers run on Wednesday’s “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” but Yeas & Nays has a sneak peak.
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Barack Obama:
Well, the biggest mistake that I ever made was when I was a teenager. Because I got– involved with drinking and trying drugs. I was being raised by a single mom and by my grandparents. And I’ve written about this in– in my first book. You know, I was frustrated and didn’t have role models out there that– made sense. And so– and so I engaged in a lot of destructive behavior. And it– it– I pulled out of it in my first couple of years of college. Because I– I– I started thinking outside of myself. I started thinking about– people I met who were struggling a lot worse than I was. You know, I didn’t come from a wealthy family. But– it– it was a middle-class family. And– and I never had to worry about whether I had enough to eat. Or I never had to worry about whether I had a roof over my head. And– and so just becoming more aware of– the– the tough times that other people were going through, and I remember having a conversation with somebody– and– them saying to me that, “You know, it’s not about you. It’s about what you can do for other people.” And something clicked in my head. And I got real serious after that. And– started applying myself at school. That’s how I started becoming a student activist and then ultimately a community organizer. And– and, you know, that’s probably the path that– I’ve been taking ever since. That’s how I ended up where I am today.
Mitt Romney:
Well, I think from the political– perspective, the biggest mistake I made was– believing that my personal– disagreement with abortion, and my– my view that abortion was wrong, that somehow I could accommodate my personal view that abortion was wrong with a public view that other people should be able to make up their own mind, and the government wouldn’t play a role. That, in my view, was a mistake. It– became apparent to me when– a bill reached my desk that would have created new life and destroyed it.
And I simply could not sign it. It was unacceptable to me to– to be associated with the destruction of human life. And– I recognized that. I, therefore, wrote an op-ed piece in the Boston papers explaining that I was wrong in the past, that I’d made a mistake, and that I would– as a governor, come down on the side of life. And– in the years I was governor of Massachusetts on every bill that related to– to life, I came down on the side of life.
COURIC: But that did haunt you for a while. And you were called a flip-flopper on that issue.
ROMNEY: Yeah. There’s no question people are gonna be very– focused on any time an individual changes their view on an issue. But certainly people make mistakes in their life. I have. I will. I hope I keep learning from my mistakes. I’m only worried about people who make mistakes and don’t admit them. And– and– and persist in a– in a wrong-headed course. And you see a lot of that in politics. I was wrong with regards to my first– position on abortion. I recognized that when I became governor. And I have a record of showing– where I came out.
COURIC: Do you have an example of people who make mistakes and can’t admit them?
ROMNEY: Absolutely. But I’m not gonna tell (LAUGHS) you what they are. I– I don’t wanna be critical of other individuals. And– and– attack them. I think there are a lot of people who are– who are wrong and– and may not know they’re wrong. But– but there are probably some who recognize they’re wrong but– but are unwilling to make the shift and– and acknowledge that they made a mistake.
COURIC: You said you have personal views toward abortion. But felt that in the public arena– another position could exist. What is wrong with that? What’s wrong with having a personal view and feeling that it’s the right of individuals to make these difficult choices?
ROMNEY: Well, what I re– recognized is that in a civilized society that there has to be a respect for the sanctity of life. That– that if you put that aside, if you say, “We’re gonna start creating life and then destroying it,” you’re in effect playing God. And I think a civilized society has certain rules of conduct that it live by. And one of those is to respect the sanctity of life. Another is respect in the sanctity of marriage. And– and so when– when I was faced with not a theoretical question of, “What do you think about abortion?” but instead the reality of being a governor who would sign a bill that would create life and destroy it– this was a embryonic cloning bill. I said, “I simply cannot become party to something where life would be created and then destroyed.” And– and that– that made the decision for me that it was impossible to have a strong position personally opposing abortion and at the same time, to say that we’re gonna have laws which– which permitted– and permit the destruction of life throughout our society.
COURIC: So are you opposed to stem cell research?
ROMNEY: No, I’m very much in favor of stem cell research. But in a way which I believe is moral and ethical. And– and creating new embryos through embryo farming or through cloning I find to be unethical. And I would not pursue that course of stem cell research.
KATIE COURIC: So what kind of embryos? Embryos that are created for procreation and then would be discarded? Are those the ones that you feel are perfectly fine from which to cull cells for stem cell research?
MITT ROMNEY: Th– yes, those embryos that are referred to commonly as– as– surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization. Those embryos, I hope, could be available for adoption for people who would like to adopt embryos. But if a parent decides they would want to donate one of those embryos for purposes of research, in my view, that’s accep– that’s acceptable. It should not be made against the law. I wouldn’t finance that with government money. Because it represents a moral challenge for a lot of people. And I think we’re better investing in places where the prospects are much better. And I think that’s something like something known as– as– alter-nuclear transfer where you create new embryo-like– entities. But they’re not human embryos. And you can take stem cells from those.
Hillary Clinton:
Well, I’ve made lots of mistakes. You know, I have to put– my handling of healthcare among one of my biggest mistakes, because it was so personally disappointing. But it was also such a tragic– loss of time– for so many Americans who needed healthcare, and we weren’t able to deliver it. And I didn’t handle it right. And I didn’t know everything I know today about the best way of presenting it and trying to– convince the Congress and the country to go along. And I– you know, I was upset about that for a long time, because I was, you know, really unhappy with the mistakes I made and felt like they had contributed to– the loss of an opportunity to provide healthcare for people.
COURIC: You’ve talked about that on the campaign trail. But if you had to say specifically with dealing– if you had to say specifically in dealing with healthcare what it was that you did wrong, what would that be?
CLINTON: I think it was a misunderstanding, or perhaps a lack of understanding about what it took to get hard work done in Washington. And it appeared, if you looked at the polls, that everybody was for healthcare reform. But everybody was for it in general, but not in specific. And I didn’t spend enough time, because frankly I was new to Washington. And I didn’t have the experience that I now have on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. So, I didn’t spend the time that I should have in really listening to people in the Congress, who understood how you get big change done in America. One of the reasons why I think I’m– the best candidate this time is that I’ve had some of these experiences. I’ve had some of these– tough knocks, and I’ve learned from them. And I now have this unique ability to understand what a White House can do, and what a Congress can do. And how, if you want to get something done, you’ve got to figure out a way to get people together.
Rudy Giuliani:
Well, I don’t know the biggest mistake. I mean, I’ve had– made– made a number of mistakes. I know the one that comes to mind right away. And that’s one– in not being able to anticipate the changes that were needed in child welfare and setting up the Administration for Children’s Services enough. All– all of the sudden, this young girl, Elisa Izquierdo, was– was killed. She was killed in a brutal way. She had been in and out of the child welfare agencies. She had been on our radar screen and– and I hadn’t fixed it in time. And I– I had– had time to do it. I could have done it in the time that I reformed the other agencies. And I felt terrible about this. And we– we made a very big reformbased on it. But, I always felt if we had done that earlier, maybe just maybe we could have avoided her death, and maybe some other situations like that.
