What Did They Say?

Laurie Boeckel, Receptionist, Nampa
I think we need to worry about what's right…and if the UN isn't going to come on board, do we let them dictate to us what is in our best interests? There's going to be bumps in the road and steep sacrifices, but that's what this country was founded on… So I support what our president did.

 

Steve Faulkner, High school teacher, Boise
But if we take preemptive action, are we able to always do it and go it alone? Because there are plenty of places where we can make the case for this sort of pre-emptive action, where horrific events have taken place.

 

Pam Williams, Foodservices, Eagle, Idaho
I have a son who just returned from Iraq. One question he has been asked is 'should we have done this, was it worth it?' And every time he says, 'Yes. I have seen the burns, I have seen the ears gone. I have seen sons and fathers tortured. But no one is showing that. No one sees that. The women come up to us and say don't leave us, don't leave us. The women of that country will change that country.' He believes we are doing the right thing, and he has seen it first hand.

Jennifer Swartz , Attorney, Boise
I have a lot of respect for what your son and our troops have done over there. And I do think people are right, there's a lot of good done that's not shown. But that doesn't change why we went there. We didn't go there for humanitarian reasons. We went there on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. And that wasn't true.
There are so many countries where we could do great things. But we don't attack countries just to change the way they're treating the people. We can't. It's not feasible, it's not practical and it's not fair to America to take that on.

Mike Haddock, Cook, Weiser
The big mistake we made in Iraq is that it wasn't a truly international effort. There was not a specific target. We went in looking for weapons of mass destruction. It was unjustified until we knew exactly what they had, then we could take them out.

 

 

Leon Burt, Sales, Boise
I agree to disagree. I think we should have gone in. As far as people disliking us, most of the ones who dislike us are the terrorists.

 

 

Mona Curtis, Housewife, Mountain Home
In Afghanistan we knew Al Qaeda was over there and they were the ones who attacked us. I never did understand Iraq and I was against it from day one, before they came out with their so-called reasons.

 

John Sackman, Psychologist, Eagle
When I was dealing with the homeless, what surprised me was, it wasn't just people who had manufacturing jobs that literally had their lives blown apart. It was people with university degrees, too. And I noticed the President in his last speech, when the question was asked, 'What do you do about jobs?' he went on about education. Well, how are you going to educate people who are 40 and 50 years old in a new job?

Patricia Cooper, Retired Police Records Supervisor, Emmett
As a retired person, I'm out looking too, see? And it's a real dilemma. And they've said, 'Well go back to school!' And that comes back to the economy-do you pay your health insurance? Or do you go back to school?

 

Sam Greer, Union Employment Retrainer, Boise
I think the most discouraging thing for somebody who's in Idaho and tied to this economy is the lack of corporate responsibility, when Simplot takes two years to shut down a Heyburn potato plant at the same time a Canadian plant is being built. And it's not just the loss of 600 jobs. You're also talking about hundreds of potato-growing families in the Magic Valley who now are no longer working because they're not gonna ship their product to the Great Lakes to have it processed at a Canadian plant. Potatoes are being grown in Canada and in the Great Lakes region, so a whole signature element of Idaho's economy is gone from that part of the state.

Ted Martinez, Engineer, Eagle
I'm involved with outsourcing in Idaho at a high-tech company, and I can go out and hire engineers that are just as capable, and they're willing to work for a third of the price, or even less. I can even bring 'em here, in the U.S., and they can do the same job for less. Companies these days, they're concerned about short-term and tactical. They have to meet their quarterly objectives, they make very, very stupid decisions; it's not about long-term strategies anymore… You have less money because the economy is in much worse shape. So you outsource jobs, because that's the only way to make up the difference.

Bill Lewis, Marketing Research, Boise
If you want to get some real information out to the general public, let's take each candidate, put him in a room by himself. You've got 90 minutes to tell me about this issue, what you're gonna do about it, how you're gonna solve it, how you're gonna pay for it.
The other guy's in the other room, and he gets 90 minutes. But the first time either one mentions the opposition, they forfeit their time. At the end of that, we might know something… When they ask me who I'm gonna vote for, I don't know.