Fred Thompson (R)

Is the U.S. losing its innovation edge to emerging powers such as China and India?
How we react to challenges is more important than the challenges themselves. Some want us to withdraw from the world that presents us with so many problems, in the hope they will go away. Some would push us toward protectionist trade policies. Others see a solution in raising taxes and redistributing the income among our citizens. Wrong on all counts. These are defensive, defeatist policies that have consistently been proven wrong. They are not what America is all about.

Note: The Thompson campaign did not respond to the BusinessWeek questionnaire. This response is taken from Thompson's campaign Web site.