2008 Polls National Iowa New Hampshire General Election GOP | Dem GOP | Dem GOP | Dem Head-to-Head

---

February 15, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - February 15

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP JOHN MURTHA (D), PENNSYLVANIA: The troops have to be equipped, they have to be trained, they can't be sent back without a year at home, they can't be extended and we have to eliminate the stop-loss, so what we're trying to do is make sure people understand we're supporting the troops, we're protecting the troops, but on the other hand, we're going to stop this surge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: And John Murtha thinks that he has found a way to do that without actually cutting off funds as such. It's a little complex, but some thoughts on it now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call; and Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief of Fortune magazine -- FOX NEWS contributors all.

Mort, I've had them explained to me what he's trying to do several times. I still don't get it. Help me out.

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: OK, well, first there is no language yet. He will not actually mark up the -- Bush's supplemental request until March, so...

HUME: There's a supplemental appropriations request, to which he intends to add amended -- amendment with language in it that would do what?

KONDRACKE: That would deny funds for any troops that go to Iraq unless they meet certain benchmarks of training, of equipment, of -- they have to be back in the states a year, you can't send them over there if they haven't had their years rest. You can't extend troops beyond a certain length of time service in Iraq. You cannot extend their service. The stop-loss that he referred to is a method of extending people who -- beyond their contracted for time...

Scheduled rotation...

KONDRACKE: No, or even their term of service. It is a kind of forced to draft, if you like. That's what critics of it say. Look, I mean it's pretty clever on two different levels. One, it pretends to be for the troops, I mean, to make sure that they're trained adequately and rested adequately and all this. And it's also appears to be for the troops in that if are -- if you vote against the supplemental with this in it, you'll be against funding the troops while they're in combat.

HUME: The rest of the troops are already over there too, right?

KONDRACKE: Yeah. Yeah, except that it is truly anti-troop, because you've got -- the surge will be well underway and what Murtha is going to try to do is deny reinforcements for these troops. Help -- help will let be on the way if this passes, leaving them more vulnerable than they were.

HUME: Nina, what do you think its chances of passing are?

NINA EASTON, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: I think there's a possibility it'll pass...

HUME: Pass the House.

EASTON: Pass the House.

HUME: And the Senate?

EASTON: But it could -- here's what it could do. He could provoke a constitutional clash, here. If it passed the House -- and let's say it passed the Senate without a filibuster, which is a big if, but as Mort mentioned, this is clever, this is saying we're for the troops, we just want them trained and well taken care of. How can you be against that?

So, you could see it gaining some momentum. What happens if it passes both Houses and it lands on the president's desk and the president says, "I'm sorry, I'm commander in chief, this is micromanaging the war. I'm going to ignore this." He might not even bother to veto it and then it goes to the courts.

HUME: Well, he's got to sign the appropriations bill to get...

EASTON: Or he vetoes -- well, but here's...

HUME: If it's an appropriations bill he's got to sign that to get the money.

EASTON: Well, but here's the other piece of all of this, is there's already been money appropriated for this fiscal year, which ends in September, which can be used to finance the troops, the initial piece of the surge.

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: Yeah that's true. Look a surge is already taking place. They've already moved in the brigade from Kuwait, they've already -- there's some of the troops are being held over from rotating out that are there. There'll be at least one, maybe two more American brigades there before this can be acted on with a supplemental, sometime next month, in March.

And the truth is, as clever as this is, Congressman Murtha is pretty frank about what it is, you know, that it affects the money, it's redirecting the money to deny reinforcements, to deny resources to support the troops who are already there.

HUME: Which is the very thing that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said yesterday the House Democrats were not about.

BARNES: This is way too clever by a half for two reasons. One, it's clear what Democrats are doing. I mean, and it's, I think, excessively cynical, even by the standards of Congress. And secondly, Nina touched on a problem here for Democrats. In micromanaging the war with all these restrictions and so on that Mort talked about, they risk taking ownership of this war. I mean, this is Bush's war, it's the Republican's war, but if they're going to apply all these standards to it and micromanage the war, it's going to become their war or it could become their war.

KONDRACKE: Look, I do not think it could possibly pass, because it will certainly be blocked in the Senate, and eventually, the troops are going to get their money. In the meantime -- because we're just not going to cut off -- Congress is not going to cut the troops off -- But in the meantime, the president has all kinds of authority to use this that's already been appropriated, he can move around all kinds of money within the Pentagon budget, the courts have upheld his ability to do so and said that this is an executive responsibility, it's not up to congress to say where money gets spent in time of war.

EASTON: And I was going to say that Murtha, I mean he has said, he's clear, this isn't a you meet the standards and you can have the surge. He's setting up standards, by definition, the Pentagon can't meet. I mean, he already said in an interview today that -- or yesterday that the surge - - the fact that some of the troops are going in already and other ones are to follow because they're not ready yet, says that they aren't ready. So, I mean, there's sort of -- there's no way of arguing against any of these standards that he's setting out there. He is trying to stop the surge.

HUME: Will it work?

EASTON: No.

KONDRACKE: No.

BARNES: Could pass. (INAUDIBLE)

HUME: But, in the end?

BARNES: In the end, it won't -- I think the president, as Nina suggested, would ignore it.

HUME: OK, quickly. Good politics?

EASTON: I think it's very smart politics on the Democrat's part.

KONDRACKE: I think if the Republicans' attack, as they should, as cutting off the funding for the troops, it's terrible politics for the Democrats.

BARNES: I mean, think they're playing with fire here. This could be bad politics for the Democrats.

HUME: Next up with the panel, a lot of Americans say it's too good to be -- too soon, excuse me, to be starting the 2008 presidential race, but is it already too late to stop the momentum and what will happen? What are they afraid of? Why not so soon? The panel will tell you what they think next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I am running. The answer is yes, I am running.

(APPLAUSE)

Hard and very fast and all lot sooner than I ever thought, but yes I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, he's been saying it everywhere, but what's interesting to us tonight about that is his remark about sooner than he ever thought. And he's not the only one saying that. Karl Rove warned, the other day, that this all starting way too early, that the public's going to get sick of this and there'll be a backlash against the candidates and it's a very bad.

We got a poll out -- our poll that's out tonight has a question on this: Is it too early for candidates to be campaigning? I thought the number would go the other way, but by a narrow plurality, the American people do not seem to think so. And the question of how much attention people are paying to this have been a lot of interest in this campaign. Nonetheless, there are people who see dangers in this all unfolding (INAUDIBLE), feels like, you know, Carl Cameron is up there freezing in New Hampshire already, he was up there tonight, the poor guy. What is -- is there really anything to worry about here?

KONDRACKE: I don't think so. Look, it is a very long time that they're going to run for a year before the primaries actually start, but there are a lot of candidates. It's a very important election, it's the first that we don't have an incumbent on either side or a vice president and you know, and there's a lot of -- there are a lot of issues to be explored in all that.

Now, I'm sure that a few months from now -- yeah, a few months from now, public interest is going to wane in this and people are going to say, "wake me up when something important happens." But, you know, these people have a lot of hands to shake, a lot of states.

HUME: All right, no, please, please.

KONDRACKE: Wait a second -- and the primaries...

BARNES: Stop Mort before he...

KONDRACKE: No, no, no. And the primaries on February 5 -- if they're going to campaign around February 5 to all those states, they have a lot of work to do.

HUME: All right, let's put the question another way. Then, so we go though this year, with everything accelerated and debates happening all through `07, and then in `08, the schedule has gotten shrunk down to the first opening weeks of the campaign. California's going to be in -- have its primary -- always use to be in June, that's going to be in February. I mean, it's possible the thing all of a sudden will be over like a one-round boxing match.

BARNES: Well, it has been in recent years.

HUME: Well, is there a danger in that?

BARNES: I think there is a danger in that, and it does sort of force candidates to start campaigning earlier. But the news media doesn't have to play along with it. Look, all these polls, you know, Hillary's 10 points ahead of Obama and so on, these polls are meaningless. I mean, we know better.

Look, who was the guy who was trailing badly in December of 2003 before the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Trailing badly? It was John Kerry. And all of a suddenly he wins in Iowa, then wins in New Hampshire, and it's locked up. We need to stop these polls.

The candidates are getting away with murder too, because, look, you had Giuliani on. It was already a big story when you announced his exploratory committee. Now he says he's really running, and that's a front-page story in the New York Times, anyway, and you had said a bite for him. Sometime soon, he's going to have his formal announcement of candidacy, and it'll get big play, too. It's ridiculous.

EASTON: I think most of America is not really paying a lot of attention at this point. I mean, they're...

HUME: We're not seeing that, though. The programming we're doing on politics, the ratings are good, the audience participation is strong. I'm astonished. I thought it would be in the low by now, but it's not.

EASTON: And you travel around California or out West, I mean, I don't -- there was...

HUME: Everywhere I go, people want to talk about it. I can't believe it. They want to talk about it more than I do.

KONDRACKE: They know who you are and they know what you're expert in.

HUME: And they all think I know that what's going to happen and I have no idea what's going to happen.

EASTON: But if we took the Karl Rove theory one step further where he said, well, it'll -- it's room for a fresh face, there are two fresh faces out there. The are very popular with the bases, one is Al Gore, who has not shut off -- close off the option...

HUME: He's a fresh face?

EASTON: Well, but he's not among the current crowd.

HUME: If he's a fresh face, I'm a fresh face.

EASTON: But he's, you know, with the Democratic Party base, you know, he's good on the war, he's good on global warming and he's, you know...

HUME: So, you think he's getting in?

EASTON: He hasn't said no to friends.

HUME: He said no to everybody but his friends.

KONDRACKE: But he hasn't said yes either.

EASTON: But, the other one, by the way, is Newt Gingrich, you know, who's sitting around on the sidelines with that sort of "draft me, draft me" sign on his nose.

BARNES: I want to give people advice. Any of these polls, ignore them. Any stories about fundraising by the candidates, ignore them...

HUME: Why that? Look, wait a minute, hold it a second. Let me -- let me -- fund-raising at this point is undoubtedly important.

BARNES: It's way exaggerated how important it is. These people, contrary to what Carl Cameron said, they don't need to raise $10 million a month for the rest of the year. They simply do not.

HUME: OK, but it is -- but poll ratings do help you when you're trying to raise money, do they not?

BARNES: I guess they do, a little, but that doesn't mean the poll ratings mean anything and they don't.

HUME: Well don't you...

KONDRACKE: Well then why...

(CROSSTALK)

BARNES: (INAUDIBLE) primaries that they don't -- they don't matter, they don't mean anything.

KONDRACKE: Every single candidate has a pollster who is out there trying to figure out what he or she ought to do in order to win bigger and better poll ratings.

BARNES: They're not wasting their money taking polls, because there's so many polls being done by FOX and everybody else. They have them do the polls.

KONDRACKE: Then why do they have all these pollsters on their payrolls?

BARNES: Because they're also strategists and advisors and so on.

HUME: So you think -- I wonder if the public thinks seeing this that debates will be this lively when they finally start to happen.

EASTON: And this fascinating.

BARNES: No debates before the fall, that's another...

HUME: But they're happening.

KONDRACKE: But they're gong to happen, there are gong to be a ton of them.

HUME: There are going to be tons of them.

KONDRACKE: And you know something, I'm going to watch them, too. Some of them, anyway.

HUME: Some of them, you may even be involved in, who knows.

BARNES: Karl Rove said people will get tired of the candidates. I already am.

HUME: Uh-oh. Well, next time we're going to do politics, we'll let you take -- we'll give you the night off.

---

Sponsored Links

About Us | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy         © RealClearPolitics 2006