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March 12, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - March 12

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN DAVID VITTER (R), LOUISIANA: Obviously, I disagree with Rudy on some significant social issues, and these are very important to me and to many people I represent. But after numerous personal meetings with the mayor, it's very clear to me that he's not running for president to advance any liberal social agenda.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you considering running for president in 2008?

FRED THOMPSON (R), FMR TENNESSEE SENATOR: I'm given some thought to it, going to leave the door open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: A couple of important -- and finally, there was this today, another development. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, after considerable fanfare that brought some reporters from Washington all the way out to Omaha, where he addressed reporters today about his future, he got up and announced that, and I quote, he was there to announce that his family and he will make a decision on his political future later this year. Oh, boy.

Some thoughts on all this now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call; and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio -- FOX NEWS contributors, all.

Well, let's dispose of these things in reverse order. First of all, what is up with Hagel?

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: Mort and I was saying earlier how glad we were that we weren't out there to cover it. I mean, in fact all these reporters to Omaha because you're going to announce whether you're going to run or not with the expectation, of course, that if you're going to go to all this trouble, you'd probably announce you were going to run. He said he'd tell them later. I mean, check with me later.

HUME: Mort, is Hagel, you know, OK?

MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: Oh, I think he's OK. The body English suggests that he intended to announce something and then screeched to a halt and decided that he was undecided, so he postponed it. One option...

HUME: It takes a courageous man to decide he's undecided.

KONDRACKE: Well, or an indecisive person. But one option that he opened up, he said -- one of the things he said was that there's a new political center of gravity developing that's bigger than both parties. The need to solve problems and meet challenges is overtaking the ideological debates of the past three decades. That sounds like somebody who's preserving the option of being a third party independent. The problem with Hagel is that it costs a lot of money. He's got a lot of money, but not that kind of money. It's a Michael Bloomberg opportunity, not a Chuck Hagel opportunity.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Michael Bloomberg opportunity. Although maybe if Michael Bloomberg and Chuck Hagel joins forces. Maybe that's a trial balloon to see if anybody rallies to the idea of him as an independent.

HUME: All right, let's move on then. Fred Thompson has stuck his toe in the water, so to speak. To what effect, Mara, in your judgment?

LIASSON: Well, I think it's the same kind of thing. Why in this completely bizarre and unfathomable Republican field, why shouldn't you just make yourself available? I mean, this is the weirdest year, I really think, for Republicans. You've got three major candidates, all of whom seem unacceptable for some reason to Republicans or improbable.

On the other hand, you have candidates who are kind of waiting in the wings, a Newt Gingrich or a Fred Thompson. And a lot of what's happening in the Republican field doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There is no frontrunner. Republicans generally like to coalesce around a frontrunner early. I think Fred Thompson is doing exactly what he said. He is leaving the door open, see what happens. People clamor for him to run.

HUME: Is it likely that Fred Thompson, who I guess, has a pretty solid record as a conservative, when he was in the Senate, and I guess a conservative prosecutor on Law and Order, or chief prosecutor, as a tough guy, is it likely that he'll attract a lot of support from people who are disaffected with the three principal candidates right now?

BARNES: Well he might, but he's to go out and try to get them he can't appear on FOX NEWS SUNDAY and leave it at that. He's got to go out there and try to get them.

But look, he's attracted for the same reason that Jim Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia, who's now in the race, was attracted to other running. Because there's this huge block of conservative voters who are unclaimed and are still looking around. This is why Newt Gingrich is hoping to get them later in the year.

HUME: And most Americans have doubtless not heard of David Vitter. We all have, of course. We all know him, he's been around town for a while.

It is unusual that a conservative Republican senator from Louisiana would embrace Rudy Giuliani, given his political profile at this stage of the race. How -- what does that say to us about the state of this race? I mean, we have been saying on this -- at this desk for some time that despite the polls we kind of believed, and all of us, I think, accepted the idea that John McCain remained the frontrunner in the Republican field. Does he now?

KONDRACKE: It's hard to sustain that when the gap between Giuliani and McCain keeps widening, and Giuliani attracts support. Now, it's going to be -- I think it's going to be fascinating to see how senators line up. Senators know McCain very well. And if they start not endorsing McCain, I think that that's going to raise further questions about him.

HUME: And how about Giuliani?

LIASSON: I think what's significant is to test this. This is so early. Let's see in three or four months when people really know about Giuliani. Now, the conventional wisdom, as we've been saying for months, well, as soon as conservatives, Republicans will know. I think people still don't know. They don't know a lot of things about him except he's a hero of 9/11.

BARNES: He has this gauntlet to run where everything about his family life and his other aspects of his personal life and his divorce and his kids and everything and his social liberalism are all going to be thrown out there and...

HUME: You think people don't know that now?

BARNES: No, I think what they -- (INAUDIBLE) Mort -- I think what they don't know is the family stuff. I think most Republicans now know that he is a social liberal. And ones like David Vitter are willing to set that aside, which is important, if Conservatives do that.

HUME: It does raise the question of whether, in fact, in this election year -- you look at the numbers on the war. Wildly unpopular among Democrats, wildly unpopular among Independents, completely different picture in the Republican Party. Is it possible that for this Republican Party, this political season, that the war is so paramount that somebody who has a strong record there or appears to, that that can trump these other questions?

KONDRACKE: Well, look, McCain's the strongest record pro-Bush. But all the other candidates...

HUME: Well, on some things.

KONDRACKE: Well, I mean, supporting the war itself. But all the other three -- two major candidates, Giuliani and Romney, are all saying that they would be in favor of the surge. Fred Thompson said yesterday he would be in favor of the surge, so nobody is running away. And now Hagel is not in the race, so we don't have an anti-war Republican.

HUME: All right, next up with the panel, we'll talk about President Bush's trip to Latin America, which is almost over. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: It's very important for the people of South America and Central America to know that the United States cares deeply about the human condition, and that much of our aid is aimed at helping people realize their God-given potential.

HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The president of the United States is dead politically, because when I say politically dead, I mean he wants me actually physically dead, and I want to see him as a political cadaver, which he already is. He already is. He is a political cadaver.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, folks, there you have a nice contrast. President Bush sending his message to the people in the Latin American countries that he has visited, in that case it was Columbia, and then you have Hugo Chavez who has been touring around the region making speeches like that.

BARNES: Why, Brit, I don't understand Chavez. If Bush is a political cadaver, why is he chasing him all over South America, nipping at his heels, condemning him and so on? Bush is obviously not a political cadaver. I think this trip looked pretty good. Bush went around, mingled with a lot of normal people in South America, and as trite as we might think that message is, "I care," I think that's a message that probably a lot of people in south America would like to hear.

And Chavez, Chavez -- and also, the angry crowds were small, and Chavez had -- where he had to buy up to $3 million of Argentine debt -- three billion, or promise to, to have the Argentine government give him a soccer stadium and then send the crowd. You know, they bused this crowd in, they probably paid them as well. Look, Chavez isn't popular in south America. Bush is more popular than he is, actually, as polls show.

LIASSON: Then he must be really unpopular because look, the fact is Bush is unpopular in South America. That doesn't mean he isn't doing the right thing, however late in his term. Talking about social justice...

HUME: How do we know how unpopular he is?

LIASSON: Just based on the protests. And you can't say they were...

HUME: They were pretty brisk in Columbia. Pretty brisk protests.

LIASSON: I also think the message of "we care" reminds me a lot of what Bush's father did in New Hampshire. Remember, the message "I care" to the people who were hurting from the economy then. And I think it's better late than never, but it is late and it does sound -- seem like a turnaround from what he did in his earlier years.

KONDRACKE: But in a straight match between Bush and Chavez, you know, I don't think that Chavez particularly got the better of him. I mean, there were not the massive demonstrations. You remember when John F. Kennedy was first president, he went to Latin America and there were riots in the streets everywhere because of the Castro-ism or whatever it was, populism was ascendant, and this time it's all rather bland. And Chavez didn't get anything particularly going.

HUME: Well, it seems to me that every recent American president has sooner or later, usually later, made a trip to Latin America. Now, Bush has touched down there before, but there's a tour that you do, and this was it. And it's always late in the administration, and it never gets much news coverage because people in North America are not that interested in what's going on in South America. It has been true for as long as I can remember. Why is that?

(CROSSTALK)

BARNES: It was written in the New York Post that you have to watch the television cameras. If they show these angry crowds at street level, you know, there are not many people there. If there are a lot of people there, they will show from the top of a building. These were all street level television shots on this trip.

KONDRACKE: I mean, there is a tussle in Latin America between Chavez- ism and capitalism. And he's spending all kinds of money and trying to influence elections. He tried to influence the Mexican election. It didn't work.

HUME: Chavez.

KONDRACKE: Chavez. And, you know, it is not his kind of extreme socialism, Castro-ism is not working. Even leftists like Desilva in brazil are not Chavez types. You know, they're populists, they want to spread the wealth around, but they're not militant anti-Americans as evidenced by the fact that Bush was there with Desilva.

BARNES: Yeah, they know that wealth has to be created, and they want to create it. And look, it's lucky for Chavez that he has some oil. But, that wouldn't stop him from bringing Venezuela down to be a socialist utopia which means that everybody will be poor.

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