Election 2008 Democrats | Republicans | General Election: Heads-to-Heads | Latest Polls

---

September 27, 2007

Panel: Republicans (Not) at Morgan State

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS: I would immediately begin that process. We would get combat troops out of Iraq.

SEN HILLARY CLINTON, (D) NEW YORK: It is my goal to have all troops out by the end of my first term.

JOHN EDWARD, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do not think we should continue combat missions in Iraq.

BILL RICHARDSON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My position in bringing all troops out of Iraq is to end the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well that gives you a little sample of what these Democratic candidates were saying in the debate last night, in which they all, all the frontrunners came a little short of saying that they would immediately and promptly end the U.S. mission in Iraq.

Some thoughts on this now from Bill Sammon, Senior White House Correspondent for the Washington Examiner and author of a new book about President Bush entitled "The Evangelical President," also Mort Kondracke, Executive Editor of Roll Call, and the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, Fox News contributors all.

Well, it seems to me we got a little detail, a little more information about where these Democrats really stand on the war in Iraq last night. Do you agree, Mort?

MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: The big three are not going to pull out completely.

HUME: They being?

KONDRACKE: They being Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards were not going to pull all of the troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term. That is fairly significant.

HUME: First term?

KONDRACKE: First term--2013.

On the other hand, Edwards and Obama both said that there would be no combat troops left. Now how you are going to fight Al Qaeda or Muqtada al- Sadr with no combat troops and nobody to guard the support troops that are there, I do not understand.

So the only one who comes out saying that she is going to mount a robust counterterrorism mission is Hillary Clinton, and we don't even know how many troops she would leave behind.

BILL SAMMON, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: One of the things that President Bush has been doing behind the scenes is advising through back channels Hillary Clinton, believe it or not, and these other top tier candidates through aides to--

HUME: Through briefings?

SAMMON: Yes. And it's not--they haven't got to the point where it is like the formal CIA briefings. That will comes closer to the actual general election.

But he has been informally sending advice to the top tier presidential candidates to leave a little wiggle room in your antiwar rhetoric, so that when you are out there on the campaign trail saying "I will end the war and bring everybody home," you leave a little bit of room so that if you end up by chance getting to be president you will be able to actually, at least have the potential to continue prosecuting the war.

And I think you are starting to see some of the wiggle room. And in the book I put out this week predicting this, you are starting to see that wiggle room in a way that--a couple months ago Hillary was saying if Bush doesn't end the war by January, 2009, I will.

That sounded a little bit more unequivocal than what she is saying now. She is say "I am going to leave some combat troops in"--

HUME: The only candidate in that field who says he will pull them all out right away is Bill Richardson, who was one of the most seasoned players in terms of world affairs in the whole group. What's up?

KRAUTHAMMER: This is the big leagues of pandering. He is the guy with the most experience in foreign affairs, a U.N. ambassador, and he is essentially saying "I am not just in favor of a retreat, I am in favor of a route. I want to leave equipment behind." But he is not a serious candidate.

The reason that you get the change in tone from the three major candidates is because over the last, say, six months something has changed on the ground in Iraq--some success.

And as a result of that, they begin to understand that the president has won himself almost a year of leeway in continuing the Petraeus strategy, which means that in the absence of a catastrophe the odds are that the president will succeed in having his policy in place through January, 2009, which means they all understand they are not going to inherit an Iraq in which Americans are on the way out as people had imagined would happen this summer, that Democrats would force a withdrawal or retreat or a change in strategy.

That is not going to happen. Our aggressive strategy is going to continue. We are going to be in place. And once the serious candidates understood that, the rhetoric has changed accordingly.

HUME: What have we learned from this debate about where these candidates stand and what they are prepared to do to keep Iran from going nuclear?

KONDRACKE: Hillary Clinton was the only one of the candidates who was in the Senate to sign on to this Kyl-Lieberman resolution, which declares the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization. All the rest of them said this is a step towards war.

Not one of the candidates in the debate said that they would use the military option themselves, the United States--even contemplate. They all said we will talk, we will have economic sanctions, and all of that.

And when you don't even mention that there is a military option, what it tells the Iranians is we don't have to worry about them.

SAMMON: On the other hand they didn't take it off the table, which is basically what Bush does. He leaves the military option on the table.

But you are right. When Hillary was asked specifically she said we need to talk, we need to do economic sanctions we haven't even tried.

HUME: Did anybody say they would be prepared if necessary to take military action?

SAMMON: No. The people they are appealing to in the Democratic primary are the liberals.

KRAUTHAMMER: I don't think the words "military option," or any implication, or even any reference to that emerged in any of the answers by any of the candidates in relation to Iraq.

A Republican would say "I will leave everything on the table." But a Democrat is not allowed to say that because he will be accused by Edwards of preparing a war on Iran.

What Edwards did in attacking Hillary over her vote on the Lieberman- Kyl amendment, in which she had been in favor of designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorists--

SAMMON: I thought from the standpoint of the general election, the worst case for all the Democrats was the answer on terrorism, which you referred to in the grapevine, when--

HUME: On torture.

SAMMON: Yes, torture. Here you have the equivalent of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--there's a big bomb about to go off in an American city, and they would not water board the fellow to find out where it was?

Now, one of them would do it. And John Edwards said not only that, wouldn't I not to that, but I am going to stop illegal spying against American citizens as though we are all being bugged all the time.

HUME: When we come back, there is another debate tonight. This time it's GOP's turn, but where are the front-runners? Not there. We'll find out all about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL STEELE, GOPAC CHAIRMAN: How many opportunities are you going to have to demonstrate that we're not anti-African-American, we're not anti-minority, that our policies and our views on these issues come from the same place that theirs does?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: That's Michael Steele, the prominent Maryland politician and former Senate candidate making the point that the Republicans are at some risk when the front runners in their presidential campaign take a pass on the debate, like the one tonight, being moderated by the African-American television personality and radio personality, Travis Smiley over at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

So they are not showing up. He says it is a missed opportunity. Is it really a missed opportunity if you are a Republican running in a Republican primary?

KRAUTHAMMER: Yes because you are going to ultimately--you want to win the nomination. You want to run in the general election. And even though this is not going to affect you right now, it will affect you in the general election, people are going to remember. And I think that Michael Steele is right on the politics of this.

If you want to talk about the principle, what a candidate should have said early on is there are an obscene number of debates. I will not go to any debates which have to do with a particular constituency.

I am not going to go to a Hispanic debate, or a gay debate, or a black debate, or union debate, or a teacher debate. I will only have debates which are nation and open and general.

I will speak to particular groups, but debates ought to be restricted and ought to be of a general nature.

However, to say "No" to a black debate, Hispanic debate, as many of these candidates have done, is bad politics and it will hurt them in the general election.

KONDRACKE: It is kind of pathetic that the Republican Party candidates for president cannot speak to about 26 percent of the American people, 12 percent of whom are African-Americans and 14 percent are Hispanics, and the largest growing group in America is Hispanics. It is understandable--

HUME: They can speak to them, they are just not getting into a debate--

KONDRACKE: Well, they are ducking it. I think they are afraid.

In the case of African-Americans, about 9 percent of African-Americans vote Republican in a general election. So you can say "Well we can forget about them."

It is not wise to do so, and it is kind of sad they don't have the confidence to be able deal with the issues of concern to African-Americans without being afraid of being accused of racism, or something like that.

But in the Hispanic case it is understandable because they are all, expect for John McCain, such hot dogs on the anti-immigration now, that they figure that they would just get pummeled.

SAMMON: I think it makes perfect sense not to go because the goal of the primary is to win over conservative voters. It is an issue of timing.

These people probably go to these debates in the general election. That is when you counter-program, that is when you attach to the center.

HUME: The general election, that is when you have the big national debates. There aren't any interest group debates in the general election--

SAMMON: I would bet you that if some big pro-life group said we are going to do a debate and invite all of the Democrats here in the primary, do you think the Democrats would show up for that? They wouldn't even show up for a FOX News debate.

And the Republicans are being savaged for not showing up--there is nothing to gain from going to the debates. It is a busy season, the last couple of days for fund raising for the quarter.

Their goal--you have to remember in the Republican side it is a jump ball for the nomination, it's a real contest, unlike the Democratic side where Hillary pretty much seems to have it locked up.

They have to get across that finish line and win the nomination. And then they can worry about doing these kinds of debates. Right now you have to appeal to the conservatives.

KRAUTHAMMER: But we just said in criticizing Democrats on their debate that on these major issues they marginalize themselves for the inevitable general election in taking views which are a pander to the left on Iraq, Iran.

There was an instance in the Democratic debate where John Edwards was asked if he had a problem with a school teacher who had read a story about a prince marrying a prince, a homosexual marriage, to students in the second grade. And he said who am I to impose my values on children.

And to give an answer like that, and when that happens, there is going to be a general election, and it's going to hurt you.

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