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January 06, 2008

Romney & Huckabee On "Fox News Sunday"

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace in New Hampshire, and this is "Fox News Sunday."

Iowa votes for change over experience for president. Now it's time for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary.

Will the Iowa bounce pay off for caucus winner Mike Huckabee? We'll talk with the former Arkansas governor about his plan for victory.

Then, after spending millions and coming in second in Iowa, does Mitt Romney now have to win in the Granite State? We'll ask him.

Also, we'll examine Barack Obama's stunning victory and the jumbled state of the Republican race with our Sunday regulars -- Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams -- all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello from the campus of St. Anselm College just outside Manchester, New Hampshire. In less than 48 hours, voters head to the polls for the first-in-the-nation primary. And as you'd expect, campaigning here this weekend has been intense.

For the latest on both races, let's bring in Fox News correspondent Major Garrett, who's covering the Democrats, and Carl Cameron, who's following the Republicans.

Carl, why don't you go first?

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS: Hi, Chris. Well, we are in Exeter, New Hampshire, both historically and currently important.

Back in 1776, fully six months before the Declaration of Independence was signed, New Hampshire became the first state of the 13 colonies to declare itself an independent state, and it happened right here. And then in 1853, the Republican Party was created here.

And last night, the Republican Party candidates were debating, and it was Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who took something of a pounding from several of his rivals who went after him for attack politics and, they said, for changing his positions, code for being a flip-flopper. Here's a sampling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: Look, you know, Governor, don't try and characterize my position. Of course, this war has...

HUCKABEE: Which one?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: My friend, you can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, but it still won't be true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMERON: And back now live here in Exeter. We talked with state officials yesterday, and they singled out this city as being perhaps the bellwether for the New Hampshire primary, now in less than 48 hours.

This city has about one-third Democratic voters. A slightly smaller group, but still close to one-third, will be Republicans. And the biggest group of all of them are independents.

And in this city and in this state, undecideds and independents will make all the difference. And for more on how it will go in the Democratic race, here's my colleague, Major Garrett.

MAJOR GARRETT, FOX NEWS: Carl, thank you very much.

And good morning. For Hillary Clinton's campaign, the air of inevitability, if it ever really existed, ended Thursday. And in last night's debate, the last one before Tuesday's primary, the air of civility ended, too.

With an intensity never before seen in this campaign, Hillary Clinton said she is the true agent of change and openly questioned whether her top rival, Barack Obama, could ever live up to the high- flying rhetoric he's used in this campaign.

After the debate, senior Clinton advisers portrayed Obama as a flip- flopper, one who could not possibly deliver the change he's promised on this campaign.

And in an exchange with Obama that many found heated, but the Clinton campaign called merely passionate, Clinton said if voters want change, they better trust somebody with experience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I'm not just running on a promise of change. I'm running on 35 years of change. I'm running on having taken on the drug companies and the health insurance companies, taking on the oil companies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: Barack Obama did his best to deflect Clinton's charges, reminding the audience over and over again that he might not have Washington experience, but he had the judgment to oppose the Iraq war long before it started, something his contemporaries did not do.

Afterward, Obama advisers said that they doubted that New Hampshire voters would respond positively to negative attacks launched at the last minute. And Obama, during the debate, warned Clinton not to overreach on her accusations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What I think is important that we don't do is to try to distort each other's records as, you know, election day approaches here in New Hampshire, because what I think the people of America are looking for are folks who are going to be straight about the issues and are going to be interested in solving problems and bringing people together.

That's the reason I think we did so well in Iowa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: For the Obama campaign, it's all about maintaining the momentum they brought here from Iowa.

Chris, you can look over my shoulder and see an enormous crowd -- it's more than a block long -- outside the Palace Theater here in downtown Manchester waiting to see Obama.

For the Obama campaign, crowds mean momentum. Momentum means a path to victory come Tuesday.

Chris?

WALLACE: Major Garrett and Carl Cameron, reporting from the campaign trail.

Gentlemen, thanks to both of you.

Joining us now here in New Hampshire is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Well, we've all got colds, don't we, today?

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We sure do.

WALLACE: And, Governor, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday." Your main message here in New Hampshire is that people want to see Washington change and that John McCain is not an agent of change.

But back in 2002, when McCain was campaigning for you when you were running for governor of Massachusetts, you said this, and let's put it up on the screen. "He," McCain, "has always stood for reform and change, and he's always fought the good battle, no matter what the odds."

Governor, why have you changed your opinion of John McCain?

ROMNEY: Oh, I still think he's a battler for change. He's just been there 27 years and hasn't been able to get the job done. He's somebody who wants to change Washington. He talks about changing Washington. But he's been there so long, he's got so many lobbyists at each elbow, he's worked so long -- in many cases, he's a maverick against his own party.

He has brought some bills in place like McCain-Feingold, which hurt our party and I think hurt the First Amendment.

He fought for immigration law, which I think was a terrible course, which said that all the illegal aliens that had come here illegally would be able to stay in this country forever. That was a mistake.

So he's out there fighting. He's a good fighter. And I'll introduce him as a fighter and a friend, but I just disagree with him, and I think he's been ineffective in being able to make the changes that America wants to see.

Washington is broken. America is saying it loud and clear. You had in Iowa a number of experienced senators going up against folks that were new faces, governors, and the experienced senators lost.

On the Democratic side, Barack came forward. On our side, Governor Huckabee and I outperformed the senators. And I think people want change from the outside.

WALLACE: All right. Talking about you and change, McCain says, and let's put this up on the screen, "I have not changed my position on every major issue every couple of years."

And the conservative Manchester Union Leader newspaper here in New Hampshire hit the same note. "Granite staters want a candidate who will look them in the eye and tell them the truth. Mitt Romney has not. He has spoken his lines well, but the people can sense that the words are memorized and not heartfelt."

And there was this piling on that Carl Cameron showed on you by the others in the debate. The impression seems to be, the line seems to be -- forgive me -- you're a phony.

ROMNEY: You know, it's fine for people to try and push that as a political campaign and as a theme, and the McCain folks have done that from the beginning.

It's not going to stand up to the test of time very simply because I was governor for four years. I served as governor. And you can see what things I did as governor. And my postures and positions as president are identical to those as governor. They all flow from them.

I get a lot of grief from the fact that I was effectively pro- choice and that I became pro-life when I became a sitting governor. There's no question about that. I'm not going to apologize for it. It's true.

But I have fought for traditional values throughout my term as governor. My posture on keeping taxes down and getting spending down in government is something I fought for throughout my term. I protected marriage in every way I knew how as a governor.

And you know, I'd also note that I did something that I don't think anyone thought was possible. I found a way to work with Democrats in my legislature to get health care, health care insurance, for all our citizens.

So I'm proud of my record, and I'm running on my record, and my views are consistent with that record.

And frankly, people can make all the jokes they want to, but when it comes time to have a face to face, we can talk with Senator McCain about the fact that he was against ethanol till he was serious about being in Iowa. Then he was for ethanol. And now he's against ethanol again.

He voted against the Bush tax cuts, but now he says he'd be in favor of making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

He was against the confederate flag being at the state house in South Carolina, but then he was for it. But now he's against it again.

Everybody over time is going to make an experienced judgment based on what they see at the time or what they think is right, and no candidate has been the same throughout the entire process. And if they have, I'll show you a candidate that ought to be pushed aside, because you know what? You should learn from experience.

And if you want somebody who's never learned from experience, who's never made a mistake, I'm not your guy.

WALLACE: Let me just say, as the moderator of the Fox presidential forum at 8:00 p.m. tonight on the Fox News Channel, I can't wait. We're going to have a rumble here tonight, aren't we?

ROMNEY: It depends on how you do.

WALLACE: Well, I'm just asking questions. Let you guys go. You sound like you're loaded.

I have been watching your T.V. ads in Iowa and also here in New Hampshire, and I have to say -- and I know you're going to disagree with me -- I think a lot of them have been negative ads. Here's one targeting John McCain. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: McCain pushed to let every illegal immigrant stay here permanently. He even voted to allow illegals to collect Social Security.

And Mitt Romney? Mitt Romney cut taxes and spending as governor. He opposes amnesty for illegals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Governor, let's talk about the accuracy of that ad. McCain never voted to let illegals collect Social Security. They would only get the money if they became legal, which is, in fact, what the current law is.

ROMNEY: No, what happens under the bill that -- and by the way, 44 Republicans voted no on that, and they said it was because it gave illegals Social Security.

Here's how it works. He has illegals that are here, which he then gives amnesty to, a form of amnesty to, to make them legal, and then they get credit in Social Security payments for the years they were here illegally.

WALLACE: Did you know that the law currently is that if someone is an illegal and has been working for years and putting money into Social Security, when they become legal that they get the Social Security that they've put into the system?

ROMNEY: And the difference with his bill is it says everybody in this country, everybody in this country, who's here illegally is going to be given permanent residency in this country and will be able to collect Social Security benefits for the years...

WALLACE: But you would agree with...

ROMNEY: ... in which they were here illegally, and that's...

WALLACE: But you would agree that -- you would agree it's misleading to the extent that they don't get Social Security while they're illegal.

ROMNEY: Every news article I saw about that bill, and every senator who voted against it, said what it does is it gives illegals Social Security.

WALLACE: Not until they become legal.

ROMNEY: Not until they've given them amnesty to make them legal, which is giving somebody who's here today illegally Social Security.

WALLACE: All right. Let's talk about this question of amnesty.

ROMNEY: And by the way, both those positions of John McCain's are so far out of touch with the people of this country that there was an outcry from the public saying, "You know what? He is simply wrong. Giving those people who come here illegally a right to permanently reside in the U.S. -- that's wrong."

And then voting saying that when they become legal here, under his form of amnesty, they're going to get Social Security -- the American people rose up so loudly that Congress had to reverse itself and say, "What we put in place was simply wrong."

WALLACE: Let's talk a little bit about this plan, the McCain plan that you say is so out of touch.

Back in 2005, why did you tell the Boston Globe that McCain's plan was, quote, "reasonable?" And let's put the rest of it up on the screen. "Romney described immigration proposals by McCain and others as quite different from amnesty because they required illegal immigrants to register with the government, work for years, pay taxes, not take public benefits, and pay a fine before applying for citizenship."

Some people would say that's a flip-flop on your part, sir.

ROMNEY: Well, it would sure sound like it if you didn't have the rest of the story, and that was all of these bills or all of the provisions including Cornyn's, I believe, were reasonable. And I think they were reasonable.

But the final bill that John McCain came out with was not the one he had there. McCain-Kennedy had amnesty for 10 percent, 20 percent of the illegal aliens. But the final Senate bill that he brought forward, the final bill that he championed along with Ted Kennedy and others...

WALLACE: But his final bill did register -- you did have to register with the government. You did have to work for years. You did have to pay taxes. You couldn't get public benefits. And you paid a fine. True?

ROMNEY: The final bill he brought forward said that every illegal alien, every single illegal alien, other than those that had committed crimes, was able to stay in this country permanently.

That was what was wrong with it. It was a blanket amnesty in form. Now...

WALLACE: So you have flip-flopped on this issue of...

ROMNEY: I have opposed this bill from the outset. I have opposed it from the outset.

WALLACE: Even though you said in 2005 McCain's plan was reasonable.

ROMNEY: Again, McCain's original plan is quite different than the final plan, and I said all the bills were reasonable.

I also, in that same quote, said none of them had I studied in depth, none of them had I endorsed. I would review them and decide which I would endorse.

The final bill that came out was a bill that said every illegal that comes to this country gets to stay here permanently. That is a form of amnesty -- technically, it is not, of course, because there's a fine. Technically, it is not amnesty.

But in reality, in the colloquial expression that Americans would use, saying that everybody who's here illegally gets to stay here legally is a form of amnesty.

And, Chris, we can spend all of our time trying to define words or we can say, "Do you agree with the McCain position that all those people who've come here illegally should be able to stay?" I do not. I've always said I think that's wrong. It's the wrong course for America.

WALLACE: Do you have to win in New Hampshire? How can a former governor of the neighboring state of Massachusetts, who has a vacation home here in New Hampshire -- how can you lose in this state and still be a credible candidate?

ROMNEY: Easy, because there have been a lot of people who have not won either Iowa or New Hampshire to go on to win the nomination of their party.

And as for being for the neighboring state, I'm not sure people in New Hampshire are wild about the neighboring state of Massachusetts. But I'm planning on winning here. I hope I win here.

But if I don't win here, it's going to probably be a close contest, and I, frankly, don't think that the Republican Party is going to nominate John McCain.

I don't think they're going to nominate a person who voted against the Bush tax cuts and who consistently says he would do that same vote the same way again. He'd continue to vote against the Bush tax cuts. We're a tax- cutting party. He's not a tax-cutting leader.

Secondly, I don't think they're going to vote for somebody who is in favor of having all aliens stay in this country indefinitely, making them legal, if you will. I don't think that's going to happen.

And so I -- whether it happens here in New Hampshire or whether it goes on to Michigan, I don't think the American people are going to line up behind John McCain.

WALLACE: Governor Huckabee's campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, suggests that they may enter -- the Huckabee camp -- a temporary alliance with McCain against you.

He said, and let's put it up on the screen, "We're going to see if we can take Romney out. We like John. Nobody likes Romney." Your reaction, sir?

ROMNEY: Well, he also said he wants to knock my teeth out and shoot me, so he's kind of a colorful character. My comment was, "Look, if you're going to knock my teeth out, just make sure not to touch the hair."

WALLACE: Finally, how much of your personal fortune have you spent on this campaign so far?

ROMNEY: More than I'd like to, but less than I'm willing to, and I'm not going to...

WALLACE: Well, you have to disclose everything else. Can you tell us how much you spent?

ROMNEY: Yeah, on January 15th, but not before then.

WALLACE: Why not?

ROMNEY: Well, there are certain competitive advantages I have by not letting my competition know exactly what I'm doing, and I intend to hold those competitive advantages as long as I can.

WALLACE: Have you set a cap, a limit, an upper limit, on how much you are willing to spend to get yourself elected president?

ROMNEY: No, but Ann has.

WALLACE: So there's an upper...

ROMNEY: There's a cap, absolutely.

WALLACE: Governor Romney, we want to thank you so much for sharing part of your campaign day with us. And especially after seeing how fired you are this morning, we look forward to seeing you tonight at the presidential forum.

ROMNEY: Thanks, Chris. Good to see you.

WALLACE: It should be interesting.

ROMNEY: Thank you.

WALLACE: Up next, the man of the moment of the Republican race, Mike Huckabee. Can he keep the momentum going after Iowa and now persuade New Hampshire voters he's the one?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: And we're back live from the Fox box on the campus of St. Anselm College just outside Manchester, New Hampshire, where in just two days the first-in-the-nation primary will be held.

And joining us now fresh from his victory in Iowa is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Governor Huckabee, congratulations and welcome back, sir.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, Chris. Pleasure to be back.

WALLACE: You are talking somewhat less about faith here in New Hampshire and more about economic populism, looking out for the little guy. In a sense, are you trying to rebuild the Republican Party?

HUCKABEE: I think the Republican Party needs some repair. The Republican Party needs to remember that its strength was being the champion for small business. Eighty percent of all jobs in this country come from small business.

If we become the party that forgets that, if we become the party that does not empower the individual who wants to struggle from his place at the lower end of the economic spectrum up the ladder, then we're going to lose a lot of the base that gave us great strength, that helped us to become the majority party, that built the Reagan coalition, that also helped elect both George Bush 41 and George Bush 43.

WALLACE: As some of your critics, conservative critics, say, this sounds like Democratic class warfare.

HUCKABEE: Not at all. It is not class warfare. Look, I'm not about wanting to make rich people poor. I just would like to see that poor people have a chance to get rich.

And if we have an economic system that ignores the fact that $3- a- gallon gasoline really does hurt a working class family, health care costs going up double digits, really affects people's lifestyle -- and we've got people who, when asked how's the economy doing -- they just look around and they say, "It's just doing terrific," okay.

The macro economy is doing great. You can take a look at the stock market, take a look at how certain portfolios are performing and it looks great.

But translate that down to the factory worker who loses his job, take that down to the single parent for whom every day is a struggle to keep food on the table, and our party had better be talking to those people, because there's a whole lot of them.

I put it this way. Abraham Lincoln said it this way. God must love the common man because he made so many of them.

WALLACE: Your big idea in this campaign -- and you're one of the few, I've got to say, who has a big new idea -- is doing away with the IRS and creating the fair tax, which would be a consumption tax on...

HUCKABEE: Right.

WALLACE: ... all goods and services. Now, you and I have argued this several times so far...

HUCKABEE: Right.

WALLACE: ... this year. I want to go at it one more time. President Bush's tax commission says that a fair tax would reduce taxes for those making less than $30,000 a year and those making more than $200,000 a year, and it would increase taxes for everyone else. That doesn't help the little guy.

HUCKABEE: But his tax commission did not look at the fair tax. They looked at a consumption tax without the prebate provision and the provisions in the actual fair tax.

WALLACE: But that's how it ended up making -- reducing taxes for people making less than $30,000. They did look at a prebate.

HUCKABEE: Well, but the actual analysis was not of the fair tax proposal. And the reason I think that's important is because his commission was essentially a group of tax lobbyists.

Of course they don't like the fair tax. These are the guys that are going to go out of business. Thirty-five thousand lobbyists in Washington -- do you think they like the idea that a tax would be so simple that they couldn't really go in there and tinker with the congressmen and get them to...

WALLACE: Do you think President Bush was in bed with the tax lobbyists?

HUCKABEE: No. I think that he appointed a group of people that are tax experts, but they're tax experts tilted toward keeping the system the same with a few tweaks.

This is not a system -- put it this way. Eighty percent of the American people say, "We need a major overhaul of the tax system, not a tweaking of the tax system." And what the fair tax does -- it eliminates all of the current penalties on productivity.

I would suggest this. I would even challenge the other candidates. If you don't like the fair tax, tell me what you would do that would so eliminate capital gains, dividend taxes, income taxes on both corporations and individuals, payroll taxes, and that would be a better system that could empower people to go out and earn and keep what they earn.

WALLACE: Governor, you have also been critical of the president's foreign policy, and you've gotten some attention for this. In Foreign Affairs...

HUCKABEE: Oh, a little bit of attention on that, yeah, Chris.

WALLACE: In Foreign Affairs magazine, you write, and let's put it up, "The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad."

You also want to shut down Guantanamo. You also want to ban waterboarding. Governor Romney says, "This sounds more like Obama and Clinton and Edwards than it does like a Republican."

HUCKABEE: I spent a couple of hours with 12 different general officers from the Navy and the Army and the Marine Corps. It was a very fascinating discussion.

I share the same view that Colin Powell does, that every general officer that I know in the military shares, and that is that when you engage in torture, you do two things.

First, you do not get the information that you really are seeking because it's rarely reliable. And the second thing is that you do something to the people who carry out the torture, and I'm not sure we want to do, and that is that we ask them to violate the very code that we teach them when they're going through the military.

WALLACE: But I want to follow up on this question of the arrogant bunker mentality, because ever since you wrote it, you have been portraying it as, "Well, this is Don Rumsfeld refusing to go in with enough forces."

I read the article. I know yesterday you were challenging Mitt Romney. I read the article. That wasn't your point. Your point was that we need to make our fight against the terrorists, not against the world, that we have been making it against the world.

In what way has President Bush made our fight against terrorism a fight against, in effect, our allies in the rest of the world?

HUCKABEE: Well, I think the general theme is that when we say you're either with us or you're with the terrorists, that sort of, "Here's the line in the sand and it's all or nothing," sort of defies the basic rule of politics in that you want someone to be with you 100 percent, but if they're with you 80 percent, that's better than 0 percent.

Once you define the terms as 100 or zero, you often are going to get zero when you could have had 80. That's my point.

And I do stand by the fact that we did not listen to many of our military leaders when they told us how many troops we needed. That was, I think, a mistake that most people acknowledge.

It was interesting to me that Governor Romney, who you just had on the program, made the comment -- I think it was yesterday, in fact. He said that under his foreign policy, if he were president, it wouldn't be a "my way or no way" foreign policy.

That essentially mirrors what I've been saying, and I was glad he agreed with me on that one.

WALLACE: In last night's debate, you said that you supported President Bush's troop surge when he announced it in January of last year. But let's take a look at what you actually did say in January, and this is when Mitt Romney had already said that he approved the surge.

You said, "Well, I'm not sure that I support the troop surge, if that surge has to come from our Guard and Reserve troops, which have already been overly stretched."

Governor, you were not the supporter of the troop surge that you represented yourself as last night.

HUCKABEE: Well, I supported the surge. I questioned the use of our Guard and Reserve in repeated deployments because as a governor, I'd seen what that had done to our own Guard troop.

About 90 percent of our Guard have been deployed now to Iraq, and some repeated deployments, long periods of time, three out of five years. These are citizen soldiers. These are people who certainly are willing to go. I've never heard any of them complain.

But it's a real incredible, I think, challenge for not only the soldier but, more importantly, for their families, their employers and their communities.

And what we've done with Guard and Reserve forces has got to be changed. It's one of the things that I would do as a president.

And my point was and remains that if we're going to have the kind of war we're going to have, we've got to have more troops at the beginning.

WALLACE: Governor, I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I'm simply saying that you misrepresented yourself last night when you said you approved the troop surge. In fact, days later you said you weren't sure you supported the troop surge.

The fact is the Guard and the Reserve have been part of the troop surge.

HUCKABEE: They have been a part of it. And my point was and remains that we need regular Army. We've got to beef it up. The surge is working.

I think one of the things we've seen is it's been a dramatic success, and hats off to General Petraeus, and I'm grateful that he's been in that position.

WALLACE: Let's talk about the comments of your campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, who says you may enter a temporary alliance with McCain to take out Romney. Is that your plan here?

HUCKABEE: No. I love Ed. Every now and then I have to rein him in. He's an old boxer and loves to fight.

And it's not that we're conspiring with John McCain. Look, I've made no secret about it. I have admiration for John McCain. I consider him not only a friend and a colleague -- we differ on some issues.

But let me tell you what I respect about him. I think he's maintained the high road in the campaign, the manner in which he's run it. He has staked out his positions.

He has taken positions that sometimes are counter to maybe, say, the conventional Republican position, but he's done it with conviction and with courage, and I can respect that.

And I think he's come to respect me and that's all in the world there is. Both of us -- I'll tell you what we have in common.

We have both been brutally assaulted by Governor Romney with amazingly misleading ads that attacked and distorted and misrepresented our records, Romney attacking me in Iowa, attacking him in New Hampshire.

So I do think it's kind of created a brotherhood here. I would not deny that. But it's because we've both been the recipients of millions of dollars' -- millions of dollars' -- worth of negative ads.

WALLACE: Let's talk about where your campaign stands now. While you won, by all accounts, a remarkable victory in Iowa, the fact was 60 percent of the voters there were evangelicals. Eighty percent of the people who voted for you said they were evangelicals.

Don't you still have to demonstrate that you can reach out to a broad cross-section of voters?

HUCKABEE: Oh, I think not only that I have to, I think I am, Chris. If you look at those numbers carefully, we had a majority of the women. We had a majority of the younger voters in the Republican primary.

We had a majority of those who made less money than the ones who made more, which really kind of affirms my statement that people are looking for a president that reminds them of the guy they work with, not the guy that laid them off.

I think that what you saw in Iowa was that you have a lot of evangelicals. Most of them supported me, but 40 percent didn't. So it's not like they're all marching in lockstep and I say, "Hello, I'm an evangelical," and they all say, "Praise the lord and pass the ballot." I wish it were like that. I'd have won by an even bigger margin.

I won by a really good margin, but here's what people have to remember. We're number one in Delaware. We're leading in South Carolina. We're leading in Florida. We're second in California.

We're leading in places where it's not the evangelical vote. It's about people who really do want a president who's going to bring some significant differences not just to the Republican Party but to this nation and also will focus more on, as I often call it, the vertical politics of up and down, not the horizontal politics of left, right, liberal and conservative.

WALLACE: We've got about a minute left. How well do you have to do here in New Hampshire? And have you seen a boost in your campaign resources -- your money, to put it bluntly -- since you won in Iowa?

HUCKABEE: Big jump in the resources. Our online contributions at MikeHuckabee.com continue to just set new records each day. Our fundraisers -- we used to do $25,000 fundraisers. We now do $250,000 fundraisers when we do them.

People are beginning to realize this guy could win, and that was the only thing before that was happening.

WALLACE: And how do you have to do here in New Hampshire?

HUCKABEE: You know, most people didn't expect me to be in the top four or five. So I think if I beat those expectations, we're going to have a great victory. We'll go on from here.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: ... third, right?

HUCKABEE: Third would be fine. I mean, if we do third or even fourth, I think we're going to be sailing on and we're going to win South Carolina.

But let me tell you what's happening in New Hampshire. We are seeing great crowds and they're jazzed. We're pumped.

WALLACE: Well, that's because you're playing rock music.

HUCKABEE: That's what it is.

WALLACE: Thank you for joining us.

HUCKABEE: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: We have to leave it there, but we'll see you also tonight at the Fox presidential forum.

HUCKABEE: I look forward to it. Thank you.

WALLACE: Me, too.

Coming up, Barack Obama shakes up the Democratic contest with his big victory in Iowa. Has New Hampshire now become a must-win for Hillary Clinton? Our Sunday gang hashes it out when they join me here in the Fox box in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARDS: Every time I fight for change, the forces of status quo are going to attack, every single time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I've already made.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was one of several testy moments from last night's Democratic debate here in New Hampshire.

And it's time now for our Sunday regulars on their excellent adventure road trip -- Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News, and Fox News contributors Mara Liasson of National Public Radio; Bill Kristol, of The Weekly Standard and, starting tomorrow, a columnist for the New York Times; and Juan Williams, also from National Public Radio.

Well, gentlemen and lady, the Democrats went at it. For those not scoring at home, when Clinton talks about false hopes, that's a shot at Obama and all his talk about the audacity of hope.

Brit, how did you think everybody did last night?

HUME: Well, Hillary Clinton had to make something happen here because there was a tide coming out of Iowa, unmistakable.

The Democratic Party appeared and appears to be falling in love -- indeed, one might say deeply in love -- with Barack Obama. I don't think she could have afforded to come into this debate and do no runs, no hits, no errors.

She had to try to shake things up, and be strong, and take him on, and assert herself vigorously. The question for her is, and the question, I guess, for the voters is, was she attractive doing it. My sense is that perhaps not.

WALLACE: Mara, before you weigh in on this, let's put up some polls that we have. These are post-Iowa polls here in New Hampshire.

You can see the WMUR, which is a local T.V. station here, poll shows Clinton and Obama in a flat-footed tie. Let's look at the next one, from the Concord Monitor, one of the other papers here -- Obama with a one-point lead, statistically meaningless; in both polls, Edwards trailing by double digits.

Mara, what did you think of last night?

LIASSON: Look, when Brit says, you know, was she attractive doing it, that is the real dilemma for Hillary Clinton, this likability thing. I think the Democratic race, in a lot of ways, has turned into a popularity contest.

It's not about issues or differences on policy. It's about persona, leadership style. And I think what Hillary Clinton was trying to say last night was, "You know what? I am tough. You know, I might not be as inspiring as Barack Obama, but I'm tough. I'm tough enough to be a leader, and I'm tough enough to beat the Republicans in November."

She tried, I thought, two very different kind of modes of making her case last night. One was in the clip you just played, where she was very aggressive, going after Barack Obama, demanding that he gets the kind of scrutiny that she says she's taken.

But then also she did have one charming, kind of self-deprecating moment when she was asked about likability, and she said, "Well, gee, that hurts my feelings," and smiled. And it was adorable. You know, it was nice and funny. But that did come later in the debate.

I think her campaign is trying to have her showcase more of the latter. She had a two-hour town hall meeting yesterday. She took questions for two hours. That's showing that, A, she's very, very accessible and approachable and, B, that she's knowledgeable.

WALLACE: Bill, I know you came in here thinking -- came in post- Iowa thinking that Hillary Clinton really was in some trouble in this state, and that last night was terribly important to change the dynamics of the race. Did she?

KRISTOL: No. No, I don't think so. And I think Obama is in very, very good shape. She made no case, really, for why she should be president rather than Barack Obama.

If you're a Democrat, if you're a liberal, they are virtually identical on policy positions. On Iraq, kind of an important issue for Democrats, Obama was right from the Democratic point of view, and Senator Clinton was wrong.

The great test of her experience -- there she was in the U.S. Senate with all that experience, and she got hoodwinked by George W. Bush. I think Obama is in very, very good shape.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think that there's still a race here, and the reason there's a race here is because the Democratic Party establishment, the machine, really exists in a strong way here for Hillary Clinton.

And don't forget, you know, the comeback kid was Bill Clinton, who came here and, despite Gennifer Flowers, mounted sufficiently enough of -- showed enough sprint that he then later on went on to win the nomination. So this is not definitive.

But I will say that in talking to people in the Clinton camp, there's real anger she can't express because of just the point that was made earlier. She's got to prove herself likable. She's got to break through the ice queen image.

And so she wants -- and I think the Clinton camp wants -- the press to do more in terms of saying what was Obama's record, where's the substance in Obama. They want to take away the magic, the aura, the king-like Robert F. Kennedy image and bring him to ground.

And so that's what they've got to do in the next few days.

KRISTOL: Let me just make one point about that. Juan talks about the Clinton machine, and there is one. There's an Obama machine. I watched the debate last night at the home of a friend, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire, Pat Griffin.

His son is 19 years old. He's undeclared, undecided -- what do they call it here in New Hampshire? -- Undeclared, independent voter, so he could vote in the Democratic primary and, somewhat to his father's chagrin, I think he may.

The Obama campaign has contacted his house multiple times, both on the phone and in person -- very polite volunteers. They've got neighbors to come over and call them. They've invited him to a rally -- incredibly sophisticated rounding up or recruiting of young voters, especially, but in a very subtle and effective way.

Pat, who's been involved in politics for 25 years here in New Hampshire, says it's the most effective ground game he's seen.

So everyone says, "Well, Clinton has the establishment. Obama just has charisma." David Axelrod and the Obama team have built a terrific ground game here in New Hampshire. And I think that's why he's going to win out big.

He's going to turn out tons of younger voters here.

LIASSON: You know, one of the...

HUME: This race reminds me of nothing so much as Democratic Party nominating fight in 1984, where you had this man of Washington, Walter Mondale, who was very much in the same position as Hillary Clinton coming into the early primaries.

He, in fact, won Iowa quite easily. He came into New Hampshire and got his comeuppance, and the winner was Gary Hart, who, like him, had been a person of Washington, but he managed to pose very effectively and successfully that year as the outsider, the agent of change, and all of those things that seem to be so appealing in the early phases of a primary season.

Mondale was campaigning very much as Hillary Clinton has, as a man of experience who could get it done. I saw a Hillary billboard that's here. It has one word on it. The word is "ready."

That pose, as the experienced, ready-to-do-battle candidate, nearly cost Walter Mondale the nomination. But Gary Hart didn't have an organization and didn't have the strength around the country to capitalize on his win in New Hampshire.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: ... all the millions and millions of dollars to make the...

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: Exactly right. Obama is much better positioned to come out of New Hampshire and to go all the way than Gary Hart was, and Gary Hart was eventually overtaken.

WALLACE: Mara, I know you want in.

LIASSON: You know, just one other point about the machine here, the Clinton roots. Bill Clinton did do something extraordinary here in 1992. There's no doubt about it. She's trying to be her version of the comeback kid here.

But since 1992, I think something like 25 percent of the New Hampshire electorate or more is new. In other words, they weren't here. They don't remember Bill Clinton.

This state has changed incredibly. This state is becoming bluer and bluer. This is a big new population. It's not the same place Bill Clinton campaigned.

WALLACE: Juan, I want to ask you something, because you were talking about trying to bring down Obama, that that's what the Clintons want.

And there was a story in the New York Times that says that Bill Clinton particularly is furious -- I have to say Bill Clinton doesn't talk to me these days, so I had to take it from the New York Times -- is furious and feels that there's been an absolute double standard, that the media has fallen in love with Obama and hasn't given him the same scrutiny, the same vetting, that they have his wife.

Do you think that's true?

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think it's true. You know, there's a mailer here in New Hampshire sent out by the Clinton campaign just pointing out Obama's record on abortion -- Who has been a fighter for women's rights? -- and pointing out that, you know, Hillary Clinton has such a record.

And if you look at Obama, the power of Obama has -- it's interesting. The press wasn't taking him seriously, Chris. They were pretty much thinking that, you know, he's going to do OK, and he kind of went into a trial for a while there before the vote in Iowa.

And so a lot of the criticism about, you know, voting "present" in the Illinois state legislature, the questions about well, what has he accomplished of substance in two years -- in just two years in the U.S. Senate -- those questions have not been asked aggressively.

But the Clinton camp is pushing it now, and I imagine it's going to come to the forefront pretty quickly.

And the second thing to say is about the changing state and the independents -- such a large segment of independents here. You can get caught up in a wave, Bill, but the question is does the wave continue.

WALLACE: All right. Real quick. We did this last week. Who's going as to win the Democratic primary in New Hampshire?

WILLIAMS: Well, it looks to me like the energy is with Obama at the moment.

WALLACE: Bill Kristol?

KRISTOL: Oh, Obama in double digits.

WALLACE: Double digit over Hillary Clinton?

KRISTOL: I believe so.

WALLACE: Mara Liasson?

LIASSON: I think Obama.

WALLACE: And we're going to forget the other guy. We know he won't play.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: All right. Time for a quick break. He's just no fun.

But when we come back, the Republican race -- what does Mitt Romney need to do to hold off a strong charge from John McCain here in New Hampshire? Some answers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 2001, Congress certified George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORE: God bless our new president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Vice President Gore declared the result after the count of the electoral college vote.

Stay tuned for more from our panel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: The reason that our campaign is catching fire is because people had rather elect a president who reminds them of the guy they work with, not the guy that laid them off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was Mike Huckabee using one of his lines of attack against Mitt Romney.

And we're back now with Brit, Mara, Bill and Juan.

Well, you know, it's fascinating -- and I got into an interesting conversation, I thought, with Huckabee about it today. He is bringing some populism to this campaign, the little guys versus the fat cats, that we don't usually see in a Republican campaign.

Brit, how do you think that's going to sit with GOP voters around the country?

HUME: Over the long haul?

WALLACE: Yeah.

HUME: Badly. This is a party that, if you're going to be a populist, you'd better be for a lot of things that, say, Ronald Reagan was for. You'd better be in favor of a lot of the -- you don't want to be a candidate associated with possible tax increases, policies that would require increased regulation, and so on down the line.

You can't -- I don't think the anti-corporate message -- it isn't even selling very well in the Democratic Party, and I certainly don't think it's going to sell in the Republican Party.

WALLACE: But, Brit, when you hear him talk about the little guys and the fat cats -- when I was discussing with him President Bush's tax commission, he said, "Well, they were a bunch of tax lobbyists there."

When you see him in Foreign Affairs being quite critical -- and again, he was today -- about the president's foreign policy, what's he up to running in the Republican primary?

HUME: Well, he deserves credit for taking this fair tax idea and trying to go somewhere with it. It's a very interesting idea. I don't think that the study that the president's commission did can necessarily be trusted.

No one can say with any certainty exactly how people would behave if their taxation was all done in the checkout line and when they were spending instead of on their income. I don't think the consequences of that can be particularly reliably predicted.

But it's a very interesting idea, and it is a big idea.

WALLACE: Which we haven't heard a lot of in this campaign from either party.

Let's look at the latest polls. We have a couple of post-Iowa polls. Let's put them up. The first one -- and there you can see this is, again, the WMUR poll -- shows McCain with a six-point lead over Romney, and Giuliani and Huckabee trailing, Huckabee in fourth place.

Let's look at the next one from the Concord Monitor -- again, McCain up by six points. In this case, Huckabee's in third and Giuliani's in fourth.

Mara, what do you make of the race here? LIASSON: This is so fascinating. I mean, I think that what Huckabee has done -- I don't think Huckabee is going to win New Hampshire.

I think McCain is kind of slowly and steadily building. He's been doing that for quite a long time since he decided to stake his claim here when he ran out of money and really couldn't compete anywhere else.

I think Huckabee has tapped a very strong vein in the Republican Party. Maybe it's not the majority, but it's a lot bigger than it used to be. And there is economic discontent even in the Republican Party. And when he talks about the little guy, when he talks about, you know, middle class people, lower middle class people, I think he is tapping into something.

There have been other Republican populists who have done this -- Pat Buchanan is one of them who did it here -- but not with the kind of humor and wit and kind of sunniness as Mike Huckabee. I think he's on to something.

I don't think he's going to single-handedly remake the party, but he sure is shaking it up.

WALLACE: Bill, it was very interesting in the Republican debate last night that even though, as we've seen from those polls, McCain is the frontrunner, most of the other candidates really focused and targeted Romney, especially on this idea of flip-flops and change.

HUME: Including McCain.

WALLACE: Including McCain. Let's take a look at this, if we can.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Governor Romney, we disagree on a lot of issues, but I agree, you are the candidate of change.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Why do you think -- it seemed to amuse Senator McCain, his remark. Why did you think that several of them -- Giuliani, Thompson, Huckabee -- all went after Romney last night, much more so than they did against McCain?

KRISTOL: Well, I think they think Romney's votes are a little more gettable. McCain has a pretty solid base in the state. I think he's going to get his 35 percent, 38 percent, maybe a little more.

Romney's wounded after Iowa. Politicians are good at sensing when another one is wounded, and they think they can pry some votes away from Governor Romney.

There's also a little -- I mean, the fact is Governor Romney has spent quite a lot of money attacking or at least contrasting his record -- or exposing the truth, as he might put it -- about Senator McCain and about Governor Huckabee, and I'm sure there's a little bit of a sense that turnabout is fair play.

And Romney has more money. He'll attack them on paid T.V. When they get a debate, like last night or tonight, they're willing to go after Romney, you know, mano-a-mano.

WALLACE: Juan, how much trouble is Mitt Romney in here in New Hampshire? And I've got to say -- I don't know if you saw the very end of my interview with him, but I said to him, "Can you lose in this state and go on," and he said, "Easy."

WILLIAMS: He's wrong. He's just flat wrong. But he should say that to you because I think he wants to build confidence and say that he's not in any mode that would suggest that he feels defeated or is about to quit.

But the facts are, just looking at it, you know, in a purely pragmatic sense, he's lost in Iowa. He put his money in there. This is his neighboring state, New Hampshire. He apparently owns a home here. If he loses here, there really is no rationale for going forward at this point.

But to get back to something Brit was talking about, I think, Brit, that the party has changed. I think the party of Ronald Reagan is much more of a blue-collar Republican Party, and I think that's why the populist message coming from Huckabee has much more success.

And I think when Huckabee talks about people who understand the crisis going on in the country in terms of the economy -- and hear Republicans saying, "Oh, the economy is fine, Wall Street's doing great," they say, "Wait a second. I'm not doing so great on Main Street."

HUME: Juan, there's a poll on the front page of USA Today the other day taken by the Gallup organization which showed that this vast majority of the American people are very happy with their lives and their personal situations.

WILLIAMS: True.

HUME: That flies in the face of all this talk about there being an economic crisis out there.

WILLIAMS: Have you noticed that the polls indicate the American people say...

HUME: I don't think most Republicans...

WILLIAMS: ... that if you ask, "Wrong track, right track," most Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

HUME: Well, that may be so. But do you really seriously believe that most Republican voters across this country think the economy is in crisis? I doubt it.

Let me make one more point about that debate last night and all those people taking on Mitt Romney the way they did, as if he were the frontrunner, which clearly he is not, as those polls indicate.

I don't know how many people saw that debate. It was up against football. The games were exciting. I'm not sure how many saw it. But if a lot of people saw that, I think what they saw was not John McCain at his best, when he is the statesman and a soft-spoken, mild- mannered, highly articulate, seasoned representative.

I think what they saw was John McCain perhaps at his least attractive. He was scornful. He seemed almost, at an occasional moment, even petty. That's not the John McCain people have come to admire and like.

Mitt Romney actually held up under that attack pretty well. He never lost his composure. He pressed McCain, I thought, effectively on the alleged amnesty measure and so on.

There's a distinct possibility, in my view, that, contrary to all the media conventional wisdom, that Romney won that debate. The question is how many people saw it.

WALLACE: If McCain, Bill, were to win here in two days, is he back from the dead, where we all left him last summer, out of money, out of staff, out of support? Is he again a player for the nomination?

KRISTOL: Sure. He'd have to be a co-favorite for the nomination. I think he would go to Michigan and finish off Romney. And then it would be, I think, McCain versus Huckabee, and I think that is a toss-up.

Huckabee continues to be underrated. He's the best candidate. He's run the best campaign, the most clever tactical campaign. And we are rewriting history on Reagan.

Let me just mention one phrase, Reagan Democrats. Reagan was not a big business guy. John Connally was the big business candidate in 1980. Reagan was a populist of a sort, not that unlike Huckabee.

WALLACE: We've got 30 seconds left. I want predictions. Who wins the Republican primary in New Hampshire?

Down the line.

WILLIAMS: McCain wins. They're trying to make McCain into the Washington insider. But New Hampshireans know him as an independent voice.

WALLACE: Bill Kristol?

KRISTOL: I think McCain wins. I think Huckabee does better than people think.

WALLACE: Mara?

LIASSON: I think McCain wins.

WALLACE: And anything you'd like to say with the 10 seconds remaining, Mr. Hume?

HUME: No.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: But you said it so well.

Incidentally, I didn't think that first playoff game was so good. The Redskins lost.

Thank you, panel. See you next week.

Up next, the remarkable sights and sounds of a very interesting few days in presidential politics. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: The actual voting for president in 2008 is less than a week old, but it has already seen some remarkable twists and turns. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

(UNKNOWN): ... starting in the corner, one.

(UNKNOWN): Two.

(UNKNOWN): Seventy-five, 76.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARDS: What began tonight in the heartland of America is the Iowa caucus-goers said, "Enough is enough."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMPSON: It is pretty clear that we're going to -- we're going to have a ticket to the next dance. Are you ready to dance?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I am so ready for the rest of this campaign, and I am so ready to lead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: We need new faces in Washington, and I intend to be one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: We are choosing hope over fear. We're choosing unity over division and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: I wasn't sure that I would ever be able to love a state as much as I love my home state of Arkansas, but tonight I love Iowa a whole lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And we've only got 11 months till Election Day.

Now a special program note. Join me on Fox News Channel for our Republican presidential candidate forum -- the top five contenders in a no- holds-barred format not seen so far during this campaign cycle. That's live at 8:00 p.m. tonight on Fox News Channel.

But that's it for now. Have a great week, and we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."

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