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February 13, 2008

Panel Discusses How Clinton Gets Back in the Race

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is a long journey to the nomination. Some weeks, you know, one of us is up and the other is down, and then we reverse it.

And, as many of you have followed this from the very beginning know, it's a long and winding road, and we're all picking up delegates as we go.

DAVID WILHELM, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR BILL CLINTON: Senator Clinton will need to win 70 percent of the remaining delegates at stake in order to draw even among pledged delegates at the end of the primary season, and it is very difficult to see that happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: There you see Senator Clinton today, and also David Wilhelm. He is a former campaign manager for Bill Clinton in 1992 who has now joined team Obama, saying that it is an uphill battle for Senator Clinton to win this nomination now, just looking at the delegates as the Obama campaign looks at them.

Let's look at the total delegate picture as we know it right now. This includes the super delegates and the pledge delegates that have been won in these races, 1,223 to 1,198. They need 2,025 to clinch the nomination.

Now some analytical observations from Bill Kristol, Editor of "The Weekly Standard," Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent of National Public Radio, and Mort Kondracke, Executive Editor of "Roll Call," FOX News contributors all.

Bill, the Obama campaign sounded pretty confident today after a big night last night.

BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, he's ahead by about 100-pledged delegates in total votes cast--primaries, caucuses. He is about three quarters of million votes ahead of Hillary Clinton--he is beating her by about 50 to 46, if you wanted to break it down that way, which is a slaughter.

Obviously, she could reverse it if she wins big in Texas and Ohio. But he is now the clear the frontrunner.

BAIER: What does this mean? Hillary Clinton--is this firewall in Texas and Ohio really there?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: The firewall is demographic groups. The firewall is Latinos, downscale white women.

But he made some inroads into the equivalent of that firewall in the Potomac primaries. He did better with voters who make $50,000 or more a year, he did better with Latinos, better with white women. So he is starting to make inroads into her firewall.

Now, maybe it will hold for her in Ohio and Texas. Those are states that her advisors feel are very good for her--obviously a big Latino population in Texas; Ohio, a lot of hard hit middle class voters, economically. And her message is getting more populist.

But so is his. You know, he was criticizing her for supporting trade deals today. So this is going to be a sharper-edged economic message from both of them.

I think, for her, she has no room for error. She has to win both Ohio and Texas, and she has to win by big enough margins to do exactly what his advisors are saying. She has to win them by big enough margins to get those bonus delegates to wrack up the delegate count and get back out ahead of him.

I think he could probably afford to lose one.

BAIER: We often say, Mort, that endorsements don't mean a lot here. But there are two big ones left out there on the Democratic side: Al Gore and John Edwards. Could they possibly, either one of them, get in here and endorse Senator Clinton and go the other way?

MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: I would not expect either of those endorsements to go that way.

And Obama was appealing nakedly for the John Edwards vote today. He almost sounded like John Edwards--you know, this is the cause of my life, improving the lot of the middle class and so on. And he was blasting away that lobbyists are the people preventing us from living a happy life in America, and so on.

Now, you have David Plouffe arguing his case--

BAIER: Obama's campaign manager.

KONDRACKE: --Obama's campaign manager, and you had Mark Penn arguing in a memo the other case and predicting that after Ohio and Texas, that there they will be running even.

And, of course, the Clinton people want to bring Michigan and Florida into the game, and they're depending on super delegates. They have no compunctions about taking super delegate votes where they have a lead. And, so, that's the way it goes.

There is this fellow Jay Cost(ph), who is a brilliant analyst for RealClearPolitics.com, who sorts out the demographics of all of this, and says that it's not over, that Clinton---that the primaries ahead are more tilted toward Clinton and her demographics, and they're more primaries, not caucuses, et cetera.

It is well worth reading. It is very complicated. It's based on regression analysis, and so on.

KRISTOL: That would be true if things were static. But the Democratic primary electorate is moving.

Clinton was once beating Obama by 20 points in national polls. In Scott Rasmussen's poll, which is a daily tracking poll, Clinton was ahead by six points on Saturday. Now Obama is ahead by five points.

If that's happening in Ohio and Texas, the fire wall does not stand. And I suspect it is happening.

It could reverse. She has fought back from the brink a couple of times already in this primary season. But right now I think he's got the cards and he is playing them pretty well.

You asked about endorsements--Bill Richardson could make a difference in Texas. Bill Richardson is the Hispanic Governor of New Mexico. If he would endorse Obama and come across the border and campaign for Obama in south Texas, that would be impressive.

LIASSON: I would guess that Edwards will endorse someone. I would guess that Al Gore will not endorse anyone.

BAIER: That is the last word for this topic.

Next up with the panel, a sweep for John McCain in the Potomac primary and more Republican leaders rally to his side. But how well would he do against Barack Obama? Is that the match up? We'll talk about it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Rather then sound unproven ideas, the trust and the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It's a platitude.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Senator John McCain last night after his big wins in the Potomac primary. He ended that speech, actually, saying that he is fired up and ready to go--a Barack Obama line--speaking about Obama a lot on the trail, in fact.

Now, what about his opponent, Mike Huckabee, still in the race. Take a listen to what he said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have to have 1,191. and while it may be mathematically impossible to see how it could play out right now, I know this: right now, nobody has the 1,191 delegates, and therefore it would be a little premature to quit until the game has actually come to a conclusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Mike Huckabee last night. Today we found out that Mike Huckabee is actually traveling the Cayman Islands this weekend. He will step off the campaign trail to give a paid speech there. His campaign says he's still in the race.

We are back with our panel. Bill, what do you think about that?

KRISTOL: I think Mike Huckabee is fired up and ready to go to the Cayman Islands, and who can blame him? Look at the weather around here. Between campaigning in Wisconsin or giving a paid speech in the Cayman Islands, I think Mike Huckabee is a very sensible guy. He is not going to be the nominee anyway--go to the Cayman Islands.

BAIER: But he sticks in for how long in this race?

KRISTOL: He stays in through Texas, and he can win some congressional districts, perhaps, in Texas.

I think he has been very sensible. He will end up having gotten the second most delegates. That's pretty impressive.

LIASSON: There is no reason to drop out. What did he says? "In college I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles." He'll need a really big one. It is mathematically impossible now for him to win.

But, look, he is representing a constituency. Clearly, he is serving a need in the Republican Party. There are a lot of voters who aren't ready yet to go to John McCain, and John McCain has some work to do, and this structure of the primaries is not a bad place to do it, actually.

Don't forget, this has been the friendliest primary debate. These two candidates like each other, and he has never had a bad word to say about John McCain.

KONDRACKE: I was at a lunch today with Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, who said that yes, they would rather have him drop out, but there are pluses to this, that every week they get a headline that says McCain wins another one, and that if Huckabee had dropped out, McCain would not be winning any, because he wouldn't have any competition. That's the upside of all of this.

And I think it's right that Huckabee now has 241 delegate votes. Mitt Romney has 286. I think that what Huckabee really wants to do is beat Romney so that he can say "I was the number two candidate, and therefore, arguably, I'm the front runner for summary 2012 nomination if McCain loses."

BAIER: There was a scene yesterday where Senator McCain walked across the Senate floor and shook Barack Obama's hand. And you see it here--he made a point to spend time talking with him, stayed there about ten minutes.

Are we potentially looking at the nomination--I mean, the general election right there, and is the right move for McCain to start talking about Barack Obama, Bill?

KRISTOL: I think we are looking most likely at the general election there. It would be the first time in U.S. history that two sitting U.S. senators are running against each other for the presidency--a historical footnote there.

LIASSON: It's going to happen either way.

KRISTOL: Right, whether it's Clinton or Obama.

I think the McCain campaign wanted to face up against Obama a little bit last night. It's more of the same. Take advantage of the fact- -if Huckabee dropped out, there wouldn't be TV cameras covering McCain's speech, and it gave him a chance to have a little bit of a contrast with Obama, and to talk about hope and real hope as opposed to sort of cheap talk kind of hope.

I don't think they're going to go overboard, though. I think the McCain campaign understands the story for the next month or two is the Democrats, and they're going to get their ducks in order, raise some money, and take a rest, get some policy people in place, and get ready for a tough general election campaign.

BAIER: And Barack Obama, Mara, has really used John McCain-- today, specifically. And he starts out saying he is an American hero, and then goes on.

LIASSON: I think so far if you want to say the shadow campaign between Obama and McCain, it has been very civil. Yes, he is an American hero, but he is a Bush-McCain old retread. And on McCain's part, he is saying, well, hope is a great thing, but it is just rhetoric.

And I think the message from McCain is he a callow youth who doesn't really know what hope means. And I can tell you when men's hopes were really tested, as he said last night.

I think it could be a great race, it really could. I think it would be a civil race and it would be a real clash. And I think McCain does have the opportunity, as weighted down as he is with all the baggage that the Republicans have this year, to run an ideological campaign from the center against Obama.

KONDRACKE: Obama is the most liberal senator in the United States. That's a mark against him.

I do think that McCain needs a positive message, a hope message, an optimism message, a national greatness message, a here's-how-we- together-can-advance to counter--

LIASSON: He does.

KONDRACKE: Well, I know, but he talks about cutting spending all the time. He's got to get a bigger message.

BAIER: All right, that's the last word.

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