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March 09, 2008

Florida & Michigan Dems on "Fox News Sunday"

Fox News Sunday

BRIT HUME, GUEST HOST: I'm Brit Hume in for Chris Wallace, and this is "Fox News Sunday."

It's the fight of the year in the Democratic Party. Should delegates from Michigan and Florida be counted and for which candidate, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

We'll examine what's at stake with Debbie Dingell, a Democratic National Committee member from Michigan, and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz from Florida.

Also, what's the latest on America's military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq? We'll get a progress report from Congressman Mike Pence, who's just back from the front lines.

Plus, we'll analyze the week's political developments with our Sunday panel -- Fred Barnes, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.

And we'll look at the big Clinton comeback "On the Trail," all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello again from Fox News in Washington. In case you missed it late Saturday when you were setting your clocks ahead for daylight time, Senator Barack Obama won the Wyoming Democratic caucus. He picked up seven delegates, to five for Senator Clinton, so the current delegate count shows Obama up by, as you can see, 110.

The Democratic presidential nominee could be decided not in the remaining primaries but in the outcome of the bitter fight over what to do about Michigan and Florida.

Both states lost all their convention delegates when they were penalized by the Democratic National Committee for moving up their primary dates earlier this year in violation of party rules.

For more on this, we turn to Debbie Dingell, a DNC committee member and a superdelegate from Michigan, and, from Florida, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who is also a convention superdelegate.

Thanks to both of you for being with us.

First let me start with you, Congresswoman. What do you think is the fairest way to settle this question?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Well, I think when you're talking about fairness, we have to remember that this was started by the Republican- led legislature here that actually set the date of our primary.

So the victims here in all of -- in the decision by the DNC to strip us of our delegates are Democratic voters in the state of Florida.

HUME: Can I stop you there? Just let me stop you there for a second, if I can.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Sure.

HUME: In the Florida state senate, who introduced the bill to move the primary forward?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: The bill was introduced by a Democratic member, a new Democratic member of the state senate.

HUME: And in the legislature, senate and house as well, how many Democrats voted against it?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Well, that's an inappropriate line of questioning, Brit, because that bill ultimately...

HUME: Well, wait a minute. Well, inappropriate or not...

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Excuse me, Brit.

HUME: ... could you just answer the question?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Can I answer your question?

HUME: Yes. How many?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: I would like to answer your question without you asking me another one, if you don't mind.

The legislation that was originally sponsored was amended into an overall election package that included the major provision to ensure that we could have manual recount and a paper trail. So this is a major election package that the change of a date in our primary was included in.

So the vote total was unanimous, but that was because there's no one in the Florida legislature that was going to vote against changing our voting system so that you could have a paper trail and make sure that every vote can be counted, unlike our touchscreen voting system right now which doesn't allow for that.

So to try to hang a unanimous vote on the fact that Democrats supported that -- that's misleading, because they supported it because they certainly weren't going to vote against making sure there was a paper trail in Florida.

HUME: I see. Well, all right. Then what's the fair way to settle it, in your judgment?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Anything that is decided upon, Brit, has to be fair to Florida voters and make sure that Florida Democratic voters have their vote counted.

The nerves are very raw here still from the recount fiasco in 2000. We've got to make sure that whatever -- however our delegation gets seated, that it is seated reflecting votes cast by voters in Florida.

HUME: So does that mean...

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: There are a variety of ways to do that. What's being talked about in terms of that variety is possibly a re- vote, which I think would not be the right way to go, and also a combination of weighted formulas so that you would count the election on the 29th in some way, and then other factors like the possible outcome of the rest of the primaries and weight that as well.

There are a number of different formulas that are being talked about that would reflect the actual votes cast by the voters, but not necessarily entirely.

HUME: But you would resist a re-vote.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: I would resist a re-vote for a couple of major reasons. Number one, the re-vote that's being talked about right now would be a mail-in ballot. And we have never conducted a mail-in ballot in Florida. And in an election that is this important, an experiment like that is -- now is not the time to test that.

We had 1.75 million Democratic voters cast ballots on January 29th. It was a record turnout. And the likelihood of getting that many people to mail a ballot back in is very small.

The other problem with a mail-in ballot is that you have transient populations. Poorer communities would really be disenfranchised in a scenario like that because their addresses are not consistent, and so the odds of them getting a ballot and even knowing about the election are much smaller than middle class and upper middle class populations.

So any potential scenario right now that requires a re-vote would be experimental, would disenfranchise people, and we've got to make sure, again, at the end of the day that whatever delegation we have seated at the convention, which -- we must have one, and there's no question in my mind about that -- has to reflect the popular vote of Florida Democratic voters.

HUME: Debbie Dingell, what do you think the fair way to resolve this is?

DINGELL: In Michigan, everything is on the table. We've got some guidelines. We've got some frameworks. We're working with all of the players at the table.

It would not cost the taxpayers anything. It must be consensus. It will include both campaigns and the DNC.

HUME: Do you think it can involve any -- there's no way to -- you don't think it's fair to take the outcome of the primary that was held there with Barack Obama not on the ballot and try to make that work, do you?

DINGELL: I'm not making a comment on anything. My favorite saying right now is when you're in a hole, stop digging.

I think that Senator Obama made a decision to take his name off of the ballot, but nobody -- Brit, nobody, including you, the pundits, Governor Dean, the candidates or the states -- thought we would be where we are right now.

HUME: Well, understood. On the other...

DINGELL: You're doing this to change the system.

HUME: Understood. But on the other hand, the rules were in place. There was no doubt about that. Michigan went ahead and held its primary. Barack Obama, playing by the rules, did not have his name on the ballot. If the votes...

DINGELL: Actually, Senator Obama -- the pledge that Senator Obama took was -- and Senator Clinton took -- was not to campaign in either state.

HUME: Right.

DINGELL: The rules never said take your name off the ballot. But we are where we are now. We've got to get it figured out.

HUME: Well, you don't think -- you don't really think you can count this -- this would be a complete Clinton win if the votes as they cast were counted.

DINGELL: I think that we had a legitimate election in January, and we've got to -- but I care about the people that feel disenfranchised.

And in Michigan, everything's on the table. It will be developed by consensus and both campaigns and the DNC have to approve.

HUME: You won't say here, though, as someone who -- you were involved in the decision to go forward.

DINGELL: I was involved in challenging a broken presidential primary system.

HUME: I hear you.

DINGELL: And it is.

HUME: I hear you. But you're not now prepared to suggest here what might be a solution, such as going back to what they used to call the firehouse primary, which was a day-long, "any drop in, cast your ballot and leave" type of caucus that used to be held in...

DINGELL: That is one of the options... HUME: Do you like that option?

DINGELL: ... that is on the table. I think it has issues. It's not off the table. The mail program is not off the table. Reaching some agreement between the two campaigns isn't off the table.

There are logistics and expense problems. It's much more expensive than any of us thought. We need to be prepared for up to 2.5 million voters.

HUME: Do you think that money -- now, that's a kind of -- this is the kind of effort that's a party event, for which so-called soft money -- that is, money raised from contributions from corporate interests and so on -- could be used.

DINGELL: We have heard offers from people...

HUME: Do you think it's possible to raise the money?

DINGELL: We've heard offers from people outside of the state, and we would welcome those people showing us how we could raise money for some alternative. It is not -- the resources are not there inside the state.

So people who have offered to help raise the money, we'd welcome hearing from them to help us finance whatever option might...

HUME: You're involved in these discussions.

DINGELL: That is true.

HUME: Is it fair to say that you're not near an outcome yet?

DINGELL: That is fair. It's fair to say we have discussions ongoing and we don't know which direction we're going to go, because it involves everybody.

And what happens -- we want to come out of this with no one having bitter feelings, pulling together, because Florida and Michigan are committed with the two candidates and Governor Dean to pull together as Democrats and win in November.

HUME: What do you think the consequences would be if it were decided not to seat the delegation from Michigan?

DINGELL: I think those would be -- have very negative consequences. But I think it's going to be a bumpy road between now and August. I think all of us will work together to figure it out before then.

HUME: Congresswoman, let me turn back to you on the question of counting the primary that was held in which neither candidate campaigned in the state in any meaningful way.

If you did that, wouldn't that be a little unfair to Senator Obama since at that time in particular he was much the lesser known of the two candidates, and then primary after primary it's been shown that he'll start from well behind in a state where he's not particularly well known, and that campaigning there benefits him more than it would -- arguably than it benefited Senator Clinton, who was a known quantity? Your thoughts.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Well, Brit, the argument that somehow the January 29th primary was unfair to either of the candidates I don't think really holds water, because if that were true and voters felt like they didn't know enough about either of the two candidates to come out and make a decision, then we wouldn't have had the biggest turnout in Democratic primary history.

This isn't the 1860s where you have voters deciding who to cast a ballot for based on seeing two candidates stand on a box and debate the issues in front of them.

We have a global communication system now, and people make decisions, and obviously 1.75 million Democrats felt comfortable enough with their choice to be able to go to the polls and cast a ballot.

So I just don't think that argument holds water.

HUME: So you don't think it would have been beneficial to the voters in Florida to have had a full-fledged campaign there with debates in Florida...

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Oh, no, no, no.

HUME: ... on the -- well, wait a minute, now. You're saying that if...

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: No, I'm not saying that at all.

HUME: ... 1.75 million turned out, it didn't really matter. That's another way of saying that it wouldn't have been more helpful and they wouldn't have been better informed if they'd had debates in the state and a full-bore campaign in the state.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: No. Of course, I think that the -- it would have been much more preferable for the candidates to campaign in the state.

I wish that the candidates didn't sign a pledge to not do that, because, as Debbie said, the pledge that they signed had nothing to do with the DNC decision to strip our delegates. But again, that's water under the bridge.

But if the question is of fairness and whether or not the voters in Florida and Michigan, but the voters in Florida in particular in this case, had an opportunity and felt comfortable enough to make their decision, the turnout here proves that they did.

That doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been more beneficial, and certainly preferable, to have the full benefit of the candidates campaigning here, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't fair. HUME: What about the idea that I was just talking about with Debbie Dingell about a kind of firehouse primary in which you had a number of polling places -- it would be reduced from the number you had before -- and also, with that, the possibility of mail-in ballots? How would you feel and others feel in Florida about that?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Our primary is set in state law, and we don't have the -- we would have a lot of different logistical and legal problems in doing that.

There are 7,000 polling places in Florida. And I mean, so a firehouse primary -- what they were talking about doing -- they have not been talking about a firehouse primary here. The closest I heard to that suggestion was when the DNC suggested we do a caucus that would take us from 7,000 precincts to 150 caucus sites.

We have no tradition of a caucus in Florida. We've never run one. And again, we can't start experimenting with a presidential preference primary, because the outcome and the stakes are just too high.

HUME: So do you see...

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: We also have -- I'm sorry. Brit, we've also had - - we've already had the Republican-led legislature here, you know, put us in this situation.

And leaving the decision to the legislature again on whether or not we're going to be able to solve this problem is not something that makes most Democratic voters comfortable.

HUME: Well, then, short of counting the primary that was held, do you see any alternatives?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: I do. I mean, I think that there are ways -- and I agree with Debbie. We are working together as a congressional delegation with our Democratic Party leadership here in Florida, with Senator Nelson and the candidates, to try to come up with a reasonable alternative that will...

HUME: What would that be?

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: ... that will -- well, like I said, I mean, I think we should be counting -- we should be using the results of the 29th as a factor, as well as some -- there are a variety of other factors that could be considered so that you come up with a way to constitute our delegation and then present that proposal to the DNC and ask for their blessing.

But the campaigns would have to agree on that, and that's the kind of negotiating that's going on right now.

But at the end of the day, what I'm really thrilled about is that at least we are no longer having a lot of rhetoric out there that questions whether or not Florida or Michigan's delegates should be seated at all, because this is the most important election of our lives.

We have got to make sure that we elect a Democratic president. And we are jeopardizing that if we start the general election season by sending a message to Florida and Michigan voters that their votes are not important.

HUME: Got it.

Debbie Dingell, if you had to guess -- now, I'm not asking you to endorse any particular outcome in Michigan -- how do you think this will turn out?

DINGELL: We'll have something everybody will agree to, but I am making no predictions. It's the most fluid situation I've ever been in.

But I feel good that everybody's at the table and both campaigns are - - the one thing that I can say is that both campaigns are committed, when this is resolved, to immediately come to Michigan, pull people together, put the resources in. And Michigan and Florida are going to be part of a Democratic victory in November.

HUME: Well, thanks to both of you. Glad to have you. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us.

Up next, Congressman Mike Pence, just back from Iraq and Afghanistan with what he saw and heard on the front lines of the war on terror.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: Amid all the political news, we've not heard much lately about what's going on with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For an update, we turn to Congressman Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, who is just back from both countries. He comes to us today from Texas.

Congressman, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

PENCE: Thank you, Brit. Great to be on.

HUME: Let me ask you first about Iraq. From what I've read of your trip, it sounds like your account is similar to others about there being progress on the military front in particular, correct?

PENCE: Well, I think there's been significant progress on the ground, but the fight is far from over.

I was part of a six-member bipartisan delegation that began in the northern region, the Kurdish region of Iraq. We met with officials there, saw the situation on the ground, spent time in Baghdad, and then got out to al-Anbar province, walked the streets of Haditha.

And I have to tell you, I was there a year ago in Anbar province and in Baghdad, and you can see both in the statistics and you can feel among Iraqis and among our own soldiers that there has been significant, if fragile, progress toward security and stability in Iraq, thanks to the surge and thanks, Brit, to extraordinary cooperation by Sunnis in the last year.

HUME: Well, let me ask, everyone says this about progress having been clear and demonstrable but fragile. Now, you've had a change of heart on the part of a lot of Sunnis. You noted that particularly in Anbar. You see that elsewhere as well.

And you see, as others have, an increasing ability of the Iraqis to fend for themselves. Why, then, is the progress said to be so fragile?

PENCE: Well, I think it's fragile -- as the Kurdish prime minister told me over lunch, I think it's seen as fragile because while the enemy has been in many respects largely beaten back in the center part of the country and in al-Anbar province, as we saw in grim detail in the car bombing and suicide bombing in Baghdad this week, this is still a lethal enemy that will use deadly force to upend the progress of stability and democracy in this country.

And I have to tell you, I did run into anxiety among many Iraqi officials about talk of a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq.

Several Iraqi leaders with whom we spoke with and, frankly, regular Iraqis on the street see the vital and critical importance of a durable American presence, at least in the near term.

And people understand the American soldier, combined with the cooperation of Sunni and Shia Arabs in this country, is the pathway toward stability and a successful free and democratic Iraq.

HUME: As you know, General Petraeus has been concerned as well about withdrawal, particularly the redeployment of some of the troops in Iraq to Afghanistan. Do you share his anxiety about that?

PENCE: I really do. You know, Afghanistan is going to have its own challenges. We got out in Acuna (ph) province after a lengthy meeting with President Karzai in Kabul.

And there's concern right now that there may be, you know, something of a counteroffensive by the Taliban this spring. And so some Marines are being transferred...

HUME: Do you think the forces...

PENCE: ... into the southwest provinces.

HUME: Do you think the forces there, NATO forces and U.S. forces, are in a position -- are ready to deal with that, or unprepared, need more, or what?

PENCE: Well, you know, our military personnel are not going to be surprised. The Taliban has already been operating with military violence in about 10 percent of the provinces. I think they see it coming, Brit.

But look. Afghanistan is and will continue to be an extraordinary American and NATO success. Iraq right now is going in the right direction, but the fight is far from over.

But I have to tell you, it was -- you know, even, you know, in a bipartisan delegation, I think we were all struck with the level of progress. Violence across the country in Iraq is down more than 60 percent from a year ago.

And as I walked the streets of Haditha, which is a town in the heart of al-Anbar province, where literally an American delegation would have been never been permitted to go, we walked down the street with a large security detail and were warmly greeted by people.

And I asked one Iraqi after another what the security situation was like, and one after another told me that this community, where a dozen people were beheaded a year ago by Al Qaida -- that the community of Haditha was essentially free of terrorist violence.

In fact, they were lobbying me for reconstruction dollars from Baghdad and urging me to support their efforts to rebuild their city.

But their concerns about security -- as people can see from the video we posted on the Internet, their concerns about security were greatly diminished from anything I've ever encountered in Iraq.

HUME: Let me ask you a bit about political progress. A couple of major milestones appear to have been reached recently, but one of them, and that was the establishment of provincial elections, seems to have fallen by the wayside because the presidential council, as it's called, overruled the Iraqi legislature.

Is there any reason not to regard that as a major setback?

PENCE: Well, we certainly want to see the provincial elections. And the impression we got last weekend, Brit, is that there still remains a very strong possibility that we could see those provincial elections which would allow, you know, legitimate governments to be stood up in those various provinces of Iraq and allow those governments to begin to contract, as the Kurdish region has, with outside private interests, particularly in terms of oil infrastructure investment.

But look. As Ambassador Crocker told us over dinner, as the deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, told us, there has been significant political progress.

You know, many of my Democratic colleagues in Washington talk about the need for a diplomatic surge as well as a military surge, and I'm happy to report to you there has been one.

The adoption of the amnesty, de-Baathification law, the adoption of a budget, the distribution, even without an oil revenue agreement, of many of the oil revenues out to the province represents the kind of significant progress that I think the president thought would be possible if we were able to begin to get the security situation in Baghdad and Anbar in particular under control.

And we are seeing that happening, Brit.

HUME: Let me bring you back to the issue that has gripped us all so much lately -- that is, the primary season. John McCain is now clearly going to be the nominee. He's somebody with whom you've had differences over the years on a number of issues.

You have suggested he needs to reach out, as others have, to conservatives, embrace them. How's he doing?

PENCE: Well, I did -- in a speech at CPAC a few years ago -- or a few weeks ago, forgive me, I encouraged John McCain to embrace the right, and I said, "The right will embrace you." And I'm pleased to see the Republican nominee is doing just that.

I think if John McCain continues to run on those aspects of his record that resonate with conservative Republicans -- namely, John McCain was right on the military surge. He's strong on national defense, limited government, fiscal discipline, and has had a strong pro-life voting record.

If he runs on that record and then continues to surround himself with a team and a ticket that reflects a commitment to conservative values, I think conservatives like me are going to work our hearts out to see him become the 44th president of the United States.

HUME: His economic proposals are very much along the lines of the president's -- continuation, in effect, which would require legislation, of the president's tax cuts and so on.

In the face of an economic downturn, which many say will turn into a full-blown recession, can that program, in your judgment, carry the day and win the election?

PENCE: I believe it can. You know, I spent some time here in Dallas yesterday with Phil Gramm, who is something of an icon to conservatives and people who believe in free market economics. He's very closely advising John McCain and very closely associated with the campaign.

And we talked about the choice the American people will face this fall. John McCain's going to talk about growing the economy by getting runaway federal spending under control and ending the earmarking culture, preserving the tax cuts and creating more incentives for investment.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are simply talking about raising taxes on the most productive Americans and Keynesian-style increase in government spending the likes of which we've seen before.

I mean, in my judgment, that kind of a choice between a government- based, kind of Keynesian-style high tax solution and the solution that John McCain and his advisers like Phil Gramm are advocating will be a bright- line choice for the American people, and the American people are going to choose the free market solution. I believe it with all my heart.

HUME: Congressman Pence, a pleasure to have you. Thanks for being with us.

PENCE: Thank you, Brit.

HUME: Coming up, our Sunday panel on the fight among Democrats over what to do about Florida and Michigan.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I think that it would be a grave disservice to the voters of Florida and Michigan to adopt any process that would disenfranchise anyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I think even my 6-year-old would understand it would not be fair for Senator Clinton to be awarded delegates when there was no campaign and, in one of the states at least, my name didn't appear on the ballot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, that was you know who and you know who on the question of what should happen with those convention delegates in Michigan and Florida.

It's panel time now for Fox News contributors Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, Bill Kristol, also of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams, also of National Public Radio.

All right. I think you could tell from the answers that our two guests earlier gave that a resolution to this question of what to do about those two primaries and the delegates selected therein is not at hand.

And just to give a sense of the stakes here, let's look at the popular Democratic vote with Florida and Michigan included. And if we can get that up there, you'll see that Barack Obama has a delegate lead of about 5,000 and change -- very close for those two candidates. Without those two counted, his lead swells to 628,000.

And the situation with the delegates, obviously, would be closer as well, so -- with those two counted.

So, Fred, how -- I mean, they're in a real pickle here. How are they going to get out of this? Do you have any idea?

BARNES: Well, look. If Debbie Dingell and Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz don't have any ideas, how am I going to have any?

Well, I do, though. I mean, look. For one thing -- start with this, Brit. They're not going to have at the Democratic convention only 48 states seated with delegations. They're going to have 50. So that means they're going to have to have delegates from Michigan and Florida.

Now, you could see Democrats saying, "OK, we'll accept the Florida one because they both -- both people were on the ballot," but Senator Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan, so they have to redo that.

But in any case, for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination, when you add it all up together, the votes in Florida and Michigan, and all the others, she's going to have to have a majority of the popular vote, because she's probably not going to have a majority of the delegate vote, even if she does well in these 11 more contests between now and early June -- you know, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and so on -- North Carolina, Mississippi, on Tuesday.

HUME: Guam.

BARNES: Guam. Who could forget Guam in this battle?

HUME: Well, I want to let everybody on this panel know we'll be in New York the night of Guam, up till whatever hours it takes. It gets late out there. That's all right.

BARNES: So what will happen here -- look. They're going to do something in Michigan and Florida, and it's up to Hillary Clinton to get ahead in the popular vote, because otherwise she's not going to be the nominee.

LIASSON: Yes. Look, these delegations are going to be seated at the convention. The only question is how are they going to be counted. I mean, we know that some solution is going to be found.

The question is, as your two guests just said, it's going to have to seem fair to both campaigns. This is a discussion going on between the DNC, the states and the two campaigns.

HUME: The bad blood evident between the states and the Democratic national chairman, Howard Dean, seems to be very deep and very real.

LIASSON: Yes. I mean, look. This all stems from the fact that especially Michigan did not like the fact that Iowa and New Hampshire have the sacred position at the beginning of the calendar, and they wanted to go first.

Now, as it turns out, they would have had a heck of a lot more clout in the Democratic primary process if they'd stayed to their original February day -- amazing -- big industrial state, you know, breaking the deadlock after the early primaries.

But you know, they were focused on Iowa and New Hampshire and the great unfairness of it all. But some solution is going to have to come up.

You can imagine a solution that would, for instance, give her a net positive result of the delegates but not one that would make a difference. You cannot have a result of this dispute that would literally switch the order.

HUME: Without a re-vote.

LIASSON: Yes, without a re-vote, that would switch the order of Obama and Clinton.

KRISTOL: I think, Brit, while you cover this from New York, I'll go to Guam. I will take the hit for the team. And a couple of weeks -- you guys do Pennsylvania, Mississippi, you know...

LIASSON: I think there's Puerto Rico, too.

KRISTOL: Yes, I could do -- I think I should specialize in non- state primaries and caucuses.

HUME: So I'll be in some studio in Michigan at 4 o'clock in the morning, and you'll be in broad daylight in Guam with a Panama hat on and a Hawaiian shirt.

KRISTOL: From the beach. From the beach, getting in touch with the voice of the people out there, Brit. You need to get outside the Beltway to Guam.

I was in, actually, Michigan Thursday night and Friday. I think they are going to -- they want to participate in this process, obviously.

And as Fred said, I don't think the Democrats can resolve an incredibly close and exciting nominating contest by excluding representation from Michigan and Florida.

It would hurt them badly in the general election, and Michigan and Florida are key competitive states in the general election. Voters would resent it if they were not allowed to participate.

So I think Michigan could well have some kind of do-over in June.

WILLIAMS: Well, the question is who pays for it. And if you're looking at it from the perspective of the Obama campaign, it looks as if you're inviting more people into the party, because right now he's got a lead and he wants to maintain it, so he has no interest in it.

But the moral argument is that you don't disenfranchise voters. And as was said earlier, I can't imagine them having a convention at which they don't seat delegations from Florida and Michigan.

So at the moment, Obama is in something of a trap. He's got to say, "You know what? I'm interested in making sure these people are represented and seated because I want to go forward and be the candidate, and I want to have support from those states in the general election." I don't see how he can avoid, in essence, giving in to what Hillary Clinton wants, which is essentially to have another vote that will allow -- and I think she's likely to win.

HUME: She wants that? She wants it counted the way it is.

LIASSON: No, it's just the opposite, Juan. She would like to, if she could, muscle her way through the credentials committee, if she could.

WILLIAMS: There's no way. That's not going to happen, Mara.

LIASSON: The point is that if Obama was on the ballot in Michigan, given how many votes her anonymous opponent got there, don't you think he would do well?

WILLIAMS: No, I don't think so. I think she's got the support of the governor. I think she's got support of all the key legislators.

HUME: Wait a minute.

WILLIAMS: I think she's likely to win both states.

HUME: I know, but she beat uncommitted. Uncommitted got, what, 40 percent of the vote or something like that?

WILLIAMS: I'm just telling you. I tell you. You look at the basic constituency...

HUME: There it is. Look at it.

WILLIAMS: ... you boil it down, I think...

HUME: Uncommitted got 40 percent of the vote. That's not bad.

WILLIAMS: That's not bad. And he's a terrific...

HUME: Well, don't you think he'd do better than that?

WILLIAMS: I don't know. I don't know. He's a terrific campaigner. He gets in there. He may, you know, stir great excitement. But my bet is that she would win both of those states and it would be to Barack Obama's disadvantage.

BARNES: It would, and that's why Mara talks about there being a solution that would -- is fair to both campaigns. You cannot have a solution that's fair to both campaigns.

Right now, look. Barack Obama obeyed the rules that the Democratic Party set down. He didn't participate in those primaries. And yet anything short of that, where you're going to count the delegates in there, whether you have a do-over or not in Michigan or Florida or something, is going to be unfair to him, because without those two states, he's ahead. He wins the nomination. HUME: Well, let's move on to that question. We all assume some kind of a compromise will be reached, and we have some idea what the shape of the outcome might be in those two states based on what's happened.

So all of that -- how likely is it that she can still come from behind and beat him?

BARNES: Well, I'd say she's the underdog, and she's -- I don't think, unless she had some -- in these 11 states coming up, she's going to really have to do well. It's not going to be enough just to win Pennsylvania, which is demographically good for her, as I think Michigan is as well -- but not just Pennsylvania.

She's going to have to win West Virginia, Kentucky, maybe Indiana, maybe North Carolina. That's a key state.

HUME: How big?

BARNES: Well, enough so she comes out of these with a substantial majority of the popular vote, anyway, and also picks up delegates.

Really, it's going to -- at the end of the day, it's going to come down to these superdelegates, and they're going to look and say, "You know, who's the hot candidate? Who's winning the primaries? Who has the popular vote?"

LIASSON: No, if he can...

HUME: Well, is it possible, Mara? Just let me ask this question.

LIASSON: Yes.

HUME: An African American goes farther than we've ever seen an African American go in this process and comes in to -- finishes the primary season with a delegate lead.

Would the superdelegates, popular vote notwithstanding, really take it away from him?

LIASSON: I think that that is the Clinton strategy. The Clinton strategy is at the end of the day, if they can be close enough to him in the delegate count, close enough to him in the popular vote or maybe, as Fred said, even more, they can convince just enough of those remaining 300 or so currently uncommitted superdelegates to go with them, because they're making this argument that he just hasn't done well enough in the right states, the states that matter in a general, like Ohio or Florida.

The question is is there some way she can do that that will not be perceived as unfair by Obama and his supporters -- first African American candidate to do this, to win more states than her, raise more money, get more delegates, et cetera, et cetera.

HUME: Win more delegates.

LIASSON: Win more delegates. Is there a way to do it that is not going to be perceived as unfair and damage the party?

Now, maybe part of that is getting him to agree to be on the ticket with her. I don't know. I think it's going to be very difficult. He is ahead by every measure right now.

KRISTOL: She has to unambiguously win the popular vote. She can't catch him in pledged delegates. She can knock his lead in pledged delegates, which is now about 145 or something, down -- pledged delegates, yes.

HUME: Pledged delegates.

LIASSON: Right.

HUME: And the reason that number is not 110 is that the 110...

KRISTOL: Counts the superdelegates.

HUME: ... votes count the superdelegates.

KRISTOL: If she can knock the pledged delegates lead down to, you know, 75, or something, which is incredibly close -- but she has to -- you cannot be behind in both pledged delegates and popular vote and get the nomination, in my opinion.

If she is unambiguously ahead in popular vote -- if she wins Pennsylvania by 300,000, Indiana by 100,000, if she could upset him in North Carolina, then I think the superdelegates will say, "Look. One guy is ahead a little bit in pledged delegates, the other candidate's ahead a little bit in popular vote, we get to exercise our judgment here," and enough of them might have the judgment that Hillary Clinton is a stronger candidate.

So she has an outside shot to win.

HUME: If he comes in with a delegate lead when the matter is turned over to the superdelegates, and they vote for her, what will happen, Juan, in your view?

WILLIAMS: Oh, I think people will be upset, and especially I think, you know, on this panel where we're talking -- is it's just black people who would be upset. But you've got to remember, Barack Obama's base was initially young white people and a lot of affluent, well-educated people.

HUME: Right.

WILLIAMS: And I think they would say, you know, "Gee, our pitch for idealism, for people controlling the party, has been taken away unfairly."

But I don't think they're going to run to the Republican candidate. It might be that they are -- you know, 20 percent will stay home.

But remember this. Barack Obama is not doing well so far with Hispanics. He's not capturing what people call the Reagan Democrats, white working class. Those are all in Hillary Clinton's camp.

And so if you look at that and you ask the superdelegates who's the best candidate to go forward and actually win, it may be the case, as the Clinton team is arguing right now, that Barack Obama is not winning big states that are key to winning the general election.

HUME: Well, he's won a couple of them.

WILLIAMS: He winning a bunch of small states...

HUME: He won his home...

WILLIAMS: Yes, he won his home state of Illinois, but he's not won...

HUME: And he also won Missouri.

WILLIAMS: Right. OK. But he's not won Ohio, not won Texas. You know, as Ohio goes, so goes the nation.

LIASSON: Texas is not going to go Democratic.

HUME: Texas is not going to go Democratic.

WILLIAMS: Well, you never know. You never know. Look, McCain is in California.

But here's the thing for the Obama campaign, which is they're now looking to go hard against Hillary Clinton, to get her tax returns, which is forthcoming, to look at her schedule coming out of the Clinton library. And the question is what will they find there. The Clinton people say there's nothing to be found

HUME: By the way, it's an interesting question. She says she's going to release her tax returns on or about April 15th. I suspect that might be just this year's. Anybody know?

WILLIAMS: No.

LIASSON: Well, in which case, they'll demand more.

Look. Obama is focusing on this process stuff, tax returns, transparency. Granted, that's one of his themes. I think he has to go after her a lot more frontally than that, than just kind of nibble around the edges and talk about tax returns.

I mean, he has to figure out a way to counter her. She's thrown everything at him. The attacks have worked. And I think that there is a way that he can figure out without, you know, besmirching his brand, as -- whatever it is, the politics of hope.

He's gone on the attack against her in leaflets and mailings and ads in the past. I think he can do it again.

HUME: OK, everybody. We need to give our sponsors some time.

But when we come back, the Republican nominee, Senator McCain -- how will he deal with the economy. Some thoughts on that, and on a particular issue, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: On this day in 2000, Vice President Al Gore won the South Carolina caucuses and secured the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gore's only remaining challenger, Bill Bradley, dropped out of the race the same day. Gore went on, of course, to lose the general election to George W. Bush.

Stay tuned for more from our panel and "On the Trail."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Our economy is not in the condition we want it to be. Let's have some straight talk. We've had some real difficulties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: That was Senator McCain on Friday briefly addressing some troubling economic news.

And we're back here with Fred, Mara, Bill and Juan.

Let's talk, first of all, about an issue that is an economic issue that is being hung around John McCain's neck by angry Democrats, and that is the awarding of the contract for the new Air Force supertanker to Northrop Grumman and its partner, which is the parent company of the European aerospace company Airbus.

This was a contract that was originally awarded to Boeing under rules so rigged, in the eyes of many, that it led to a scandal, and the head of Boeing ended up resigning.

And they did it over. It was a competitive process. And the Europeans won. This has now become an issue. Nancy Pelosi has weighed in on the subject. Let's see if we can't show you what she said on this issue just the other day.

Senator McCain intervened and now we have a situation where the contract may be -- this work may be outsourced. Well, Senator McCain didn't intervene on behalf of the outsourcing. He intervened on behalf of a new process that the other company won. So how does this issue play out?

What's going on here, Fred, and what do you think?

BARNES: Well, look. You have to remember back -- the original contract that McCain screamed about so much -- a Boeing official and a Pentagon official both went to jail. I mean, there was so much collusion. This wasn't just some, you know, fancy "inside the Beltway" lobbying. This was real criminal collusion.

OK, so you come to the bidding again, and there was only going to be one bidder, and that was Boeing again as the only one. Can you imagine if, after the collusion, that Boeing, in a no-bid contract, wins it again? People would be screaming and yelling.

So what McCain did was insist that they get another bidder. So they got not -- Brit, you said a European company. It is Northrop Grumman, an American company, and Airbus. And Airbus.

HUME: And a European partner, right.

BARNES: And so now they're -- the fight is over -- and it's clear why they won the contract, because their plane has more cargo, it'll carry more fuel...

LIASSON: It's cheaper.

BARNES: ... and it's cheaper. It's more cost-efficient. It will be built in Alabama, actually.

And so the scream now is only over whether there'll be -- that Boeing would have had more jobs in the United States, particularly in the state of Washington.

I think McCain gets the best of this, but if he wants to win the state of Washington, this isn't going to help.

LIASSON: Yes. I mean, it's very parochial. Look. Even the New York Times editorial board weighed in, saying that McCain was righter in this argument than Obama and Clinton.

This is about, you know -- it's easy to be a free trader except for when it hurts your state, I guess is how you put it. And John McCain did not award this contract to the Northrop Grumman consortium. He just created a process that would be fairer.

KRISTOL: I mean, if the economy is going into a recession, which Friday's job numbers suggest it might be, it will be an interesting test to see whether being responsible, as John McCain has been, in terms of insisting on a good government process that normally would be lauded by every kind of liberal editorial page, for the Pentagon, or insisting on free trade, which, again, is a total consensus view among serious economists, whether that pays off politically or whether demagoguing on these issues would work.

Nancy Pelosi is being ridiculous. And Obama and Clinton, incidentally, are demagoguing NAFTA in Ohio, the North American Free Trade Agreement, in a way that they can't possibly believe.

And of course, Obama's top economic adviser, a serious University of Chicago economist, had to reassure the Canadian government that of course we're not going to unilaterally change a 15-year-old treaty that has actually benefited Mexico, Canada and the U.S., though, you know, it's a mixed bag, but, on net, has benefited the U.S.

But you know, if you go into recession, a kind of demagogic protectionism could work, and that's the card the Democrats are going to play.

WILLIAMS: Well, the real issue here is the economy and the fact is it's going to be a drag on the Republican candidate, John McCain. And you get people like Rahm Emanuel, the Democrat, saying, "You know, we're rebuilding Iraq, we're giving them schools, bridges and the rest, and now we're sending American jobs overseas."

That's a bad message, and I think it's a problematic message for John McCain, although on the merits -- and I just come back to what Fred said -- you know, people were going to jail in the other process, and John McCain was absolutely right to point out that there was corruption involved.

But it's hard to make the argument in this day and age that somehow you couldn't have saved those jobs for Americans and that there isn't some way to do it.

Now, the GAO is in a position to say that somehow something was wrong here and force the Air Force to reopen it. We'll see if this plays out in some political sense. But the political sense and the political impetus might come from Republicans who see that the damage would be done.

The idea that John McCain would call for a continuation of George Bush's economic policies -- more tax cuts. That's what he's calling for in his campaign. I don't think that's going to play with the American people right now, not in this economic atmosphere.

HUME: Let's assume, Fred, for the sake of discussion that there is a recession or what is universally seen by people as the equivalent of a recession, that it's very bad economic times.

Is there any way that the Republican nominee can win the election in the face of that?

BARNES: It will be very hard. I think there's a pretty solid rule that we've seen over the years in politics that the party that holds the White House suffers in economic bad times. Well, the Republicans still hold the White House and it would hurt McCain. It would hurt the whole party.

What I think he would have to do would be to go on offense against the Democrats and say, "Look. The Democrats are threatening a trade war. They not only want to reopen NAFTA and with our trading -- our biggest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, they want to stop any more free trade agreements. They won't go along with the trade agreements with South Korea and Colombia," ones that are very helpful to the United States.

So that's one thing. They're threatening a trade war. And people around the world are fearful of that now.

Secondly, they will raise taxes in the teeth of a recession which -- and obviously, that would make things worse.

And thirdly, they're people who are slamming American businesses all the time. So in other words, his argument would essentially be they'll make things worse. LIASSON: He needs to have a better argument than that. He needs to speak to the economic anxieties of those people that are being called Sam's Club Republicans. He can't just attack the Democrats with the old playbook.

He needs to offer something real and hopeful to people who are being hurt by the economy, and it should be a "reform Republican" economic program, and they are working on that now.

KRISTOL: Yes, I think if he picked up both of those sets of talking points, he'd do fine. No, I kind of like Fred's negative attack on the Democrats.

Look, we shouldn't ignore that Gerald Ford ran for re-election in 1976. You had a guy who had never been elected and an appointed president, so to speak, succeeded after Nixon resigned.

After the pardon, after a really tough recession in 1975 -- I mean, whatever recession we're going to have, it's not going to be -- I don't think we'll see the unemployment numbers or the inflation numbers that Ford had to put up with.

Ford came out of the conventions, what, down by about 25 points in 1976. The country wasn't in really great shape. And yet he did raise questions about Jimmy Carter and the Democrats and ended up closing that 25-point gap by 23 points and, you know, almost won.

I think you can do a lot of damage to the notion of a Democratic president who's going to raise taxes, launch a trade war, and try to, you know, nationalize health insurance, and do a lot of things that the American public is going to be awfully nervous about, to say nothing of foreign policy.

It needs to be combined in a positive message. But the Democrats are vulnerable.

WILLIAMS: Well, here's another point of view, which is -- and I think you would agree with this -- much of this election's going to be about the war in Iraq.

And if it's about the war in Iraq, people are going to start to say, "Wait a minute. How much money are we spending over there? Why are we sending all this money to Iraq? And why is it that that's not online, we can't see those numbers? And why is it having such a tremendously negative impact on the American economy? And you're saying we should cut taxes?"

HUME: Who said that?

WILLIAMS: I think that's what the Bush administration has done. They spent a lot of money in Iraq, and we don't know exactly...

HUME: And that's why we're having a bad economy?

WILLIAMS: And people will argue that that's part of why we don't have a social safety net. We have such economic anxiety in this country, and it's time to understand exactly what's going on with that kind of war spending, unlimited, no end in sight.

I think people are going to be very upset about it, and then you're going to say, "Oh, cut taxes," and the Democrats would raise taxes? No. Democrats are saying, "Let's put in place a social safety net. Let's take care of Americans and American workers first." I think that's a winning argument, Bill.

BARNES: Well, look. I think Juan's wrong. The American people care about one thing about Iraq. Are we winning or are we losing? Up until this year, we've been losing. Now it looks a lot better.

And look. The war's been going on for five years. All five of those years, the deficit in spending has been shrinking, despite all this spending on the Iraq war.

I just think that saying the Iraq war is causing the economy to go bad -- Juan, that won't fly. It just simply won't.

WILLIAMS: It's part of the conversation.

BARNES: No.

WILLIAMS: It's an important part of the conversation. If you're talking about -- and remember this. The economy now is in the slump. It's at this point and going forward that it's going to be, I think, a real negative for John McCain.

And so he's got to have an answer, and I think the fact that he doesn't have an answer -- all he says is let's have more war and let's have more tax cuts. That's just not a winning argument.

HUME: Somehow I can't imagine the -- "Vote for McCain. Let's have more war and more tax cuts."

(LAUGHTER)

All right. Thanks, panel. We'll see you next week.

Up next, we go "On the Trail."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: This week John McCain clinched the Republican nomination, but Barack Obama could not deliver a knockout blow to Hillary Clinton. Here's how it all played out "On the Trail."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: You know what they say: As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I have a little secret which I will only tell Fox if you promise not to tell anybody else. You know what? I really am a human being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but what now must be, and that is a united party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Stand up and fight for America, for her strength, her ideals and her future. The contest begins tonight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I've had people say, "I wish I could vote for both of you." Well, that might be possible some day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: It's premature. You won't see me as a vice presidential candidate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: One point seven million Floridians turned out to vote. They clearly believed that their votes would count. And I think there has to be a way to make them count.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: All we've done is try to abide by the rules as they've been set out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I think it's important to look at what she and his other advisers say behind closed doors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: And I will be very privileged to have the opportunity of being again on the campaign trail with him, only slightly different roles this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Be sure to tune in on Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. as we report from America's election headquarters on the next big primary. This time it's Mississippi.

And that's it for today. Chris Wallace will be back to restore order next week, when we'll all see you on the next "Fox News Sunday.

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