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June 27, 2008

Panel Reviews the Obama/Clinton Event

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) NEW YORK: To anyone that voted for me, and is now considering not voting, or voting for Senator McCain, I strongly urge you to reconsider. I urge you to remember who we are standing for in this election.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am proud to call her a friend, and I know how much we need both Bill and Hillary Clinton as a party and as a country in the months and years to come. They have done so much great work. I don't think it's been 40 years--maybe for the last couple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: It looked chummy today in Unity, New Hampshire, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama getting together. What about this event?

Some analytical observations from Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of "The Weekly Standard," Juan Williams, Senior Correspondent of National Public Radio, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

Juan, what is your take on the event? Besides the matching tie and pantsuits, what do you think?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I thought maybe they should have had contrasting. But unity in Unity, New Hampshire, a place where Hillary Clinton upset Barack Obama, but I thought it was a nice setting. It looked like a nice crowd.

The real issues here to my mind is will she deliver and will Bill Clinton deliver? And that's not clear to me. I think that in terms of her ability to write a check, she and Bill Clinton both wrote checks at the max, making a symbolic contribution to the campaign.

But what about the contributors, and what about the key constituencies that identified with Hillary Clinton during the Democratic battle? And here I'm thinking of constituencies that will be evident in swing states, such as white, working class voters. I'm talking about Hispanic voters, I'm talking about Jewish voters. Are they going to transfer allegiances?

Right now, I think it is about 15 percent of people who voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary says that they do not plan to vote for Barack Obama. She is going to have to do more than show up in Unity one time to get those votes over.

BAIER: You think there is still tension there?

WILLIAMS: There is no question. You talk to people who are still in the Clinton campaign, and they are holding together. But they still have a lot of feelings about Barack Obama, the way he came on. And I think for them, this is an upsetting period. But they're trying to get over it.

Bill Clinton wasn't even there, you notice. Maybe he is still upset.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: He's very upset. I thought there was another significant event, which was last night at Mayflower Hotel, where the fundraisers for Hillary were meeting for Obama. And I note with amusement that he wrote a check for $4,600 to Hillary's campaign--

BAIER: He and Michelle Obama.

KRAUTHAMMER: Right, together, writing a check to retire her debt, which shows that the exchange of cash and favors at this Mayflower hotel is becoming a Democratic tradition.

Look, the other point here I think is the fact that Bill was absent. He is really absent. He issued a statement of support the other day that was shocking in its coldness and coolness. I think he is the one who is really recalcitrant. He will have a hard time coming around.

I'm not sure it's going to affect Obama directly, but he can do a lot of damage by sort of omission, and I think he will omit a lot.

BAIER: Most people say, Fred, that the dream ticket is really not going to happen, that it's just that, a dream, for some.

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Yes, yes.

BAIER: But what about the use of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail after this event today?

BARNES: Well, there are a couple of things going on here that we see always in politics--losing hurts. The Clinton people lost and they're still unhappy about that.

And the other one is when you look at what happens when parties, particularly those parties that have been out of power and really want to get into power, they have shotgun weddings. And that's what's this was between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They don't have to like each other. They just have to get together and show signs of unity.

I don't believe it is up to Hillary Clinton to win the election for Barack Obama. If white working class voters and Jewish voters and Hispanic voters and older women and so on are going to be attracted to Barack Obama, it's not going to be because Hillary Clinton told them to be attracted to him. Obama is the going to have to get them himself.

He is presidential candidate. Why all of a sudden, when I think one of the generally agreed upon rules of politics is that, for the most part, vice presidential candidates don't bring much with them, why should Hillary Clinton be expected to do all these things for Obama. He needs to do them for himself. Actually, he is off to a good start in doing them.

BAIER: Juan, John McCain said today that he still believes he can attract some disenchanted Clinton voters. Do you think that's the case?

WILLIAMS: It sure is. He has got to make the case, but if he runs away from what he perceives to be a damaged Republican brand--he is positioning himself as the maverick, he is still traipsing back and forth trying to appeal to the base of the party. But he's never going to win over the hard right people and never going to win over the Limbaughs and the Sean Hannitys.

If he is able to position himself as a moderate, reasonable, pragmatic politician, a lot of those middle of the road people will say he is a safe choice. And, ultimately, that's the strategy that he is pursuing.

And, by the way, in response to Fred, I don't see why he wouldn't consider Hillary Clinton as the V.P. pick. I think she would bring the most to the ticket of many of the Democrats.

BARNES: Half of America dislikes her and has for years, and rather passionately.

WILLIAMS: Those are Republicans.

KRAUTHAMMER: The thing she brings is her husband, and that's why she ain't going to get it.

BARNES: I said most.

BAIER: When we return with our panel, lawmakers who started their ten-day July break. But what did they get done before they skipped town? We'll find out next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) OHIO, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Congress did not go home for the Fourth of July break without acting on energy reforms that the American people expect of us. But it appears that Democratic leadership has different ideas.

SEN. CHRIS DODD, (D) CONNECTICUT: It's awfully difficult to go back home when people are facing gasoline prices that are going through the ceiling on them, they are watching their fellow citizens lose their homes, the values of theirs are declining, the joblessness rising in the country, and they're wondering why we can't manage to get anything done on their behalf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That was house minority leader John Boehner and Democratic Senator Chris Dodd talking about what is getting done and what isn't getting done on energy.

We're back with our panel. There is word, Jim Angle reported today, that ten senators are coming together and calling for an energy summit after the July recess to try to break--these are Democrats and Republicans trying to break the deadlock.

On energy, first of all, let's talk about that, and what Congress did manage to get done before this recess--Charles?

KRAUTHAMMER: On energy, the Congress disgraced itself. It spent all its time on the most demagogic and useless hearings on oil windfall profits taxes, investigations of gouging, allegations of all kinds of shenanigans by speculators, as if this is the issue.

The issue is supply and demand. We're not going to have any influence over demand in China and India, but we can have an influence on supply. And on the real issue, which is to increase our supply with the only major country that shuts itself out of all of these incredible resources that we had in the Arctic and offshore and in shale oil, it is shut out.

And the Democrats in Congress refuse to move. That, I think, is the issue.

It is an issue that Republicans--it is a genuine issue, it's an important issue in the crisis of high prices. Republicans have this issue, and they have one avenue to actually attempt an attack on Democrats. They have been scandalous in their dereliction on this.

BAIER: What about what has gotten done?

WILLIAMS: The supplemental on the war, obviously. I think the FISA Bill, the Intelligence Bill is sitting there. It will get approved-- basically the president has a package that he was seeking. I think those will be the two major accomplishments.

But the goal as to what Charles was saying, I think Republicans are being obstructionist when it comes to the housing issue that you just saw Chris Dodd talking about. It's only because the Republicans are saying that we want leverage, you have to give us what we want on the energy bill that you can't get a Housing Bill put in place, and I think it is an important piece of legislation at this point.

You may have differences of opinion as to what the American taxpayers should be picking up, but the idea that no action would be taken in the middle of this crisis, that is unforgivable.

BAIER: And you are saying Republicans are to blame for them?

WILLIAMS: At the moment they're the ones stopping a vote.

BARNES: Look, in the energy thing, there is only one thing, really, that the Republicans are asking for, and that is a vote, a vote in the House and a vote in the Senate, on whether we would lift the ban on offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands and the oil shale areas-- just a vote. One vote on that thing. Should we drill more? Can we start?

The Democrats won't allow a vote. They're against doing it, but they won't even allow a vote. I think they figure they would lose the vote, and so then they are just talking about, as Charles said, merely peripheral issues.

The silliest one was a proposal that if an oil company leases a part of a place where they're looking for oil and they don't drill after ten years, well, they lose that lease. The leases expire after ten years anyway. They don't need legislation to do that.

And, besides, oil companies, if they haven't found it in ten years they're probably going to give up and would be happy to give up.

So, look, there is a deal here, but only if Democrats agree to a vote on lifting the moratorium.

WILLIAMS: Why do they have to be tied together? Let's deal with the housing issue that's right there in front of us.

BARNES: The housing issue is separate. It's going to pass. These small objections by people--I think it's a terrible bill, but it's going to pass.

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