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October 26, 2008

Gov. Kaine and Karl Rove on "Fox News Sunday"

Fox News Sunday

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

Nine days and counting until we elect a new president. As Obama and McCain criss-cross the country fighting for votes, the final battleground is set.

We'll handicap the race in two crucial states with Tim Kaine, governor of red-state Virginia and national co-chair for Obama, and Tom Ridge, former governor of blue-state Pennsylvania and a McCain national co-chair - - Kaine and Ridge, only on "Fox News Sunday."

Then, what happens in the final week of the campaign? We'll crunch the numbers, discuss the closing arguments and review the ground operations with the man behind two presidential victories, master strategist Karl Rove.

Also, as the campaign enters its final days, are the mainstream media showing their bias? We'll ask our Sunday regulars -- Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.

And we'll take a look at some running mate moments "On the Trail" that left both presidential nominees scratching their heads, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello again from Fox News in Washington. Well, with little over a week left until Election Day, the presidential race has come down, as it always does, to a handful of battleground states.

And joining us now from one of those states, Florida, is the architect of two presidential election victories, Karl Rove.

And, Karl, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

ROVE: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Well, let's begin with the latest version of the Rove electoral map. Let's put it up on the screen. This, of course, is an average of recent state polls.

It shows Obama with his biggest lead of the campaign, leading in states with 317 electoral votes to McCain's 157, with 270 needed to win the presidency.

Karl, you now have Ohio a blue state, Indiana, Colorado, Virginia. These are states that Republicans traditionally win.

ROVE: Yeah. And from Thursday -- last Thursday was the most recent map before this one, and from Thursday there were 46 individual state polls in less than 48 hours, and they moved Indiana from being toss-up into the Obama column, giving him his largest lead thus far this campaign.

In order to -- in order for McCain to win, he's got a very steep hill to climb. He's got to win all of the toss-up states, 64 electoral votes, all the yellow-shaded states on the map.

Then he needs to strip away Ohio and Indiana with 31 electoral votes to get him to 252. And then he needs to either win Colorado and Virginia, which gets him to 274, or win one of them plus Pennsylvania, which would get him to 282 or 286. It's a steep uphill climb.

WALLACE: Well, and to make it seem even steeper, let's take a look at the trend lines of your electoral map, because they're really quite fascinating. What they show is that this race was tied. In fact, for a brief moment in mid-September, McCain was ahead in the states with the electoral vote.

And then you see, starting in mid-September, it just -- the red and the blue lines seemed to diverge and Obama steadily widens his lead for over a month now. How does John...

ROVE: Right.

WALLACE: ... McCain turn that around in nine days?

ROVE: Well, first of all, the race -- you know, it depends -- he can turn it around if you believe that the race is somewhere between one and four or five or maybe six.

We've got so many polls out there, it's unbelievable. We've had in the...

WALLACE: You're talking about what the margin is in national polls.

ROVE: In national polls, right. If the race is a -- you know, last week we had two polls with the race being at one point. We had a poll with one that was at 13 points, and one was at 12 points, and several at 11 points.

I mean, the -- we're all getting -- we're all getting poll-itis here. In the first 24 days of October, this year, there have been 177 national polls. By comparison, in 2004, during the first 24 days of October, there were 55.

We've had 300 percent more polls in 2008 in the month of October than we had in 2004.

WALLACE: But assume for a moment, Karl, that -- and according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Obama's lead is eight points this morning.

Assuming it is eight points, how does McCain possibly turn that around in nine days?

ROVE: Well, it's -- it's difficult. What he's got to do is pound home on two big messages. One message is, "I'm right on the issues and he's wrong when it comes to taxes and the war on terror, and I'm experienced and ready to be president, and whatever his strengths and skills are, he, Senator Obama, is not ready to be president." And you've got to make that message in a handful of states and repeat it constantly and hope that your ground game on Election Day is able to give you a point or two more beyond what the polls show you having.

WALLACE: You know, part of the problem, of course, Karl, is it isn't a question of closing the gap now, because in fact, there's heavy early voting in a bunch of states, and let me put that up on the screen.

In North Carolina, more than 900,000 people have voted already. We don't know who they're voting for, but we do know their registration. More than half of them were registered Democrats.

In Nevada, 200,000 people have voted early, and more than half of them are Democrats.

Karl, hasn't Obama basically already banked much of his current lead?

ROVE: Well, first of all, let's be a little careful. In 2004, for example, 48 percent of the early and absentee votes in North Carolina were from Democrats, and Bush won the state by 14 points.

This year there are about -- 50 percent are from Democrats. So that's the first thing. Let's make certain we understand how much it deviates from past patterns.

Second, we've got to be very careful about taking a snapshot now and seeing that that's how it's going to end up. For example, in North Carolina, there are 65,500 more Republican absentee ballot requests that have yet to be voted than there are Democrats. That's going to even it up a lot.

And thirdly, we've got to be very careful. This is what both campaigns are trying to figure out. Are they cannibalizing their Election Day turnout? That is to say, are they getting to the polls people who would otherwise vote and banking them early, or are they getting new people who might not otherwise vote? And that's -- that we won't really know until Election Day.

But the evidence is starting to appear that what's happening is these are not first-time voters. In fact, it looks like first-time voters and younger voters are essentially the same percentage that they were in 2004 or less.

Now, African American -- votes slightly differently. In Florida, for example, there's evidence that the early vote, particularly the early vote that showed up at the polling places as opposed to absentee ballots, is more African American than it was in previous elections.

WALLACE: One thing that we are witnessing already is dissension within the ranks of the McCain campaign. And we're starting to see this -- there's a big article today in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about it. There have been a bunch of other reports -- people pointing fingers at each other about what went wrong with the McCain campaign even before we get to the election.

Why do you think that this has started so early and so publicly?

ROVE: Well, look. We've seen this a couple of times this year. We saw it in the Clinton campaign, and now we're seeing it in the McCain campaign, where before the election is totaled up, before the votes are all cast, before the decision is made, people start pointing fingers and blaming each other.

It is a sign of undisciplined people who do not have the loyalty that they ought to have to the candidate whom they're serving. And it's -- it's a sad sight to see. Nobody makes themselves look good by this process.

WALLACE: It is not generally a phenomenon we see in winning campaigns, however, is it?

ROVE: Oh, you know, occasionally, you see it. But you're right, it's in campaigns that are behind, and people want to make certain they escape with the best reputation they can.

Let me say -- and this is a point of personal privilege -- I was particularly amazed by the attacks this morning in the New York Times piece on Steve Schmidt. You can -- you can blame the campaign for doing good things and bad things.

But when Steve Schmidt began to assume more control of the campaign in June was when the campaign began to get up on its legs and get into the fray, and you know, the tactics that he led them -- got them to a slight lead in -- at the time of the convention and a clear lead by the time of the -- of the economic meltdown.

And I was appalled by the -- sort of the personal attacks on him. You never like to see this. It's -- but you particularly don't like to see it 10 days before an election.

WALLACE: Let me ask you about another aspect of this, because there are growing reports about dissension with regard to Sarah Palin, that supposedly she has turned on some of the McCain advisers who are assigned to her campaign, thinks that they did a very bad job rolling her out.

They conversely are saying that she's a diva and that she has gone -- I love these expressions -- she's gone rogue, which means she's not following the McCain speaking points. What do you know about that, and what do you make of the -- this fight between the McCain camp and the Palin camp?

ROVE: Yeah, look. This is a story line the media likes. I do know this, talking to some people inside the McCain campaign who are working with Palin, they have enormous respect for her abilities. And I think this is maybe a little bit overblown. But look. This is, again, as you say, not the kind of thing you like to have happening in your campaign. And it's generally a sign that people are throwing in the towel and thinking that they're going to lose.

On the other hand, we've got two people that I know inside the McCain campaign who are not throwing in the towel. One of them is the presidential candidate, John McCain, and the other is the vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.

Both of them are energetically out there on the campaign trail, and this is what is going to really matter in the last 10 days, not what staffers are trying to -- trying to cover themselves with as we get in the final 10 days.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about another part of this equation, and that's voters. And if you believe the polls -- and I'm going to get to you in a moment about the reliability of all these polls -- they really do seem to have soured on Sarah Palin.

Let's take a look at the latest Washington Post poll. A majority of voters now have an unfavorable view of the governor. Right after the Republican convention, they favored her by 2-1. And voters now think she does not have the experience to be president. Just after the convention, they did, by a narrow margin.

Karl, whether it's deserved or not, has Sarah Palin turned out to be a mistake?

ROVE: I think she has been more a plus than a minus. Remember, the same Washington Post poll says that 43 percent or I think 44 percent of the American people believe that Barack Obama is unqualified to be president.

So you know, let's not focus just exclusively on the Republican candidate for vice president. The Democratic candidate for president has a qualification problem with the American people.

But look. I think she has energized a lot of people inside the Republican Party. She gave him a big boost of momentum at a critically needed period of time.

She has been on the receiving end of relentlessly negative coverage, I think a lot of it unfair, some of it motivated by the cultural disconnect between her sort of middle America values and views and sort of the values and views of those who cover her.

But I think overall she's been far more a plus than she's been a hindrance to the ticket.

WALLACE: Do you blame it all on media bias, media coverage, or do you think she bears any responsibility or the McCain campaign's handling of her bears any responsibility for the fact that she seems to have lost some standing with voters?

ROVE: Yeah, look. Look, let's be -- let's be clear about this. We can argue all day long as to whether or not there would be a better way to bring her out than the way that they brought her out. And look. Hindsight is always 20/20 clarity.

But -- so I -- I could make the argument that there are better ways to bring her out. But again, I'd make the point that she brought a lot to the ticket at a critical period of time.

And sure, there were mistakes. She's a first-time candidate. I think, though, that a lot of people give somebody who is a first-time candidate on the stage, particularly one who emerges so late in the campaign -- they say, "Look, OK, I'll give you a little bit more leeway than I might give somebody who's been out there campaigning for two years or somebody who's been a player on the scene for 20 years."

But look. She has been -- I think a lot of the coverage of her has been unfair. Look, Joe Biden has been a gaffe a day. If she had said, for example, in the debate, vice presidential debate, that string of misstatements that he made, the media would have carved her up.

But they gave him a pass, and they've given him a pass pretty consistently. And why? Because he's an old familiar face and they sort of -- their allowance for him is, "Oh, he does that all the time. We're not going to pay attention to it."

WALLACE: All right. I want to ask you -- I said I was going to -- a question that I get asked a lot. How reliable are these polls?

And I want to put up two examples from this week. Take a look at these two national surveys. A New York Times poll taken this week showed Obama up 13 points. But an Associated Press poll taken the same time showed Obama plus one.

As a political strategist, how do you know, Karl, which numbers to believe and which ones to throw out?

ROVE: Well, first of all, that's why every campaign has its own pollsters, so they can have numbers that they believe in. But everybody looks at these numbers. And you're right, those -- that was on Wednesday that we had those -- there were -- there were 10 polls released on Wednesday.

Two of them, the Investors Business Daily and A.P., had it at one. And CBS/New York Times had it at 13. The day before, there were nine polls, battleground at two points, ABC/Washington Post at 11. On Thursday, there were 10 points. G.W. battleground at three, Newsweek at 12. That was the range of these.

WALLACE: So how do you know which to believe?

ROVE: We have -- well, you -- first of all, you believe your own. That's why a presidential campaign takes a lot of time figuring out who its pollster is and then very carefully monitors what that pollster is doing.

But second of all, look, there are good polls and bad polls. And there are -- you know, with all due respect to the CBS/New York Times poll, it is one of the least reliable.

With all due respect to Newsweek, who I write a column for occasionally, their poll is unreliable.

So you start to pick out polls that you think better represent the tone of the election.

Now, In 2004, Investors Business Daily was the poll that came the closest to forecasting the actual outcome. They were 0.4 percent off. The problem is we don't necessarily know whether Investors Business Daily is the most accurate poll of this year.

My general view is this. We endow these polls, first of all, with a false scientific precision they simply do not have.

And second of all, we spend way too much time covering them. I mean, think about that -- 177 polls this month, compared to 55 four years ago. That's three times as many opportunities for media outlets to spend time covering the racehorse rather than the substance of the campaign, to talk about who's up, who's down, as opposed to what exactly the candidates are saying.

And I know there's this tension in coverage, but the proliferation of polls, particularly polls run by universities that may not have the skill and capability that a professional polling outfit has, are really not helpful to the process, in my opinion.

WALLACE: Well, that clears it up entirely, Karl. Thank you so much for joining us. And we -- you and I will get to spend a lot of quality time together on election night. Thanks again.

ROVE: I'm looking forward to it. Thanks.

WALLACE: Up next, we'll take an in-depth look at the presidential race in a key state when we talk with the governor of Virginia. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: We're joined now by a top official from one of the most important battleground states, Democratic governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, who comes to us from his state capital of Richmond.

As we mentioned at the top of the show, we had also booked former governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, but his plane has been delayed coming to Washington today, and he's been unable to get here.

Having said that, Governor Kaine, we're delighted to have you, and let's talk about Virginia -- 13 electoral votes, hasn't gone for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and yet the latest RealClearPolitics average of recent polls shows Obama leading McCain in Virginia by seven points, 52 percent to 45.

Governor, is Obama going to win Virginia?

KAINE: Well, Chris, what I tell every group of people I talk to is since we haven't done it in Virginia for 44 years, we have to consider ourselves the underdog no matter what the polls say until election night, and that's the way I look at this race.

But there are three positive signs for Senator Obama right now in Virginia. First is the polling, as you mentioned. I have not seen a poll, internal or external, since about the 3rd of October that had Senator McCain ahead. So there's been a consistency -- although the margins of these polls all vary, there's been a consistency.

Second, very strong organization -- Senator Obama has more offices open, more volunteers, more effort on registering voters, significantly out-advertising Senator McCain. So on the organization, kind of ground game side, we're strong.

And then the last piece which I think is really important in the closing days of a campaign is the intangible energy gap. I just see an energy and enthusiasm for Senator Obama in Virginia, and I'm not seeing the equivalent energy on the McCain side.

So those are three very positive trends, but you know, we realize we haven't done this for a very long time in Virginia, so we're going to consider ourselves the underdogs until we finally break the string.

WALLACE: Let's put up some of those numbers that you just mentioned, because they show what Obama's got going for him and what McCain is up against. Registration -- it has increased more than 400,000 just this year in Virginia, and mostly in Democratic areas.

Field organization -- in Virginia, Obama has 51 offices and McCain 19.

Governor Kaine, some people have said it's almost as if Obama is running for governor of Virginia, that he has that kind of a ground organization.

KAINE: He definitely has a lot more offices than I did when I ran for governor in 2005. And I think he's realized that presence matters.

The Obama campaign has wisely decided that, you know, of the various ways to spend money, the best way to spend money is on people and presence in the communities of Virginia. So he's not taking any part of this state for granted.

And again, at the end of the campaign, that kind of person-to- person contact -- the canvassing, the phone calling, the intense focus on getting everybody to vote who can -- absentee voting, for example -- it's really important.

And one of the things that's interesting, Chris, I think many people look at Senator Obama and they think the story is what a great inspirational guy he is. I think the real story is what a great organizational candidate he is, and I think that is going to help him enormously here and elsewhere.

WALLACE: If Obama does win Virginia, let's talk about the stakes. What do you think that does for his chances of being elected president?

KAINE: Well, Chris, you know, I'm going to knock on wood as I say this. I think that Senator Obama can be president without Virginia. There are paths that he can get there. But I do not see how Senator McCain can be president without Virginia.

As you know, we're east coast time, so Virginia may be one of those east coast states to report early. Polls close at 7:00. Within an hour or hour and a half, we'll know basically how Virginia is going.

There are three states in Eastern Time that could potentially flip from a Bush state in '04 to Obama that would be huge and meaningful -- Virginia, North Carolina, Florida -- also Indiana, I guess, because they don't have Daylight Savings Time.

But Virginia we'll probably know pretty early. And I think if Virginia goes for Senator Obama, I just do not see how the math can work out for Senator McCain. So I'm telling everybody in my state, you don't need to read all those 150 polls that come out that tell us how Nevada or Colorado or Pennsylvania are looking.

Let's just do the job here in Virginia. And if we can do the job here, we can have some confidence that our candidate will be president.

WALLACE: Game over.

KAINE: Well, you know, you don't say that, because, boy, there's -- you know, the world and everything will always throw surprises at you.

But if it happens in Virginia, I just think the path to 270 for Senator McCain is almost impossible. And so that's why we're focusing hard.

I've done a lot of traveling for Senator Obama as his national co- chair, but almost all my traveling was during the primary season.

Since he became the putative nominee, you know, I pretty much just planted my feet here, because Virginia, you know, uncharacteristically, given our past history -- but we have become a battleground state based on some recent elections, and the senator has wisely recognized that an investment here could pay off big.

WALLACE: Governor Kaine, Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, made a remarkable statement last Sunday. Let's listen to it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BIDEN: We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here. If you don't remember anything else I said, watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

WALLACE: Governor, here is his own running mate saying, "Elect Obama and expect an international crisis."

KAINE: Well, listen. If you ran that clip a little bit longer, what you would hear Senator Biden say is, "This is a guy who's got steel in his spine and he's up to the challenge."

I think the comment was pretty much what most Americans, frankly, understand, which is the world is going to throw a lot of challenges at whoever the next president is.

With two wars, significant challenges in energy and food prices, and economic challenge here at home, there are going to be major tests on inauguration day. I think this will be the most challenging inauguration day since FDR was inaugurated in March of 1933.

The issue, then, is if we know the next president will face challenges, let's make sure we put the right person in. And I go back to...

WALLACE: But, Governor...

KAINE: ... what General Powell said last week. You've got to pick somebody with very, very steady and sober judgment who has good people around him and can negotiate through very difficult times...

WALLACE: But, Governor, respectfully...

KAINE: ... and I think Senator Obama has demonstrated he is.

WALLACE: Governor, I know -- I know that that's been the Obama camp spin -- "Oh, well, he was saying any president -- any new president will be tested." But that isn't what Biden said.

I mean, if you listen to it -- and you're quite right, he did say that Obama has a spine of steel, but he also said, "Here's a 47-year- old guy and they're going to want to --" and I've got the quote, "that if you don't remember anything else I said, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy," not the new president, this guy.

KAINE: Well, and that -- you know, and that is, Chris, what all Americans are wrestling with as they make their choices for president. They want to have somebody who's got the right judgment to steer our economy back in a positive direction and deal with these international challenges.

And again, as General Powell said last week, on both the steadiness in dealing with these economic challenges and the capacity, really, to be a great leader on the world stage -- I think Senator Obama has demonstrated to the American people that he's ready to take on that mantle at a very difficult time.

WALLACE: Last week, Democratic congressman Jack Murtha said Obama faces a special problem in his part of Pennsylvania. He said that a lot of people there are racist. Now, he later apologized and said he didn't mean everybody, but that some people would have problems voting for a black man for president.

Question: Is race the hidden factor and the X factor, if you will, that remains in this election?

KAINE: Chris, you know, I am not naive enough to say that race is a non-factor. It is a factor out there. I just think it's a very minor factor.

You know, Virginia, as you know, was the first state to elect an African American governor in 1989, the great election of my friend, current Richmond mayor Doug Wilder.

And we talked about it at length 20 years ago, and at the end of the day Virginians put their weight behind Doug Wilder, and I think that those who would decide solely or primarily based on race are such a tiny portion that I don't really view it as a big issue.

And frankly, what I see as I'm out there all around Virginia is folks kind of grappling with this. African Americans in this country have voted not just year after year, but decade after decade, for white candidates who are the right candidates to represent them. They've done it with enthusiasm and loyalty. I just can't believe that white Americans at this date, 2008, don't have that same sense of equanimity and ability to pick the right person regardless of what their skin color are. So there may be a few out there, but thank goodness they're so much scarcer than they were 10 or even 20 years ago.

WALLACE: Governor, we've got less than two minutes left. I want to ask -- get into one final area with you. McCain is also...

KAINE: Yep.

WALLACE: ... hitting Obama for his comments to Joe the Plumber about -- that he wants to spread the wealth around. We obviously have a progressive tax system. People that are better off pay a higher percentage of their taxes than people that are less well off.

But is that what taxes are for, to take money from people who are well off and to just give it to people who are less well off? I thought it was to pay for government services, not to spread the wealth around.

KAINE: Indeed. But I mean, I think the -- you know, the way I looked at that is why wouldn't we want to spread opportunities to succeed around. I mean, that's kind of the American way.

And the way I look at it is the sharp differentiation between these two candidates' economic policies are Senator McCain says, "Economic success is how the wealthiest and the biggest businesses are doing. That's why my tax policies help them."

Senator Obama says, "No, economic success is how the middle class and small businesses are doing." And so small businesses like Joe the Plumber's -- my dad ran an iron-working shop. They're going to get no capital gains for small businesses and start-up businesses, health care tax credit for small businesses who buy health insurance for their employees, and since most small businesses make net income of less than $250,000, they're going to get a tax break on the individual income tax plan that Senator Obama has.

I don't view that as redistributionist. I just view it as both sides have a bull's eye that they're painting as to who they want to help to juice this economy and expand opportunity, and Senator Obama's is the middle class and small businesses.

WALLACE: Governor Kaine, we're going to have to leave it there. We want to thank you so much for joining us today.

KAINE: Absolutely, Chris.

WALLACE: And we'll see how the world turns in nine days, sir.

KAINE: Look forward to being back with you.

WALLACE: Good. And we look forward to Governor Ridge's plane landing sometime, even though it's too late for "Fox News Sunday." Coming up, in-fighting among McCain campaign staffers has begun to make headlines. Our Sunday regulars assess the damage after this quick break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: ... clothes are not my property. We had three days of using clothes that the RNC purchased.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was governor Sarah Palin doing damage control after stories this week that the Republican Party spent $150,000 on a new wardrobe for her. And that helped set off a round of finger- pointing inside the McCain campaign.

Time now for our Sunday regulars -- 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 Juan Williams, also from National Public Radio.

Well, the wardrobe story came -- and we discussed this a little bit with Karl Rove -- amid new reports that McCain is -- rather, Palin is fed up with her handlers, feels that she's been ill-served by them. They, meanwhile, are firing back that she's a diva, that she's gone rogue.

Bill, you've been close to the Palin camp all along. How much truth to these stories?

KRISTOL: I think Governor Palin has been ill-served by some of the staff and she's now particularly ill-served that they're shooting at her on background, saying things that I don't believe are true.

And what's amazing -- you showed that clip of her defending herself on the clothing. She didn't go to Neiman Marcus and buy the clothing. She didn't tell someone to go to the Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis. She was just nominated. She's vice president. They need some clothes. They show up with these clothes.

Why wasn't a staffer out there saying, "You know what? I made a mistake?" Since when do the staffers go into hiding and let Governor Palin be the one who has to explain it? It's a total disgrace the way the staff has ducked responsibility for this mistake, which was not her mistake.

No one thinks -- whatever people's criticisms of Governor Palin, no one thinks she lived high off the hog in Alaska and used to go to Neiman Marcus. That wasn't her decision. So I think the staff has ill-served her.

WALLACE: Well, as long as we're talking about it, because I don't know the answer, whether it's her or her staff, we're now told that she will not do any Sunday show in this entire campaign.

This has been a challenge that all serious candidates have always felt they had to meet. Is she afraid to do a Sunday show or is it her staff?

KRISTOL: No, it's not. It's her -- it's the McCain staff, which was -- bottled her up for what -- for the first part of the campaign, and then gradually -- rolled her out finally for that Katie Couric interview under the most disadvantageous circumstances.

She's now broken with a -- to the degree she can, is giving interviews on the tarmac and is doing very well. She has given interviews in the last week, both print and T.V., that have been fine.

I'm told she would be happy to do a T.V. show. She hasn't gotten authorization. I hope she breaks free this week, really, and -- she should do "Fox News Sunday" and every show, as far as I'm concerned, next Sunday.

And if she has to talk personally to Senator McCain -- and I gather they're personally on great terms -- she should say, "You know what? Let me go out and make the case for us next Sunday."

The staff has not served her well by hiding her and not having confidence in her. I just -- one second. I've talked to four people in the last 24 hours, because I was so struck by all these articles about the staff dissension and the sniping at Palin.

Four people I know on the McCain campaign, none of whom had met Palin before Labor Day, none of -- most of whom don't work -- actually, none of whom works directly for Palin; they've just dealt with her in the course of the last six weeks -- they are all very impressed by her -- smart, shred, doesn't know as much, perhaps, as people who have been senators for five, 10, 15 years -- quick study.

They have confidence in her. They admire her as a person. And these are people who have no stake in her. They're not Palin loyalists. They're people who have been around Washington quite a while. I believe them.

And I think that she should do "Fox News Sunday" next Sunday and show the American public what she's capable of under your tough questioning.

WALLACE: All right.

KRISTOL: I'm doing my best for the show here.

WALLACE: Enough special pleading.

But, Juan, you know, it isn't just Palin, because there are more and more stories coming out about the McCain campaign in general -- long story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine today -- and you can see how Karl Rove reacted to that -- in which McCain staffers are -- and this is nine days before the election -- pointing fingers at each other about what went wrong.

WILLIAMS: Well, because I think what -- now we're in a phase where people are not only, you know, covering their butts, but I think that they are in the mode right now of trying to decide what is the future of this Republican Party and who will be the flag bearer going forward.

I think that there's an assumption that John McCain here loses among some of the staff on the -- in the McCain-Palin camp. So you have people who are saying, "Wait a second, Palin goes out and gets huge crowds, generates tremendous passion, but at the same time she's really feeding red meat to the base."

And if you're looking at the people that will decide this election -- you know, independents, people right in the middle, and especially women -- her numbers, as you illustrated earlier, have been going down. She is viewed less favorably.

It's not the case, as Bill described it, if you sent Palin out to do every show and make the case for us that somehow she would drive up those numbers and help John McCain's effort to win this race. No, to the contrary. At this point, she's become a drag on John McCain.

WALLACE: Brit, what do you make of -- and you -- I love it. This is what they always say to me, "Well, Chris, you've been around forever, so what do you think?" So I'll ask you. You've been around forever.

HUME: Well, sonny boy, I'll...

WALLACE: Yes, exactly. The dissension, the public dissension, ahead of time in the McCain campaign -- unusual or something we've seen before nine days out?

HUME: When you're this much behind and you know, you have to -- there's not a single poll that shows McCain ahead. The same results are reflected in all the key battleground states.

This dissension you see is a symptom, not a cause. This is what happens in campaigns that are trailing toward the end.

And of course, people who work in a hothouse atmosphere of a campaign really think that the campaign is the thing that decides the election. If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't be out there working 24 hours a day, basically.

Of course, what we have here is a campaign in which -- which was an exercise in improvisation from the beginning. McCain was -- you know, a year ago he was flat broke. His campaign looked broken and over, and he cooked up this tour, you know, the "no surrender" tour, and made a big bet on the surge, and it brought -- the surge worked. It brought him back. And he ended up being the last man standing and won the darn nomination. Who knew, you know? And then -- and then it looked like, you know, the Obama sweep was going to be the Democrats were the ones, they had all the momentum.

And McCain makes this imaginative choice for vice president and builds himself as a reformer, and suddenly he's, you know, in the game again. And then what happened? Did the campaign go south? Did Sarah Palin spend too much money or the party on her behalf spend too much money for her clothes? No.

What happened -- it was the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis, the worst, you know, once-in-a-century disaster. What could possibly have been worse for his campaign than that? That's the story here.

LIASSON: Look, there's no doubt that there's, I think, at this point, very little that McCain could have done to withstand the political landscaping so tilted against Republicans, the drag that George Bush has had on him, the mortgage meltdown -- all of that.

But it's also true that he could have run a better campaign. He could have run a better campaign as a reform Republican. He never -- he had all of the parts. They just didn't add up to a whole.

He could have come out with three simple big things -- reform agenda - - and hammered away on that. He did make it about himself and his biography, which is compelling. I think he probably did that too much.

But I do think that the kind of dissension you're hearing about now is pretty par for the course for a losing campaign. I do think that at this point people in the McCain campaign and McCain himself have to start thinking about how they want to end and, you know, what is the best way to end.

The best way to end is not getting into a circular firing squad.

KRISTOL: The best way to end is fighting to win. But let me say -- because Juan I think correctly said if you were watching T.V. and reading the papers, you'd think Palin, as you said, has been -- Governor Palin's been feeding red meat to the base.

Here's what Senator -- Governor Palin has done in the last 10 days. She gave a serious speech on women's issues, including the problem of honor killings in the Muslim world, the need to have a women's right (sic) agenda as part of foreign policy -- got no coverage at all.

I'm not blaming the media for that because, of course, the campaign didn't let Governor Palin give the speech, but she worked on it a lot with her speech writers, I'm told, personally. They didn't have her give the speech and then go do interviews about it.

She gave one very good substantive interview, actually, to Jill Zuckman of the Chicago Tribune. If you read that, it's a substantive interview with a tough print reporter, and she does fine.

Friday, just two days ago, she gave a lovely speech on special needs children, in which she has, of course, interest, talked -- called for full funding of the Americans With Disabilities Act, calling for making it much easier for parents to get those kids directly into appropriate schools. There's now a lot of bureaucratic obstacles to do that -- a serious, substantive speech.

Again, you can blame the media for not covering it more, but I blame the campaign for not putting her out Friday, not putting her out -- if she were on the show today, if I can come back to the "Fox News Sunday" question -- no, if she were on any Sunday show today, she could talk about this serious, substantive agenda that she laid out.

And she also laid it out with some personal warmth.

WILLIAMS: Let me -- let me ask you a question.

KRISTOL: And I think it's just terrible that they're letting the image of her be that she's sort of rallying the crowds but has nothing serious to say.

WILLIAMS: Well, wait a second. Wait a second. Let me ask you, if I said to you who's being negative in all this media, who's being so condemning of Sarah Palin, and I said David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, you know, Kathleen Parker, Ken Adelman, Matthew Dowd. Who is the Democrat in there that's condemning her? No, those are all Republicans, Bill.

KRISTOL: And has any of them read either of those speeches? Has any of them met Sarah Palin or talked to her? There's a lot of condemnation going on that's based on secondhand media accounts.

WILLIAMS: Well, I just think that the reality is right now it hasn't been a help to the McCain ticket.

WALLACE: All right. With that said, very good place for us to take a break, because when we come up, we're going to talk about media bias in coverage of the campaign, and we have the hard numbers to prove it. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 2001, President Bush signed the Patriot Act, an antiterrorism law drawn up after 9/11. The measure expanded the authority of U.S. law enforcement agencies for the purpose of preventing another attack.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CNN'S DREW GRIFFIN: The National Review had a story saying that, you know, I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.

PALIN: Who wrote that one?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Well, it turns out that was a pretty good question from Governor Palin, because the article was written by Fox News contributor Byron York, and he wasn't saying Palin was all of those things, but rather that's the way she's being described by reporters.

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

So, Brit, the CNN reporter trashes Palin by misquoting an article criticizing media bias. It doesn't get much better than that.

HUME: Or worse, depending on how you look at it. And then CNN followed that up with a rather ceremonious apology -- to Palin? No, no, to Byron York at the National Review; as far as we know, not a word to Palin, who was the one who was -- who was the victim of all -- of all that.

So look, the coverage of Palin is -- people can make an argument if you look at it in isolation, that says, "Look, she's a newcomer. She -- you know, she doesn't -- there's a lot she doesn't know." Reporters are right to probe that, but not when you compare it to the coverage given Joe Biden, who -- look.

Joe Biden's a good guy. I know him personally. I like him very much. All of us here at this table do. But he has been -- he acts like a man living in a fantasy world on foreign policy, which is supposed to be his specialty, after all these -- you know, he's been a member of the Senate since he was in short pants, and he's a chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the guy is speaking in unknown tongues day by day about all sorts of world issues.

He's got us running, you know, Hezbollah out of Lebanon. He's issuing these dire whispered warnings to people about the major international crisis that will ensue if his running mate becomes president. I mean, it's breathtaking, and yet -- and yet -- very little coverage.

I mean, it just -- it sort of gets noted for a day, never followed up. Nobody's asking Obama if he really wants a guy who's in Never Never Land on foreign policy on his ticket and so on.

WALLACE: Meanwhile...

HUME: If Palin had said those things, oh, you can imagine.

WALLACE: Meanwhile, the Project for Excellence in Journalism think tank has analyzed all the print and broadcast coverage not of the vice presidential candidates but of the -- of the presidential nominees and came up with the following results.

Media coverage of Obama was slightly positive while coverage of McCain was overwhelmingly negative.

Now, Mara, part of this may just be the horse race that we like to cover, you know, and the fact is when somebody's winning, coverage tends to be more positive, when somebody's losing, it tends to be more negative.

Do you think it's just that, or do you think, in fact, that they -- they have been treated differently in terms of the substance of their arguments and their campaigns?

LIASSON: I think they've been treated differently. I really do. I mean, it's complicated, because one is doing very well and running a disciplined campaign. And part of that is because it's working.

The winner always gets cut more slack because there's not turmoil, and they're not having to change their message, and they're not scrambling around, and there's not dissension in their camp, which is all true of the McCain camp.

But I do think it's something more. I think Palin especially, because she burst on the scene as a celebrity and had no context for most people to judge her -- for some reason, Joe Biden has been viewed against a context that has excused most of his inaccurate or false statements. The context is everything. "Oh, we know him for 29 years," whereas Palin, "We don't know her at all."

So every little thing gets kind of distorted or exaggerated. You know, she goes to a church where they speak in tongues, and that gets blown up without any kind of context.

Yeah, I do think that -- you know, it doesn't surprise me that that study found that the -- that the coverage of the McCain-Palin ticket has been...

WALLACE: Well, this is just of McCain and Obama.

LIASSON: Just McCain and Obama.

WALLACE: It wasn't even Palin. We'll get to Palin in a second. But, Bill, let me ask you about that. I mean, I just want to look back at these numbers. Obama -- 29 percent of the coverage of his -- of him has been negative, 29 percent; 57 percent of McCain's.

KRISTOL: And when you ask voters what they -- one reason they're not supporting McCain right now, a lot of them say, "Well, he's run a very negative campaign." I think he has probably run, maybe in certain ways, a little bit of a negative -- too negative a campaign, or allowed it to be appeared that way.

But partly, it's because the media keep writing stories about how he's allegedly being negative. That's part of that negative coverage.

I mean, here's an amazing fact. I guess Biden and Obama have not done a Sunday show in a month, or maybe since they were nominated. I don't know. And they have not given a press conference or had a press availability in weeks, to my knowledge, certainly since the last presidential debate.

Palin's had interviews right and left in the last week. McCain did our show last Sunday. He did "Meet the Press" today. I mean, can you imagine if that shoe were reversed, if the Republican ticket were hiding from the press, no press conference, no press availability?

LIASSON: Obama had a press avail in Richmond on Wednesday.

KRISTOL: Did he?

LIASSON: Yes.

KRISTOL: OK.

WALLACE: OK.

LIASSON: To go back against Biden's comments about a disaster.

HUME: You know, the exception that proves the rule.

LIASSON: Yeah.

HUME: It was an impromptu deal, right?

LIASSON: Yeah.

WALLACE: All right. Let me -- let's go on with this, though, because according to this analysis -- and it really is interesting. Overall coverage of Sarah Palin the entire two months has been slightly positive, but it was sharply negative the last two weeks.

And look at that -- coverage of her public record -- this is specific. Coverage of Palin's public record in Alaska -- and remember, this is a popular reform governor -- has been 64 percent negative, only 7 percent positive.

And, Juan, that 7 percent represents just two stories in the entire campaign which have been basically positive in reviewing her record in office in Alaska.

WILLIAMS: Well, let's look also at what they said about coverage of Joe Biden. It said Joe Biden's coverage had been more negative than coverage of Sarah Palin. And we don't acknowledge that in this conversation.

But Joe Biden's gotten some very tough coverage in this race, and I think especially over the last week when he made that off-handed and, I think, damaging comment about the country possibly facing some sort of international crisis, one that would be manufactured to test...

WALLACE: So you think the media coverage has been even-handed?

WILLIAMS: ... this young, inexperienced Senator O'Biden (sic).

No, it has not. Listen, from the start, I have said quite clearly if you were going to events during the primaries, what you saw was that the executive editors and the top people at the networks were all rushing to Obama events, bringing their children, celebrating it, saying they were -- this is part of history.

I think they've plugged into the Obama narrative in a way that they have said, "You know what? Out with the past." And they have been very critical of President Bush and Senator McCain as an extension of Bush playing into the Obama campaign theme.

I don't think there's any question about this. The American people are smart. They can see this. That's why Obama's on every magazine cover. I spend too much time in airports. It's like -- you walk there. It's like you're walking through an Obama campaign event. So there's no question in my mind the media has been more supportive of Senator Obama.

But if you ask me, you know, "So what does this indicate? Has this shifted? Is that the reason for this race going as it has?" No, it's not. I think people understand the drama of what Senator Obama represents.

And in some ways I think the McCain campaign has not been sufficiently smart in maneuvering themselves to present their candidate and what he has done and his story, his heroism, his willingness to sacrifice. I don't think they've done a very good job of advertising, if you will.

WALLACE: Brit, has there been a liberal bias toward Obama not just in the general election, but also in the primaries? And how do you explain it?

HUME: Do you think? You explain it by the normal media tendency to favor Democrats and liberals. It's always been there since I've been a reporter in this town, and it's there again today.

You add to that the romance, if you will, of the Obama candidacy. Here's this extraordinarily appealing, young and obviously talented and intelligent young man who comes to the fore and surges through a well managed campaign to his party's nomination.

I mean, look. There's something about -- and I feel this way about it. There's something about the Obama candidacy that kind of gladdens your heart, and reporters are caught up in this, and that's feeding into this equation.

And of course, here's McCain. You know, he's out there being the Republican, which is a strike or two against him to start with, and what you see is a reflection of all that, and...

WILLIAMS: Gladdens your heart? Ooh, he's a politician. I mean, Look. I mean, the Republican problem is that they have been running with a shrinking base of voters and they -- and that should have been -- gladdens your heart? I don't care if he gladdens your heart. He's a politician and...

HUME: Juan, I've got to -- I must say this to you, you know. I know -- and I've sat with you on election night when Obama's moving ahead, and I -- and you have expressed, as a black man would, the historic nature of what's happening.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

HUME: But you never really drunk the Kool-Aid.

WILLIAMS: No.

HUME: But you're one of the few who has not, I mean, of all reporters. It's out there. Some of them have even acknowledged it.

WILLIAMS: True.

HUME: I just think it's a factor in the campaign. But I would say to you at the end of the day that I still hold the view that for all of that, and the bias is real, that it has been the conditions and the events of this campaign -- not the campaign events, but the external events and the conditions in the country, perceived and real, that have decided this campaign.

WALLACE: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you, panel. See you next week, two days before the election.

Time now for some mail. After our interview with John McCain last week, a few of you pointed out what you thought was a flaw in McCain's thinking about the financial crisis.

Oren Spiegler from Pennsylvania wrote, "It is ironic that as Senator McCain appropriately repudiates the socialist plans put forth by opponent Barack Obama, he endorses one of the most vast and expensive socialist agendas in history, keeping people in their homes by providing new, more affordable mortgages."

But Geri Zuccarino from Summerfield, Florida questioned Barack Obama's plan to spread the wealth around. She writes, "If Obama is so set on redistributing the wealth, why in God's name is he spending and wasting so much money on this campaign? Why doesn't he give at least half of it back?"

Be sure to let us know your thoughts by e-mailing us at fns@foxnews.com.

Up next, we go "On the Trail."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: The cliche about vice presidential running mates is "first, do no harm." But this week, both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin ran into trouble which had the presidential nominees scrambling, "On the Trail."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: I will not be a president that needs to be tested. I have been tested.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I think that Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes, but I think that his core point was that the next administration is going to be tested regardless of who it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: I want a president who is ready on day one. I want a president with the experience, and the judgment, and the wisdom, and the truthfulness to meet the next international crisis or, better yet, to avoid it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TINA FEY AS SARAH PALIN: John McCain and I have been so busy travelin' around this great country of ours, talkin' about change and energy independence and William Ayres and doing a little -- doing a little shoppin'.

WILL FERRELL AS GEORGE BUSH: Good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PALIN: My favorite shop is a consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska called Out of the Closet, and my shoe store is called Shoefly (ph) in Juno, Alaska.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I know Halloween is coming. But John McCain as a candidate of change? Whoa, come on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: Missouri, with your support, with your vote, we're going to take the maverick of the Senate and put him in the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: They look at each other and they go, "Maverick. You're a maverick. We're mavericks." I love these mavericks, don't you?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I ask you to believe, believe in yourselves, believe in each other, believe in the future we can build together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: My opponent's looking pretty confident this -- confident these days. He'll be addressing the nation soon. He's got another one of those big stadium spectacles in the works.

But acting like the election is over -- it won't let him take away your chance to have the final say in this election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELLEN DEGENERES: You have 20 seconds to respond to this clip.

OBAMA: Let me tell you that Michelle may be a better dancer than me, but I'm convinced I'm a better dancer than John McCain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: As we've said, neither Biden nor Palin has been willing to come on this show for an extended in-depth interview since they received their nominations. And after their misadventures this past week, chances are that won't change.

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

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