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October 15, 2008

Romney, Ferraro React to Debate

Hannity & Colmes

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Joining us is former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Governor, thank you so much for being here tonight.

MITT ROMNEY, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to be here. Thank you.

COLMES: As a McCain supporter, I'm going to guess you're going to tell me McCain won the debate today.

ROMNEY: Well, I don't think there's no question about that. I actually saw a focus group on one of the major networks where they asked a group of undecided voters what did they think. 3 to 1, they came out saying they were going to vote for McCain following this -- relative to Barack Obama. I think it was John McCain's strongest night since the Saddleback forum that was held early on.

It was a great night for John McCain.

COLMES: One has to wonder, though, and of course, the big phrase that keeps going to use is game-changer, and McCain needs a lot of game-changers to reverse the trends in the polls. And was there anything tonight that will convince enough people to change what they were going to make a difference in this campaign?

ROMNEY: Yes, if you take that focus group and you take my reaction and that of a number of people I've been listening to, what happens tonight is that the momentum shifts. It goes from being all Obama to being all McCain.

And you're going to see over the coming days a slow but sure increase in John McCain's standing and narrowing in the polls. They're going to be writing about John McCain comeback kid.

Look, I know, I've been there. I was ahead of him in the primary for a while, and he was able to turn things around. And tonight, look, he went after John McCain on taxes and pointed out that when you raise taxes on American employers you hurt people. You kill jobs. That was key.

COLMES: Yes, but they can't.

ROMNEY: And Joe the Plumber thing was hilarious.

COLMES: Joe the Plumber was actually the winner of tonight's debate.

ROMNEY: Yes, he was the winner. Yes. Exactly right.

COLMES: But you know, they kept saying and they keep repeating that Barack Obama is going to raise your taxes, yet he continue to say, which is the truth, I will raise taxes -- or I will lower taxes on 95 percent of American families. That includes small businesses. Tax breaks for small businesses.

John McCain is going to tax people's healthcare plans in their work environment. That's going to get 20 million people off the rolls. These are the things that keep coming up in these debates. And, you know, Barack Obama is not going to raise taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

ROMNEY: Yes, and what John McCain did tonight by bringing out that Joe the Plumber thing was pointing out that when Barack Obama wants to spread money around and he wants to take money away from Joe the Plumber and his small business and send a check to people, that -- that's going to hurt the employers of this country.

That's going to make it harder for small business people to start businesses and to hire people. And you know what? The American people would far rather have a job from Joe the Plumber, anybody else in this country, than they would be getting a check from Barack Obama, a one-time check having spread money around.

And that -- that's what I thought was so effective about John McCain tonight is that he said when you raise taxes on anyone here in America you're going to be killing jobs and jobs -- that's number one for America.

COLMES: One of the things that John McCain said that was not true, though, he said that there would be a fine that Joe the Plumber would have to pay if there was no healthcare for his employees.

That's not true. If you're a starting business, you're not going to have to pay that fine. That's not going to be true. And in fact, you get all kinds of tax breaks and tax incentives as a new and starting business. That's the point that Barack Obama was making about or what happened to Joe -- the star of tonight's debate, Joe the Plumber.

ROMNEY: Well, the taxes and Joe the Plumber or income taxes, then they got into healthcare, and we got all -- you know I like my own healthcare plan the best but no one has picked that one up yet.

But Barack Obama's plan of finding employers, I think, is a wrong way to go. I think we have a much better way of getting people insured without fining people that are not providing insurance.

COLMES: But isn't John McCain going to lose people off the healthcare when he starts taxing people's healthcare plan? He's going to lose them.

ROMNEY: No, no. No. He's saying -- you got 47 million people that don't have health insurance. John McCain is going to give to each family a $5,000 tax credit. That's like a check to buy health insurance. That means those people will buy plans they can afford from anywhere in the country. It gets more people insured.

HANNITY: Hey, Senator -- Governor Romney, good to see you.

ROMNEY: Thank you.

HANNITY: How are you? Appreciate it.

ROMNEY: Thank you.

HANNITY: This was, by far, Senator McCain's best appearance here. I think one of the best lines was inadvertent. Senator government -- oops, you know? But he made the point over and over again, that he's going to raise your taxes. He really shattered this illusion that Barack Obama, that he's going to cut taxes for 95 percent of people for the very point you're making out here.

And also, you know, the record versus the rhetoric. Obama when given an opportunity to cut taxes, he raised them 94 times. When given an opportunity last year twice he raised them for people -- or voted to raise it for people making $42,000 a year.

This was an effective night. I thought Obama was flustered on numerous occasions tonight.

ROMNEY: Well, I like John McCain smoked Obama out. I think Barack Obama - he's tried to position himself as being in the mainstream of the Democratic Party and of the American people, and tonight what John McCain did was force Barack Obama to admit, well, even though the people in Washington, D.C. want vouchers and the head of the school district wants vouchers, that Barack Obama is not going to give it to him because the teachers' union doesn't want it.

HANNITY: Yes.

ROMNEY: And in Colombia, even though we're spending $1 billion paying terrorist there and they spend nothing, bringing things here, Barack Obama is not going to have free trade with Colombia because his special interest groups, the unions, don't want that to happen.

And on campaign finance, even though Barack Obama promised that he would use.

HANNITY: That was very effective, yes.

ROMNEY: That he would stay -- using public financing, well, he decided not to because that wasn't convenient. John McCain pointed out time and time again -- look, like abortion, late-term abortion, partial birth abortion, Barack Obama was on his heels the whole night.

HANNITY: I agree with you.

ROMNEY: . explaining, explaining, and in politics, as they say, if you're explaining you're losing, and Barack Obama was trying to explain some very extreme positions.

HANNITY: He was on flustered, on his heels, on defense the entire time, and it was very amazing to me, he just resorts back to the same old talking points. We've had three debates now. He regurgitates the same lines. He never advanced the ball at all.

It seems like he was on prevent defense mode, and I'm not sure that that helps him right now, especially, as John Zogby points out, he cannot close the deal with the American people, and I do not think he was able to advance that, as you pointed out, in that focus group.

I saw the same one tonight.

ROMNEY: Yes. Well, you know, I thought the real stopper on Barack Obama's, you know, panned rhetoric is -- was about George Bush.

HANNITY: That was -- yes.

ROMNEY: When Barack Obama was saying, you know, Bush/McCain, Bush/McCain, he said, hey, look, you're not running against George Bush. It's like that old line, you know, he's a friend of mine.

HANNITY: Right.

ROMNEY: And you're not running against Bush. You should have done that four years ago if you wanted to run against George Bush.

HANNITY: That was a good line.

ROMNEY: And Barack Obama, at that point, stopped talking about, you know, Bush/McCain.

John McCain is his own man. Like him or hate him, he's his own man. You know where he stands. He looked at the American people tonight, said he's not going to raise your taxes. He's going to fight to create more jobs. He's going to get people healthcare. He's going to have free trade, open more jobs for Americans.

Barack Obama was having to retreat on issue after issue even the personal associations. John McCain did bring that up.

HANNITY: He set the table, though. Joe Plumber was all about what Senator McCain brought to the table when he kept talking about, you know, spread the wealth. He had said that, and Biden said it's your patriotic duty to pay more taxes. But I think more importantly he shattered this illusion that 95 percent of you aren't going to -- you know see your taxes go up and meanwhile, he's going to raise taxes on corporations, the tax rates, capital gains tax, windfall profits tax.

You're a businessman first. Corporations don't pay taxes, do they? They pass them onto the consumers.

ROMNEY: They certainly don't. I think the American people heard tonight what would happen if the gang of three run -- or to run America. If the gang of three.

HANNITY: Pelosi, Reed.

ROMNEY: Pelosi, Reid, Barack Obama run American, you're going to see a very different America.

HANNITY: Alan.

COLMES: I hope we see a different America.

ROMNEY: You're going to see America like Europe, where they're going to say, you know what, you're making too much money. We need to take it away from you. You're an employer, we're taking money away from you. We're going to give it to other more deserving people.

HANNITY: Spread the wealth.

ROMNEY: And we're not going to decide who those deserving people are. We're not going to give your kids vouchers because our special interest group, the teachers union, doesn't want that.

We're not going to have free trade with Colombia even though it's our key ally in South America. I think the gang of three is in real trouble.

HANNITY: All right. Good to see, Governor Romney. We appreciate it.

ROMNEY: Thank you.

COLMES: Thanks.

ROMNEY: Thank you, Alan.

(snip)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history: segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That to me was so hurtful, and Senator Obama, you didn't repudiate those remarks.

OBAMA: If we want to talk about Congressman Lewis, who is an American hero, he, un-prompted by my campaign, without my campaign's awareness, made a statement that he was troubled with what he was hearing at some of the rallies. All of the public reports indicated were shouting, when my name came up, things like "terrorist" and "kill him."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLMES: That was another excerpt from earlier tonight. And here are results so far from our You Vote text voting. So far, more than 81,000 of you have texted in. Eighty-seven percent say McCain won.

HANNITY: I told you.

COLMES: Twelve...

HANNITY: Sorry. Go ahead.

COLMES: I hear something in my ear. And 12 percent of you say Obama is the winner, according to our text voting.

With us now, former vice-presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro.

Geraldine, do you see it the same way our text voters see it?

GERALDINE FERRARO, FORMER VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: No, I don't, and to be quite frank, your text voters are a whole bunch of young people who are in there with their texts. It's not important, Alan, and I know this will really devastate Sean -- it's not important what you and I think or even a bunch of kids who are in there texting right now.

It's -- more important is how do the undecided voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio and Florida -- how did they see this debate, and I think a lot of them were looking at the debate trying to find out if they can trust either of these men to handle the issues facing this country come January.

Now, I was really a little bit surprised that there was absolutely no foreign policy issue that was brought up this evening, except with reference to Central America and with reference to trade. But nothing -- the Iraq war was if it did not exist. You know, funding and what that's going to do to our budget, as if that did not exist. And that was up, of course, to the moderator to bring up during the course of the questioning, which was not.

Now, let me just say that I think that, you know, if you take us a close look at the debate on the issues of trust, you know, Senator Obama was -- I mean, he knocked the ball out of the ball park on the health-care issue, in particular. I mean, there is such a clear delineation between the two that it was amazing to see.

But in addition to that, also on education. And what he did was, in addition to dealing with the issues, he pointed out to -- the people who have informed his opinions over the last several years. And I think that that's very important, because we do trust those people who are dealing with -- with Senator Obama, and he's aligned themselves with them.

In addition to that he pointed to his vice-presidential candidate, his nominee, as being a person who is strong on foreign policy and what influence he will have in his administration once they are elected. So I thought he did an exceptional job in trying to reach out to those undecided voters and talk to them about the type of trust that they can have in him.

COLMES: Before -- before Sean talks to you -- he's jumping out of his skin here, but before he gets up here.

FERRARO: Well, I am in his seat, Alan, and when he doesn't know is that when he comes back to the studio it's "Colmes & Ferraro," instead of "Hannity & Colmes."

COLMES: Well, I was going to say that. Thanks for giving me top billing. I appreciate that.

HANNITY: About half of America.

COLMES: Let me ask you about -- you know, I kept hearing the same thing over and over again from John McCain. He's going to raise your taxes. He voted 94 times. You know, many of those were multiple votes. Many of those votes were lowering taxes for lots of people. Some of them were non-binding resolutions, like the one on $42,000 a year, which is what if you lose all the Bush tax cuts for everybody.

So again, I kept hearing him misrepresent John -- Barack Obama's policies and scare people about here's what's going to happen if you vote for this guy.

FERRARO: You know, Alan, I think you get that from both campaigns. I mean, you know, in order to deal with an issue, you don't deal with it in 30 seconds, and that's the problem with debates. That is the problem with these commercials that come on during the course of the campaign.

I was just down in Washington, and the Washington market goes into the Virginia suburbs, and I saw some of the best ads that I have ever seen on a bio, and it was Senator Obama's ads, but they were on like five or six times inside of a very short period of time that I had the television on while I was trying to get things done.

HANNITY: Gerry, we've got to hurry here. We don't have time for a filibuster. I've got to get in.

FERRARO: No, no. What happened, though, let me just say to you that it has moved the numbers in those suburbs. So if you think positively, you know, you will move people to vote for you if they don't have trust in you. And that's what -- that's what did not come out of the debate tonight.

HANNITY: Wait a minute. One of the reasons he's running all those ads is because he broke his promise, and he was confronted on that tonight. He said he supports a public financed system until it was to his advantage not to. And that's a matter of trust. That's a matter of commitment.

FERRARO: You're right.

HANNITY: I think -- I think one of the biggest issues, though, in this campaign, and this is what Senator -- it was a slip of the tongue, but it really said a lot. Senator Government, because the Barack Obama economic plan is to spend 1.3 trillion dollars in new spending.

The Obama campaign raises tax rates, corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, a windfall profits tax. And I think -- I think John McCain was very good in pointing out these corporations don't pay taxes, that it's going to hurt Joe the plumber and hurt every other American. And it's the worst thing you can do, going into a slowing economy, and that's where this debate was won tonight, on the economy by John McCain.

FERRARO: I think John McCain actually was the person who had to deal with this issue more than anything else. We trust him, as a nation, on the issues of foreign policy, but we're not quite sure we trust him on the economy. I think he did himself a lot of good tonight.

I think that there are a lot of people turned around and said, "Yes, this guy has been around awhile." And I think when he turned around and he said to Barack Obama, you know, "If you want to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago."

HANNITY: It was a great line.

FERRARO: Yes, that was -- I agree with you. "I'm am not George Bush," and he pointed out the number of times that he has not been with George Bush.

I think -- I think they both did themselves a lot of good tonight, but again, you know, you and I are sitting in a different position. I wonder how well he did with the undecided voters. Both of them.

HANNITY: Well, we'll see. Look, we're going to see. Look, it was interesting to me. Because we don't often see -- and this is a credit to the communication skills of Senator Obama up to this point.

But he was flustered tonight. He was on defense a lot tonight. He was responding to the counter attacks of John McCain. We really didn't see that aggressiveness until now. And I've got to tell you something. I think it serves Senator McCain well, because while he had these positions, perhaps he didn't explain them as effectively.

I think in that sense, he comes out of this debate with a lot of momentum.

FERRARO: Well, I think he also brought out the negative stuff that he wanted to bring it up without actually doing it in a horrific way that has been done up to date. I mean, you can't do that.

HANNITY: Like me you mean?

FERRARO: The thing is he cannot come off as a mean old person. You can't do that. And I don't think he did tonight. I think he came off as a person who was really concerned about these issues. And I think that Senator Obama responded extremely well to every single one of them.

HANNITY: You know, he didn't use my line. My line would have been, "You can't fight terrorism, Senator Obama, when you're friends with, sit on a board with, give speeches with, start your career at, and blurb the book of a terrorist." That would have been my line.

FERRARO: That's why you're usually sitting in this seat instead of as a presidential candidate.

HANNITY: True. Thank you for keeping the seat warm tonight.

FERRARO: Good to see you, Sean.

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