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October 05, 2008

Sens. Lieberman and McCaskill on "Fox News Sunday"

Fox News Sunday

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

Thirty days and counting until Election Day. How is the economic crisis playing out on the campaign trail, especially in key battleground states? We'll ask two top advisors -- Senator Joe Lieberman, the former democratic vice presidential nominee who now supports McCain, and Senator Claire McCaskill, national co-chair for Obama.

Plus, we'll survey the electoral landscape with Karl Rove, master strategist of two presidential victories.

Then, the battle of St. Louis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We've got to have a time line to draw down the troops and shift responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: Your plan is a white flag of surrender.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: We'll review Palin vs. Biden and look ahead to the second McCain-Obama face-off with our Sunday regulars -- Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Mara Liasson and Juan Williams.

And our Power Player of the Week, the Joe Friday of politics -- just the facts, ma'am -- all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello again from Fox News in Washington. Well, it was a week of high stakes from the campaign trail to the congressional battle over how to save the economy.

And joining us now are two key senators. Joe Lieberman, an independent who is one of McCain's closest allies in the Senate, comes to us from his home state of Connecticut. And Claire McCaskill, national co- chair for Obama, joins us from her home state of Missouri.

Well, Senators, top Republican strategists say that John McCain will launch a new assault on Barack Obama's character in this final month of the campaign, going after his ties to former radical William Ayers and convicted developer Tony Rezko, and Governor Palin did just that yesterday. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman, is all that fair game, an attack on Barack Obama's character?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it is fair game, and I want to get back to that in a minute.

But the McCain campaign hasn't announced that it's going to spend the next four weeks in negative campaigning. This campaign is about the future, as Governor Palin made clear the other night when she said, "Say it ain't so, Joe."

Senator Obama and Senator Biden seem to be running against George Bush. He's not on the ballot. John McCain and Sarah Palin couldn't be more different from George Bush, and they're the reformer ticket. They're the change ticket. They're the ticket that has been tested.

John McCain has been tested in crises time and again. This is a nation in economic crisis, not to mention the wars we're facing, and I think you go with the tested leader as opposed to one, Senator Obama, with all respect, gifted but not tested in these kind of difficult circumstances.

WALLACE: Well...

LIEBERMAN: He also raised...

WALLACE: Senator?

LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

WALLACE: If I may, on the front page of the Washington Post and the New York Times yesterday, a top McCain strategist named Greg Strimple was quoted as saying, "We want to turn the page on the economy and start talking about Obama being an out-and-out liberal. We want to talk about his character."

So the Obama -- the McCain campaign is on the record saying exactly that.

LIEBERMAN: Well, I must say I don't know Greg, but I know John McCain. And I know John McCain will be campaigning on what he can do to protect the safety of the American people and protect our economy.

But these questions about Senator Obama are what public life is all about these days. I can tell you -- Claire can tell you -- anything you've ever done, anybody you've ever been with, will be a subject of public discussion if you run for public office, all the more so because Senator Obama is relatively new on the national stage.

So it was the New York Times on that front page yesterday who wrote about his relationship with Bill Ayres, who founded the Weather Underground, a group that bombed public buildings and apparently is unrepentant about that. If the shoe was on the other foot and John McCain had one of his earliest campaign events at the home of somebody who had formed a right-wing group that had bombed buildings and then had been on a board with the guy for several years, you bet the Obama campaign would have been raising that question. It's just the way it is.

But this is about the future. And I think the McCain-Palin ticket has a program to protect America's safety and get this economy going again, and it's very different from the George Bush approach.

WALLACE: Senator McCaskill, Barack Obama is responding with an ad of his own that questions John McCain's stability. Let's take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: John McCain, erratic in crisis, out of touch on the economy -- no wonder his campaign wants to change the subject, turn the page on the financial crisis, by launching dishonest, dishonorable assaults against Barack Obama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Senator McCaskill, is that where this campaign is headed, personal attacks on both sides?

MCCASKILL: Well, first of all, I think -- let's talk first about what Sarah Palin said yesterday. I mean, really, how ridiculous. American people deserve so much better.

Do they really think America is going to think that Barack Obama's palling around with terrorists? What that man did Barack Obama has condemned. And by the way, he did it when Barack Obama was 8 years old. Come on.

Now, on the other hand, if you look at what Barack Obama's ad says, it's just talking about what John McCain did the last two weeks. He was erratic. One day, no bailout. The next day, a bailout. One day, "I'm suspending my campaign." The next day, "I'm not."

One day, "I'm going to debate." The next day, "I'm not going to debate." The next day, I go ahead and debate. One day, "I'm not going to leave Washington until we have a deal," and then he's on a plane out of Washington after the deal's kind of blown up. So it really -- there has been a lot of erratic behavior.

And I'll tell you what the American people want, Chris. They're hurting. They don't want character attacks. They don't want somebody doing publicity stunts. They want somebody who understands that they're hurting and has an economic plan that's different than George Bush's.

The reason we're looking back is because John McCain's economic plan is more of the same -- tax breaks for the wealthy, tax breaks for big corporations -- and that's exactly the philosophy that drove us into this ditch in the first place. WALLACE: Well, Senator Lieberman, both of you seem to say that the American people want to hear about the issues, but it is Governor Palin who talks about palling around with terrorists, and it is the Obama campaign that talks about McCain erratic in a crisis.

So I mean, it isn't the American people who -- or the media who are forcing you to doing this. You're doing this.

LIEBERMAN: Yeah. Well, in the midst of it all, I think you saw Senator McCain, unlike Senator Obama, come off the campaign trail, because that's John McCain in the middle of a crisis. He doesn't say, as Senator Obama did, "If you need me, call me." He gets back because he wants to solve a problem.

And in fact, he helped. When he came back, there were only four Republicans in the House who were going to support that rescue plan. At the end, 91 of them voted for it.

So I wish we could get back to all the differences of policies, because that's what this is about. It's about the future.

And look. John McCain believes in tax cuts for business and individuals because when you're in a recession, as we are, that's one way to get us out of the hole.

He's also not going to allow the kind of spending that President Bush has allowed to occur. He's going to -- he said he's for a freeze on non- imperative spending, and he'll then go through the budget and cut unnecessary spending.

And I think his energy independence program is also a job creation program and a program to reduce the cost of fuel...

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman?

LIEBERMAN: ... to the American people. That's a program for the future.

And John McCain has the proven record of working with people in both parties, which Senator Obama does not have, of taking on vested interests in his own party, which Senator Obama does not have, that will make these things happen.

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman, let me...

LIEBERMAN: So this is about who can lead America.

WALLACE: Let me ask one more question of you, and then we'll get off this and move on to the issues that you say...

LIEBERMAN: OK.

WALLACE: ... that you want to talk about but which the campaigns and the candidates are not talking about this week.

In April, McCain condemned state Republican parties for linking Obama to his former pastor, Reverend Wright. He said that was over the line. Does he still feel that's off-limits? And will he denounce any efforts by independent groups that bring up Reverend Wright?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you'd have to ask John that. But I can tell you that I was with him when he made that decision. He didn't like that approach. It took a lot of guts to tell the state Republican party not to run that ad.

And in fact, you know, Senator Obama has really been spreading falsehoods about John regularly since then about his tax plans, about his health care plans, which are good for middle-class America.

So as far as I know, Senator McCain feels that same way about bringing up Reverend Wright through his campaign. And that's the kind of line- drawing that I think John McCain is all about.

And I'd like to see some of that from the other side, which I don't think has been fair or balanced in their estimate of John McCain.

MCCASKILL: Chris, I think -- I think it would be very simple.

WALLACE: Go ahead, Senator McCaskill.

MCCASKILL: I think it would be very simple. John McCain can pick up the phone today and call Sarah Palin and say, "Don't say things like that. There's no place for that in this campaign. The American people don't want that."

And there is a difference between the tax plans, and those differences have been pointed out by independent groups. And they have said that overall, Barack's plan is a tax cut, and it's paid for, and the middle class is going to get it, not just wealthy people. That's the difference between these two candidates.

We are happy to talk about health care. We are happy to talk about the economy. We don't want this to be a character attack. It should not be a character attack.

And I hope -- I hope -- John McCain is a strong enough leader to tell at least his vice presidential candidate to knock it off.

WALLACE: Senator McCaskill, let's talk about tax plans. The McCain campaign is running a new ad on the Obama tax plan. Let's take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Who is Barack Obama?

OBAMA: I'm a tax cutter.

NARRATOR: Really? Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes -- 94 times. He's not truthful on taxes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Senator McCaskill, I know the Obama camp flatly denies that figure, but when you combined Obama's proposed hikes in the income tax and the payroll tax, IRS figures show that two-thirds of all small business income would, in fact, be subject to higher taxes under Obama's tax plan.

MCCASKILL: Chris, 95 percent of small businessmen in this country make less than $250,000 a year. That is, in fact, the facts. And the bottom line is if you make less than $250,000 a year, you're not going to see one thin dime of any kind of tax increase under Barack Obama's plan.

WALLACE: But would you deny, Senator McCaskill, that two-thirds of all business income -- I'm not talking about the number of businessmen. I'm talking about the income that they get. Two-thirds of their income would be subject to higher taxes under the Obama plan.

MCCASKILL: I guess that's one way of saying that there's a few people making a lot of the money, and that's exactly the differences between these two plans.

Ninety-five percent of small business people make less than $250,000. They're not going to see any tax increase, only those people who make more than $250,000.

And let me say about the ad, that ad is so misleading. And Joe knows it. Those votes were on continuing resolutions. If you use the same marker for John McCain, he has raised taxes over 400 times. It's a way of twisting votes to make the record look misleading to the American people.

The only difference between John McCain and Barack Obama -- they're both cutting taxes. It's just who are they cutting them for, middle America or the same people George Bush cut them for.

WALLACE: Senator McCaskill, let's bring in Senator Lieberman.

You wanted to say something?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I did. I mean, the fact is that -- part of this is whose definition -- the definition of who's rich. A lot of those small business -- that 95 percent of small business people is the number I've got to check, Claire.

But when you raise taxes on small business people -- they create most of the jobs in America. They employ most of the people in America. If you raise their taxes, they're going to cut jobs and people are going to be out of work. That's the last thing you want to do when you go into -- when you're in a recession, as we are now.

Secondly, Senator Obama is raising the capital gains tax. I know most capital gains are enjoyed by people who have more money, but a lot of Americans have their hopes for retirement, security and the nest egg to send their kids to college in stocks.

And the value of those stocks will drop even more than they've already dropped if Senator Obama gets to impose his increase in the capital gains tax.

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman?

LIEBERMAN: And John McCain has a pro-growth program. Senator Obama has a higher tax program which will cost jobs.

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman, let me ask you, though -- I was struck by the fact that you said that we're in a recession now. We lost 159,000 jobs last month. That's nine straight months of losing jobs, a total of 760,000 jobs.

Do you believe that we are in a recession now? And isn't this an almost impossible political climate for a Republican to succeed a Republican president?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I don't know whether the economists would say it's a recession, Chris, but I can tell you the people in Connecticut and the people I talk to around the country know it's a recession. And unfortunately, I believe it will even officially be a recession, and that's why the question of who our president is is so important.

Look, the American ship of state is going into a storm right now and the question is, "Do the American people want as the captain of our ship of state somebody who's gifted but has never led a ship through a storm like this, or somebody like John McCain, who has been tested throughout his life time and time again, shown the strength of leadership, the ability to bring people on the crew of the ship together to get it through the storm, back into the sunshine?" And that's McCain.

So yes, it's a tough environment. It's kind of amazing that John McCain is as close as he is today, about six points behind, when you think about the fact that he has the same party label as the current administration. But it's because the American people know he's a different kind of Republican.

And look. I'd just say this, Chris. In 2000, there was a Democratic ticket with Al Gore and a very impressive senator from Connecticut whose name I forget. They were six points behind with less than two weeks to go, and they won -- well, at least they got more votes.

So don't count John McCain out. When the going gets tough, John McCain gets going.

WALLACE: We've got about two minutes left, and I want to split it evenly between the two of you.

Let's turn to Sarah Palin, who I think we would all agree is one of the most exciting and unusual political figures we've seen on the scene in a long time and certainly connects with millions of working- and middle- class voters.

But I want to ask you both as serious public servants -- and I'll start with you, Senator McCaskill -- is she ready to be president of the United States?

MCCASKILL: Well, I don't know, and -- but I think more importantly, if you look at the debate and what the American people are seeing, there was style versus substance. Clearly, she's likable. She was poised and confident, very telegenic, loves the camera.

But if you look at Joe Biden, how substantial his debate performance was on all of the factual challenges that face our country -- complex problems. He understands. And most importantly, he was able to lay out a very clear path forward out of this economic mess.

And you know why Sarah Palin couldn't? Because the policies they embrace are the exact same policies that this administration has embraced in terms of economic growth. It didn't work.

WALLACE: Senator...

MCCASKILL: And I think Joe Biden did a very effective job of that. I think Sarah Palin is very nice. I'm not sure if she's ready or not. The American people are going to have to decide that.

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman, you've got about 45 seconds, and I ask you...

LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

WALLACE: ... as a serious man, are you...

LIEBERMAN: Yes.

WALLACE: ... really persuaded that Sarah Palin is ready to step into the presidency?

LIEBERMAN: Yes, she passed on Thursday night a threshold of credibility for national leadership. She was confident. She was decisive. She was informed.

And I'll tell you, for people who were trying to make her into an extremist, I thought she was very practical and mainstream. She was real. She has characteristic American optimism. She was about the future. And I think she showed us why John McCain chose her.

They're the ticket that will really bring change to Washington. John McCain and she have done it before, and that's what we need in Washington now. So I think she created a turning point in this campaign. Hold onto your seat belts for the next four weeks. This thing is not over.

WALLACE: Senator Lieberman, Senator McCaskill, we're going to have to leave it there. We want to thank you both. And the Lord knows we would like to have an exciting final month.

Thanks for talking with us, and we'll see you both along the campaign trail.

LIEBERMAN: Thanks, Chris.

MCCASKILL: Thank you, Chris.

LIEBERMAN: Take care.

MCCASKILL: Thank you, Joe.

LIEBERMAN: Thanks.

WALLACE: Up next, we'll take a look at how the electoral map is shaping up and what both sides need to do in this final month of the campaign as we sit down with master strategist Karl Rove.

WALLACE: Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: With one month till Election Day, the national polls are interesting, but political insiders are focusing on the electoral map, especially on the battleground states.

For more, we're joined by master strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove.

And welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

ROVE: Good to be here.

WALLACE: Let's start with the latest Rove electoral map out just this weekend. Let's put it up on the screen.

Karl, you have Obama continuing to make gains. He's now leading in states with 273 electoral votes, three more than he needs to be elected president. McCain leads in states with 163 electoral votes in 102 states. Those in yellow are still toss-ups. What stands out here?

ROVE: Well, first of all, in the last several days, new polls -- there have been 39 new state polls. We're now getting every week an avalanche of polls. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end we aren't getting more than 100 state polls a week.

In the last few days, we've seen Minnesota flip from undecided or toss-up to Obama, and we've also seen New Hampshire with its four electoral votes similarly follow into the Obama camp.

The race is also tightening in -- with some states that are critical, with states for McCain to win. Ohio and Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia, Florida...

WALLACE: Let me...

ROVE: ... have all tightened up.

WALLACE: ... break in there, because one of the things that strikes me about that, those toss-up states, is that most of them are traditional Republican states -- Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida. And yet Obama is within the margin of error, actually leading in a few of those. It appears that Obama and McCain are both playing on McCain's side of the field at this moment.

ROVE: Oh, I think that's accurate. But remember, the campaign ebbs and flows. What we're seeing here is a result of the focus of the American people and of voters on the economic problems that have dominated the news the last several weeks. And what has happened then has been a shift to Obama.

Just remember, though, 17 days ago in the electoral college McCain led 227 to 216. Fifteen days ago, on the eve of the news on the bailout, he led 216 to 215. This race is susceptible to rapid changes, and we're likely to see in the remaining four weeks more.

WALLACE: Well, it's interesting. Let's put up the trend lines, because those really do show how this race has changed back and forth.

And if you look, you will see -- and again, you know, focus there on the red and the blue -- that two weeks ago this race was virtually even, and in these last two weeks there's been a dramatic move toward Obama. Is that all about the financial bailout?

ROVE: I think so. Yeah, I think it's also a little bit about what John McCain did during this, because in the polls what we're seeing is -- is that there's slightly more downward movement for McCain than there is upward movement for Obama.

WALLACE: So what did McCain do wrong?

ROVE: Well, it may have been that people said -- and again, state polls are a lagging indicator. For example, the state polls that we're looking at here have virtually no surveying done after the Palin-Biden debate.

What we may be seeing is people reacting to McCain suspending his campaign, which may have -- they've seen as a political gesture, coming back, and not getting something done initially with the failure of the bill to pass the House on -- a week ago Monday.

WALLACE: Now, as we have said over and over, it is just 30 days until the election, which isn't very long in a presidential campaign.

If you were playing the same role for McCain now that you played for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, how worried would you be? Would you be worried that this race was slipping away?

ROVE: Look, every day in a presidential campaign, no matter how good you are, good a position you are, is a day of worry. I mean, that -- let's just say every day these guys wake up reaching for the Pepto-Bismol and worrying.

You want the campaign to be fought as much as possible on the other guy's turf. And we're down now to where McCain is playing basically on -- in five John Kerry states and Obama is playing in nine Bush states. Now, I'm not certain that all of those nine are necessarily reachable, but the map is -- you know, Obama has forced this more on to the Republican turf and off of the Democratic turf, and that's where you'd like to be at this point.

WALLACE: Now, the big news this week was that McCain is pulling all of his money, all of his ads, out of Michigan.

One, is that a smart move? And two, does it deflate the troops when they hear, "Hey, this was one of the key Democratic states that we thought we could turn red and we're giving up?"

ROVE: Yeah. Well, first of all, remember, each side has now pulled out of states. We had Obama pulling out of Alaska, North Dakota, Nebraska, Georgia, all states where he spent a lot of money. So each side has to start making these kind of decisions.

The question is whether you do it smartly like Obama did, very quietly, or whether you do it in a high-profile leak, as the McCain camp did.

WALLACE: Why would they -- why would they do that? Why would you...

ROVE: I don't know. I don't know. And not only that, but it set off a spat of internecine warfare inside the Michigan Republican Party with the former national committeeman sending a letter to Sarah Palin saying, "Please contest the state," and then leaking that to the members of the state central committee, which guaranteed that it would be in the hands of the press.

But let me say this. Michigan is -- a lot of the campaign is going to remain there. McCain won't go there and the television ads will not be run, but all of the ground game activity -- they have 30 headquarters, 1,000 phones. Those things are already paid for. They're going to complete that part of the program.

The question is -- is can the state party come up with some of the money to replace some of the television advertising that would otherwise run there.

WALLACE: Let's discuss the strategy that the McCain campaign is apparently talking about for this final month of the campaign, which is a new assault on Obama's character.

First of all, you talk about going public. Is it smart to go public on the front page of the Washington Post and the New York Times yesterday and say, "We want to turn the page of the economy and go after Obama's character?"

ROVE: Again, I'd wonder about that. I mean, some of the best strategies are the strategies that you don't draw attention to.

For example, right now Obama is running a television ad in battleground states where he basically calls government-run health care an extreme and tries to position himself as somebody who wants neither -- no government-run health care or all government-run health care.

I mean, he's attacking single payer, which is sort of the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. But you don't see them out there announcing that. You don't see them drawing attention to it. They simply let the tactic play out, have its impact.

WALLACE: So forgetting the question of whether they should have gone public with it, is that the best strategy for McCain, to go after Obama's character, to talk about Rezko, to talk about William Ayres?

ROVE: He think they've got to do two things. One is they've got to deal with the doubts that people have, the persistent doubts that people have, about whether or not Obama is qualified to be president.

If you take a look at like the ABC poll, CBS-New York Times or the Newsweek poll, all of them say that he has near record numbers of -- record percentages of people who do not think he's qualified. I can only find one other candidate in modern American history who has higher numbers than Obama has when it comes to the percentages.

WALLACE: So how do you go after that? How do you make that point?

ROVE: Well, you have -- you have to do two things, and that's why it's difficult, because you have to do two things, not one thing.

One is you have to talk about character, values and views of Obama in a way that people consider to be fair and relevant. And second of all, the McCain-Palin ticket needs to give voters a positive agenda so that the people who are concerned about his -- Obama's qualifications have something to hang their hat on.

WALLACE: So talking about Tuesday's debate -- and you got an extra wrinkle there, because it's not a regular debate; it's a town hall meeting, and partisan attacks don't work so well in town hall meetings -- what should McCain start doing on Tuesday?

ROVE: Well, he needs to -- he needs to open up on both of these fronts. And incidentally, I thought McCain -- one thing that he did well in the first debate and that Obama did not do as well, is McCain's -- all of McCain's attacks on Obama were impersonal and indirect.

He said, "Senator Obama does this," or, "Senator Obama voted for this." All of Senator Obama's attacks on McCain were personal and direct - - "John, you." In fact, there was one attack where he said -- he said "you" six times in one paragraph.

And I think the voters, to the degree that they want to hear this, want to have this more done on an impersonal fact-based basis rather than somebody just sort of poking their finger at the other candidate and yelling, "You."

WALLACE: Let's talk about Sarah Palin, who certainly had a successful debate, eased some of the doubts people have about whether she's up to the job. If you're the McCain campaign, how do you use her now?

ROVE: Again, the presidential candidate and the vice presidential candidate have to be doing the same thing. Maybe it's slightly different. That is to say, McCain does more of the positive and less of the attack. She does more of the attack and less of the positive. But they both have to be in sync as to message and direction.

WALLACE: Finally, we've got about a minute left, and I want to talk to you about an interesting trend that came out this week, and that's voter registration. Let's take a look at the graphics that we've put together.

In Pennsylvania, registered Democrats have grown by 350,000 since 2004. Registered Republicans have declined by 285,000.

In Florida, Democrats have added 130,000 new voters, while GOP has stayed even.

Nevada, Democrats have added 80,000 more voters than Republicans in a state that Mr. Bush won by 20,000 votes last time.

Are those numbers, the big increase in registration for Democrats -- are those as significant as they seem to be?

ROVE: Well, they are significant. They're not as significant as they might appear on the surface, because most of those numbers are driven by people who wanted to participate in the primary.

I've been watching these numbers very carefully, and you'll notice the bubble of these is back in the spring, when Nevada's holding its caucuses and when Pennsylvania is getting ready to hold its primary, and has dwindled since then.

But yes, all three of those would indicate secular problems, at least in Nevada and Pennsylvania, for Republicans. The one that I worry about most of all is Nevada, simply because it's so big. I mean, you're talking about a large number of voters, particularly in Clark County, Nevada.

Now, the saving grace for the Republicans is these were driven by primaries which doesn't necessarily carry over to the general election. People want to play in the primary and not necessarily stick in the general election.

The other thing is -- is that we do know that in Clark County, Nevada there are a lot of fraudulent registrations of people who simply do not exist.

WALLACE: And real quick, there was a big deal made this week about Ohio, because there's a new rule that you can register and vote the same day. A lot of Republicans were crying foul. You say not such a big deal, as it turns out.

ROVE: Well, you know, it's a -- you could register the same day without proof of residency and vote. And in Cuyahoga County...

WALLACE: Let's put that graphic up again. Go ahead.

ROVE: Yeah. In Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, that's -- one out of every four voters lives in Cuyahoga County. Four hundred and five people through Friday registered and voted the same day, or they were people who changed their address and did not vote. They keep those two numbers together.

So 405 -- that's out of 1,090,000 people.

WALLACE: And we can see the same in Hamilton and Franklin.

ROVE: In Hamilton and Franklin.

WALLACE: But your point is that all this talk about same day registration and voting...

ROVE: It didn't prove out. At least -- they've got one more day, but I don't -- you know, look. There are -- four one-hundredths of 1 percent of the voters in Cuyahoga County showed up and availed themselves of the opportunity for same day registration and voting in Cuyahoga County.

WALLACE: So the big Obama "get out the vote" on the campus of Ohio State University...

ROVE: Ohio State University in Franklin -- we had -- well, it increased. It was five one-hundredths of 1 percent. So I mean, look.

WALLACE: Well, if it's a close election...

ROVE: If I were the Obama campaign, I'd be worried about it. They had a big hoopla about all those buses and being able to turn out lots of people and bank a lot of early votes.

They may have just simply taken people who voted -- who would have otherwise voted on Election Day. They didn't add a lot of new registrants to the roll.

WALLACE: Karl, thank you for coming in today. We'll have you back in a couple of weeks for another status report.

ROVE: Great. Thanks.

WALLACE: Always a pleasure.

WALLACE: Up next, the financial rescue plan gets through Congress. Will it work? And what's the political fallout? Our Sunday regulars give us their thoughts after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: It's not a cure. It's not a cure. It's a tourniquet. It will stop the bleeding, but now we've got to reform the way we do business in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: This is not simply about baling out Wall Street. This is about making sure that your jobs are protected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was John McCain and Barack Obama at week's end both talking about what the financial rescue plan will and won't do.

And it's time now for our Sunday group -- 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, it was an ugly week on Capitol Hill with the House first voting down the financial rescue plan and the Dow Jones going into the tank to the tune of, what, 700-plus points. Then by Friday the bill was passed and the president signed it.

Brit, let's ask the big question, do you have any feeling, any sense, as to whether this is actually going to work?

HUME: I think it may take some time to work, but I think it will work. And I think also that -- you said it was not a pretty week. It certainly was not.

It reminded me of two sayings, one that's been attributed to Otto von Bismarck originally, although I guess no one knows for sure if he's the one who actually said it, which is that God has special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America. And the other is the saying that the United States of America's political system was designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots.

And the behavior of the congressional leadership was not inspiring. The behavior of the House Republicans was, quite frankly, appalling, or at least some of them, and yet -- and the behavior of the media in distributing misinformation -- to cite one conspicuous example, the treatment of the tax extenders that were added to the package -- a package, by the way, that had already passed the Senate by a vote of 93-2; had yet to clear the house -- as pork was particularly atrocious.

But in spite of the wall of information that everybody had to climb, the thing passed in the end, and it passed by large bipartisan majorities. And I think that's something to take heart from and, in fact, be proud of.

And what it also says is the behavior of the two presidential candidates, despite some controversy about it, was pretty good in all of this.

They -- you know, one or the other of them could have demagoged the issue. McCain could have tried to lead some kind of populist revolt against it and so on. He chose not to do that. I think that was responsible.

And I think Barack Obama, although he was a bit of a bystander in this, was -- nonetheless came out on the right side in the end and stuck up for this thing.

WALLACE: Mara, your review of the week?

LIASSON: Yeah, I think that there was a lot of hysteria on Capitol Hill, and I think there was also a lot of confusion about what the public wanted.

In the end, I think members got the message that the public wanted them to do something rather than merely side with the public's disgust about things in the bill that were unpopular and the unseemliness of bailing out Wall Street, and so they did.

I think if this bill had been truly unpopular, that first vote would have been a rout, and it was very close. And in the end, they put enough sweeteners in the bill to just twist enough arms and they passed it.

And now I think the big trick is which is going to happen faster. Is this bailout going to take effect? Will Henry Paulson be able to spend the money that he's now been given authority to spend fast enough to make the effects on Main Street fairly mild?

Or with this jobs report that we got at the end of the week, which was pretty bad, has the effect already started and it's too late to do much about it?

WALLACE: Bill, what do you think the political fallout from all of this is? Do Republicans take the hit because this happened under a Republican president? And how does it play out for specifically Obama and McCain?

KRISTOL: Sure. I mean, it's what's clobbered McCain over the last few weeks. I don't buy that these little minor tactical campaign decisions have hurt McCain that much or helped Obama that much.

WALLACE: Like suspending the campaign?

KRISTOL: Right, or the foolish handling of Palin. But at the end of the day, what's driven -- Obama's gained about eight points on McCain in the last two weeks.

That is because there was a huge financial meltdown under a Republican administration, and during -- that happened during years in which Republicans controlled Congress for at least some of it, so you can't simply say it's the Democratic Congress' fault.

And McCain's the Republican candidate for president, and it's hurt him badly. And now he's got to -- we'll see if he can come back and -- but it's been very bad for the Republicans.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, without a doubt. I think -- I think this -- what I consider to be the stunt of leaving the campaign trail didn't work out for McCain either, because he was unable to persuade those House Republicans to come along.

But what I really am, you know, perplexed by is this kind of demagogue move by some on the Republican Party side to somehow blame Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, people -- poor people who were trying to get some homes, and say, "You know what? That's the problem. The Democrats were given too much support to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae."

What about the market? What about the people who were appraising these properties, you know, at bubble rates and saying they're more valuable than they really were? What about the people who were issuing the mortgages? Mortgages weren't coming from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?

HUME: Juan?

WILLIAMS: They were coming from Wall Street people, investment bankers...

HUME: Juan?

WILLIAMS: ... who were creating financial instruments...

HUME: Juan?

WILLIAMS: ... so that they could pump up their profits. Those are the greedy...

HUME: Juan? Juan, I think you have the sequence of how these instruments get created and distributed through the financial system a little upside-down. No, Wall Street doesn't create mortgages.

WILLIAMS: I didn't say that. Banks create mortgages.

HUME: Investment -- bank -- investment...

WILLIAMS: Banks issue mortgages.

HUME: Excuse me. Investment banks do not do mortgages.

WILLIAMS: I didn't say they did.

HUME: And what happened here is -- and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were very much at the center of this. And it is an odd and, I think, unusual paradox of this whole situation that it was actually Republicans at critical junctures who were pushing for more regulation.

Normally they push for less. In this instance, they were pushing for more. And it was principally Democrats, led by Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and others, some Republicans as well -- Bennett of Utah being a conspicuous example -- who resisted this, successfully in the end.

And there was an effort to -- made to appoint a world-class regulator, as the phrase goes, to supervise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were -- which were creating a market for these packages of mortgages, some good, some bad.

They would buy them up and securitize them, sell them, and it enabled a lot of -- a lot of entities, big banks and investors to get in on the housing boom.

WILLIAMS: You are presenting...

HUME: It turned out to be...

WILLIAMS: You are presenting exactly the slanted view of this that I think is distorting the conversation. The fact is banks issue mortgages, not Freddie and Fannie. They can encourage people.

But do recall that it was the Bush administration that talked about an ownership society, trying to encourage more people to be homeowners.

LIASSON: That's what the Democrats...

HUME: Juan, I'm not suggesting -- I'm not suggesting...

WILLIAMS: This is motherhood and apple pie.

LIASSON: That's what the Democrats have been doing...

HUME: Juan, I'm not suggesting...

LIASSON: ... for the last 30 years. Look, Fannie -- the mission of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were championed by Democrats because they wanted more people, including low-income people...

WILLIAMS: Right, and Republicans.

LIASSON: ... to own homes. That was the big thrust. There's lots to -- blame to go around. The Democrats were protectors of Fannie and Freddie, and they get blamed for that.

In terms of deregulation, Chris Cox not making sure that these...

WILLIAMS: Exactly.

LIASSON: ... entities had the right capital, enough capital -- they get the blame for that.

The point is there's a lot of blame, but in this kind of an environment, this is a big, big exogenous event that helps the Democrats, period.

KRISTOL: There's a lot of blame, and there's, unfortunately for the Republican point of view, there's only one administration in power. That's the face of, you know, the government over the last eight years.

And in that respect, it hurts Republicans. And we are in a recession, and it's going to be -- incidentally, this notion of protecting Main Street -- at this point, it's going to be a severe recession. People are beginning to feel it.

We have been feeling it for quite a while. We've lost 750,000 jobs this year. And none of that can help Republicans.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about that, Bill, and we've got about a minute left, so you're going to get the first and last word on this.

If we had talked two years ago and we said, "It's going to be a close race, the Republican candidate -- we're going to have a financial crisis, we're going to have 750,000 jobs lost," I mean, just as a political scientist, you would say, "There's no way a Republican can win."

KRISTOL: Except it's not the incumbent Republican running for re- election. It's a different kind of Republican. Obama is a weak candidate. He is inexperienced and not obviously suited to be commander in chief when you're fighting two wars.

And I think McCain can make a plausible case that, "Fine, dislike Bush, dislike Hank Paulson, dislike Chris Cox, dislike congressional Democrats too, but let's really look forward. Who do you want to be president and commander in chief for the next four years," which McCain has a shot. McCain has a shot.

WILLIAMS: Wait a second. The point here is he's picked up...

WALLACE: Juan.

WILLIAMS: ... Bushonomics.

WALLACE: Juan.

WILLIAMS: He is continuing...

WALLACE: Juan.

WILLIAMS: ... Bush's economic policy.

WALLACE: Juan, that's the end of this segment.

In any case, we're going to address those issues -- and I'll let you talk first, Juan -- in the next segment.

Coming up, how did the vice presidential debate do in living up to all the hype? And what do McCain and Obama need to do in their second debate on Tuesday? Our Sunday gang, especially Juan, has all the answers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1947, President Truman delivered the first televised address from the White House. He asked Americans to conserve food in order to help out starving Europeans still recovering from World War II.

WALLACE: Stay tuned for more from our panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Look, past is prologue, Gwen. The issue is how different is John McCain's policy going to be than George Bush's. I haven't heard anything yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: Say it ain't so, Joe. There you go again, pointing backwards again. No, you prefaced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now, doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And that was just a taste of what turned out to be the most watched vice presidential debate of all time.

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

Well, before we look ahead to Tuesday's presidential debate and the final 30 days of the campaign, let's spend a moment on Palin and Biden.

And, Juan, I promised you you'd get the first answer. It was certainly entertaining. Did it have any effect, do you think, on the dynamic of the campaign?

WILLIAMS: Well, if Sarah -- if Governor Palin had somehow cratered and had her -- you know, the NASCAR moment with the big car crash everybody was waiting for, I think it would have hurt Senator McCain, because then it would have again called into question his judgment in appointing her.

I think that question still is out there because of her low level of experience. But the low expectations were to her benefit and she did fine. In fact, I think she was folksy and friendly and effective in that manner. But was it the case that she demonstrated any mastery? No. But you know, I think it's a wash. And so it's not an issue going forward in the way that it might have been after what happened in the Katie Couric interview.

WALLACE: Brit, your reaction?

HUME: It's a little better for McCain than just that, although Juan's quite right. The principal benefit that Sarah Palin brought to the McCain campaign was enthusiasm among Republican voters who were this year I think demoralized, unexcited, not particularly motivated. And Sarah Palin changed all that.

And then as her fortune seemed to drift and recede, I think that that sense of demoralization may have begun to set in again, and I suspect she restored it. And she's the excitement factor in this -- on this ticket within the Republican Party.

He desperately needs enthusiastic volunteers of the kind that George Bush had in such numbers four years ago to get out the vote for him.

If he doesn't have that, he has no chance, in my opinion, because I think the Democrats are going to do even better than the superior job they did four years ago, which turned out not to be superior to the Bushes', but it was the best they'd ever done. I think they'll surpass it this year.

And McCain needs an excitement factor, and without it, he's lost.

WALLACE: So, Mara, let's talk about where this race stands now. In the national polls Obama is up six points, as we saw with Karl Rove.

If you look state by state at the electoral map, it's even more one- sided than that. How commanding and how solid do you think Obama's lead is right now?

LIASSON: I think it's getting more commanding and more solid, and I think the one and only reason for that is the economic crisis.

I mean, the fundamentals were always tilted toward the Democrats this year, and the big question that we've asked 100 times is, "Why isn't he doing better than his brand, Obama?" In other words, this is a year that the Democrats should be way ahead. What's wrong with him?

Well, now, with the injection of one more reminder about the fundamentals, and how much they tilt to the Democrats, and that the economy is paramount, we're in a crisis, he's doing that much better.

McCain's chances just get narrower and narrower. I mean, it's kind of like what John Kerry was facing at the end of the race last year. I mean, when you have to drop off a state like Michigan, you just have fewer and fewer chances to pick up those Democratic states that he needs. I think Obama's in a more commanding position, but I do think it's because of this exogenous event, and I think the big question is, "What else is going to happen between now and Election Day -- maybe a foreign policy crisis -- which would change the balance?"

WALLACE: So, Bill, if Mara states the case -- and she's going to explain to me afterwards what exogenous means.

KRISTOL: Right.

LIASSON: External.

WALLACE: Oh, OK. I kept thinking she's saying "erogenous," and I -- what am I missing?

HUME: Doesn't she hit your exogenous zone?

(LAUGHTER)

LIASSON: And you know what? You knew what I meant.

HUME: She does mine.

LIASSON: You knew exactly what I meant.

WALLACE: No, actually -- well, in any case -- so, Bill, what should McCain do, starting with Tuesday's debate, which is another big exogenous event? And does he...

LIASSON: No, it's not an exogenous event.

WALLACE: That's scheduled, OK.

How does he go after Obama? And does he go after him, as apparently the McCain campaign has announced -- does he go after him on character?

KRISTOL: Look, Obama gained eight points on McCain in the last three weeks. McCain was up two three weeks ago. Now he's down six. In the month before that, McCain had gained seven points on Obama. Obama had been up five, went to McCain plus two.

You can move seven or eight points in four weeks. So this race is winnable by McCain. Gore gained seven points on Bush in the last two weeks in 2000. And typically, the more experienced candidate has a little bit of a surge at the end.

Especially when you're fighting a war, voters are going to default, I think, to experience and to McCain's claim to be more ready to be president.

WALLACE: So how do you make the case in the last four weeks?

KRISTOL: I think you say that Obama is a nice young man and not ready to be commander in chief of the United States when we're fighting two wars. On the economic crisis, I think you have to address it. It was idiotic for some McCain campaign spokesman to say, "We're moving beyond the financial crisis." No. And the next president -- that's the center of what he has to deal with.

The truth is, as Mara pointed out, though, Obama and McCain don't differ much on how to deal with it. They both supported the bailout. They're both going to support reasonable efforts to stabilize the financial system. That's not an ideological issue.

I think McCain has to neutralize the economic issue as best as possible, go after Obama as not fit to be -- not not fit to be; but not ready to be commander in chief, raise the associations issue. I think that's legitimate.

The final point I would make -- this vice presidential debate -- I think they need to use Palin more. Seventy million people watched that debate. Was it 50 million who watched the presidential debate?

They should substitute the vice presidential debate -- the vice presidential debate Tuesday for the presidential debate.

And also, I think Palin actually does a very good job of making the case for McCain. She really is -- you can't look at Palin and say, "It's the third term of Bush," which remains the strongest Democratic talking point.

So use Palin more. Put her on "Fox News Sunday" next Sunday. Let her...

WALLACE: Here, here.

KRISTOL: No, seriously. Put her out there much more. Don't just let her talk to some friendly people. Let her talk to everyone and make her a centerpiece of the campaign. Make it the McCain-Palin campaign, not just the McCain campaign.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think the -- I'm not sure about the economy, because he's got to -- he's got to hope the economy goes away, because right now...

WALLACE: But it isn't going to go away.

LIASSON: It's not going to go away.

KRISTOL: It's not going to go away.

WILLIAMS: It's got to -- he's got to hope that it goes away. He's got to hope the bailout...

KRISTOL: In the third -- the week before the election -- the week before the election, they're going to announce the third quarter GDP figures, the gross domestic product. It's almost certainly going to be negative. You're not going to be able to pretend...

WALLACE: And the last week before they're going to announce the unemployment numbers.

KRISTOL: Is that -- I heard -- yeah, I heard it was the Friday afterwards.

WILLIAMS: So -- but he's got to be able to say, "Look, it's been dealt with. The government's done all that it can." But it's a problem for him. It's a huge problem.

What he's got to do is now move beyond it, and what he's got to try to do -- and I mean, unfortunate, but he's got to raise the idea that Obama is just too risky a choice.

And I think that's what you heard from Sarah Palin in the debate, that it's not just that he's naive, that it's dangerous with regard to foreign policy and the consequences for the country, and then you can't trust him on taxes. That's going to be the attack.

HUME: And what on earth are Joe Lieberman and John McCain talking about when they say that the long association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is off the table? Why is that off the table?

It's an important part of Obama's background and record. It's one of the reasons people wonder about who he really is. My sense about it is that McCain is going to need to play rough, but it's certainly within bounds to talk about Bill Ayres and Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko and the whole lot of them. And if the McCain campaign doesn't do it, they're out of their mind.

LIASSON: Somebody is going to do it. If it's not the McCain campaign, a third-party group. His association with Reverend Wright was certainly more relevant than his association with Bill Ayres, which I think has been exaggerated by the McCain campaign and downplayed too much by Obama.

WALLACE: All right. We've got to leave it there. Thank you, panel. See you next Sunday.

Up next, our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: As the presidential campaign enters the final month, voters can expect a barrage of more and more partisan attacks. So how do you know which campaign is stretching the truth?

That's where our Power Player of the Week comes in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACKSON: Fire hose really describes the sensation right now. We are just getting so much stuff from both campaigns to check out.

WALLACE: Brooks Jackson is director of FactCheck.org, a non- partisan group that calls itself a consumer advocate for voters, trying to separate fact from fiction in the presidential campaign.

JACKSON: We try to give voters a solid basis for casting an informed vote. We leave it to them to make up their minds, but we think that they ought to have solid information.

WALLACE: If the goal sounds simple, the execution is anything but.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Lots and lots of accusations flying back and forth, and most of...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Jackson and his staff of seven monitor every ad, speech and interview coming not only from the campaigns but also the parties and independent groups.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACKSON: Is it just me or except for $4 gas, there wasn't a single factual statement in there?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Then there are the wild rumors on the Internet. It got so bad they put out an article called "Sliming Obama."

JACKSON: As soon as Sarah Palin showed on the scene, we were just hit with a tsunami of false and misleading claims about her. We wrote an article called "Sliming Palin" to debunk some of those.

WALLACE: All this appears on FactCheck's website. Last month there are 6.4 million visits to the site.

JACKSON: Candidates, just by their very nature, sometimes are going to act like 2-year-olds, and it's the voters who've got to kind of be the grown-ups here and sort this out. They're the ones we're trying to help out.

WALLACE: Jackson says there's a long history of deception in politics, and this year is no different. He says the McCain campaign has routinely misrepresented Obama's tax plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Higher taxes, higher gas prices, economic disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And the Obama campaign has falsely stated McCain wants to cut Social Security benefits for current recipients.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: ... proposal, cutting benefits in half, risking Social Security on the stock market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Recently, McCain took exception to the charge he's been deceptive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: I've always had 100 percent absolute truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JACKSON: Well, I think we've demonstrated otherwise.

WALLACE: Jackson says it gets much worse than that. He points to a governor's race in Illinois where one candidate ran an ad showing a damaging newspaper headline. The headline was a fake.

FactCheck takes no money from parties, corporations or unions. It's a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. But some insiders say that doesn't mean they're always right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROVE: You can't trust the FactCheck organization, with all due respect. They're human beings. They're individuals. They've got their own biases built in there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JACKSON: He's absolutely right. All human beings have their own biases. What we try to do here, as best we know how, is set those aside and be of service to the people we're trying to help.

WALLACE: And as a former reporter who spent three decades covering politics, Jackson takes great pride in still trying to keep the candidates honest.

JACKSON: When we find out that they're really spinning the voters, a little or a lot, it's fun to try to tell the voters, "Hey, here are the actual facts. Here's what you need to know."

And I think it -- to me, that gives me a nice sense of satisfaction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: I asked brooks Jackson what happens when they report one campaign is making false statements about the other. He says often they just keep doing it.

Now, this program note. Be sure to tune in to Fox for coverage of the next presidential debate Tuesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern. I'll be with Shepard Smith on this Fox station, and Brit anchors on Fox News Channel. But that's it for today. Have a great week, and we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."

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