Debate Recap

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: And welcome to "Hannity & Colmes". We're glad you're with us. I'm Sean Hannity. We're coming to you tonight from the spin room right here at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham.

Now, you've heard the first in the fall GOP debate right here on the FOX News Channel. And tonight, we want you to make the call. So who do you think won the debate? You can text your vote to FNCTV or 36288. Now the voting is open. Every vote counts. And we're going to reveal the results coming up later this hour.

Right now, first, political pollster Frank Luntz. He joins us with reaction from voters who watched the debate tonight -- Frank.

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER: Hey, we're at the Merrimack (ph) restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. Something very interesting happened this evening.

How many of you thought that this debate exceeded your expectations? You were happier with the Republican candidates? Raise your hands.

These are 29 Republican primary voters. How many of you were disappointed? This is not a good night. But one individual for the first time exceeded expectations. In all of the debates that we've been testing for "Hannity & Colmes," how many of you walked in here voting for John McCain, raise your hands. Only three of you.

How many of you thought that he won the debate? What is it about John McCain? Kim (ph), I'm going to start with you. What did McCain specifically do tonight that impressed you the most?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was clear and concise. He knew a lot of details of the war and our security. I felt that he would make us safe and that that is a priority to him.

LUNTZ: Why did you think he won the debate?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think John McCain sounded the most presidential. Even the other candidates were quoting John McCain during their responses. My biggest problem with McCain had been his immigration stand. And I think he indicated at least that he may have heard the clamor in the country over his position on that and may have mollified it.

LUNTZ: Who else said McCain...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I...

LUNTZ: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that McCain just has the experience. It came through in his answers. He was very concise and very clear with his answers. And the other candidates I just don't think they were as clear as McCain was.

LUNTZ: But does he have the passion? I know you thought he won. But does he have the passion?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you asking me?

LUNTZ: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the things I thought was incredible, does he have a passion? He said that he was not so much interested in managing as he was in leading. And he was very passionate about being a leader. And that is what we need in this country is a leader that is not afraid to say what he -- do what he says.

LUNTZ: Now you are one of the younger people in here. You also thought McCain. But did you walk in here a McCain person?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did. And I think he is very straightforward. And that is what I am looking for. I am looking for a straightforward president.

LUNTZ: So basically the attribute, somebody says what they mean and means what they say is what matters to you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is exhibits leadership a lot better than the other candidates seem to. And I was just feeling the whole time that responses were being given, he was the most direct.

He spoke for support of the war in Iraq. But he also supported not -- he did not support any kind of torture.

LUNTZ: But you guys were angry at his response on immigration. And yet you're willing to forgive him on that, why?

Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republican umbrella is a big umbrella. And we all have a consistency of views. We all differ a little bit. But I think the majority of us have the majority of the ideas that we all believe in.

LUNTZ: One more?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quite honestly, I saw the big divide being the people that talk straight gave us real answers and the people who just waffled.

LUNTZ: Who waffled?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Giuliani, Romney, Brownback waffled.

LUNTZ: Sean, I want you -- Alan, I want you to watch this.

How many of you thought that Rudy Giuliani was your big disappointment of the evening raise your hands?

This is incredible. And I'm going to pose something to you, is it because you learned things about his stance that you did not know before, or was it his style?

(CROSSTALK)

LUNTZ: Style?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... stylistics. I just felt that he could not get away from what he did in New York. It was everything that he did in the city. Every single question he answered virtually the same way. That it -- he gave you the statistics about what he accomplished in New York, which were wonderful things that he did. But you've got to get beyond that. What else is there?

LUNTZ: Alan, style does matter clearly as much as substance. John McCain, this is the first time that we've had him as a debate winner, and Rudy Giuliani just did not score with these New Hampshire voters.

Do you guys got any questions for our voters here?

HANNITY: All right. We go now to our own Carl Cameron, "Campaign Carl." He has a lot more highlights from the debate. He is on the other side of the spin room tonight -- Carl.

CARL CAMERON, FOX CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Sean. As the spinners begin to flock in here to tell us how their candidates did, we can say that this evening Mitt Romney faced some pretty tough questioning, and at times labored through his answers. But as the front-runner in New Hampshire, he came in expecting to have a target on his back and to take some shots.

Rudy Giuliani, the national front-runner, was faced with some equally tough questions. And in comparison to some of his past outings, already we are beginning to hear that he seemed to do -- have done a better job.

And then there is the question of Mike Huckabee. Of course, he is still sort of riding -- or trying to ride a wave on his Ames Straw Poll a couple of weeks ago. And he comes into New Hampshire today. And with that mix-up on Iraq with Ron Paul, he certainly got a number of the sort of big moments of applause.

It will be days before it is all sorted out. But this debate particularly, because it comes after Labor Day in the final sprint, has the potential to sort of set the trajectory for the rest of the race.

And to see that John McCain reasserted himself after a very rough August and the implosion of his campaign earlier this summer, and the absence of Fred Thompson and all the jokes laid out about it, it is a whole new race, a wide open one that suggests that there could be two or three candidates emerging in the next couple of days, next couple of weeks with a perhaps new dynamic in the Republican race.

These spinners are going to be racing through here and, Sean, Alan, we will get a little bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff for you to show you later what the real banter is like that we do not normally get on TV.

HANNITY: Well, listen, Carl, this is your home turf. So obviously I see everybody asking you for autographs over there where you are. But as we watch this, one of the toughest questions that came up tonight came from where you were, Carl, at the diner. Did you know it was going to be that hard a question for Governor Romney?

CAMERON: No. What we have -- what we did was we invited a bunch of folks from New Hampshire, some from the Durham area and from around the state to come in and talk. And there is a very rich history and tradition in New Hampshire of average folks asking questions that to them is just something that they are interested in.

And lo and behold, it can so often become a really, really big question. Well, when we talked to the deputy sheriff -- Deputy Sheriff Ris (ph) from Strafford County right here on the sea coast, he let Romney know he was not at all happy about his suggestion that his sons were volunteering for their country by volunteering for his campaign.

Well, Deputy Sheriff Ris was particularly offended by that because his son is wrapping up two tours of duty there. But Mr. Romney apologized for that assertion, that comparison, something he had already done. And yet, it was very clear that he was made to feel nervous about it.

And there was a sense in the group that we were talking to at Young's Restaurant (ph) that all of the candidates were a little bit vague on what they would do in Iraq. But of them all, with the exception of Ron Paul, Mitt Romney seemed the most eager to find a way to get troops out soonest.

HANNITY: All right. "Campaign Carl" Cameron, we are going to be checking in with him throughout the evening right here in the spin room. And joining us now is the former New York City Mayor, now presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani.

Mr. Mayor, good to see you. Welcome back to New Hampshire.

RUDY GIULIANI (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How are you doing, Sean? Alan, how are you? Good to see you. It's nice to be back here.

HANNITY: All right. So there is a debate, one of the things that came out tonight, you are the front-runner right now, so a few people coming at you on some of the positions. You answered this issue about New York sanctuary city.

GIULIANI: New York City reported every single person who was suspected of a crime, every single person who was convicted of a crime. Our problem was the immigration service would not deport any of them.

In fact, there was a time under my predecessor, Mayor Dinkins, when the immigration service told the New York Police Department not to give it any names. I reversed that. I gave them names. I even tried to get them to put the drug dealers at the top of the list.

And the reality is, I had to deal with a situation of very high crime. You remember when I came in to office. We were the crime capital of America. And I think the answer to how I dealt with it is a lot better than just about anybody else.

Because I took crime from being a major problem in New York City to making New York City safer than most even some small cities in the country. And so I must have dealt with the issue of illegal immigration in a pretty intelligent way to accomplish that.

HANNITY: One of the things that struck me in this debate, it seemed more than the other debates that this was the first time that we really saw some of the candidates really going after each other and some of their positions here.

But I see a lot of similarities in the positions with distinction. But yet, there are vast distinctions when it comes to the three major Democratic candidates.

GIULIANI: Well, I tried very, very hard to do that. I tried very hard to put the focus on the differences that we have with the Democratic candidates. The reality is they are much greater than the differences that the Republicans have among each other, with the exception of Ron Paul. I suggested...

HANNITY: You say that with a smile.

GIULIANI: I suggested to Chris and to Brit and to Wendell that maybe they should have a Ron Paul-Mike Gravel debate. That might be like its own -- and I think there would be a lot of applause and a lot of booing at that debate and very exciting.

HANNITY: Yes. Let's talk a little bit about the Virginia Tech question here, because this now became an issue. By my count, you had Mitt Romney going after you on immigration, Fred Thompson on the issue of guns, and Senator McCain...

GIULIANI: Well, Fred was not here.

HANNITY: Fred wasn't here. That's true.

GIULIANI: So you know, I don't consider that one...

HANNITY: But they brought up a quote that he had said he did not feel safe in New York.

GIULIANI: Right. When he comes to a debate, then he can go after me and I will answer it. But I thought I handled it pretty by saying I think he does a good job of playing my part on "Law & Order."

HANNITY: Is that the role as being the front-runner that...

GIULIANI: Sure. Absolutely. You know, and the reality is -- the answer to that is that in New York I used the gun laws very effectively. I prosecuted people who had guns to the full extent of the law. I did it to so a great extent that we reduced shootings by 74 percent.

HANNITY: The murder rate went from like 2,500 to 500 a year.

GIULIANI: Yes. The calculation that somebody once made is that if murder had continued at the rate before I came into office, something like 9,000 more people would have died during that period of time. So I am pretty proud of what we did and what we accomplished. And shootings we brought down by three -quarters. I mean, that's a remarkable...

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: But you said -- pardon me, what happened was the Brady Bill, crime was down nationally. New York was a beneficiary.

GIULIANI: No, crime...

COLMES: Get a good police chief in Bill Bratton.

GIULIANI: No. Crime wasn't down nationally. The reality is New York City is the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994. In Boston, for example, I went back and looked at the 2000 statistics, there was a 60 percent greater chance you could be the victim of a crime. In most other cities it was 100 percent.

New York City went from being the crime capital of America to the city number 191 for crime.

COLMES: But crime went down nationally after the Brady Bill was passed, the crime rate went down all over the United States.

GIULIANI: But it didn't stay down all over the United States the way it did in New York. In fact, during a debate between President Clinton and Bob Dole, President Clinton talked about the crime decline in New York, in America, and Senator Dole made the point that it were not for the decline in America, the statistics in New York would not have led to a decline in crime.

COLMES: But the Brady Bill did lead to a decline in crime. You have to acknowledge that.

GIULIANI: The Brady Bill was part of the crime bill. The crime bill overall helped. I am not saying it did not help. But the reality is that what we did in New York was nothing short of totally unexpected. Nobody thought it was possible.

COLMES: Immigration came up early in the debate tonight. You were quoted as saying in 1994, "If you come here," meaning New York, "if you work hard and happened to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people we want in this city. You are somebody that we want to protect, you want to get out from under a life being like a fugitive, which is really unfair."

Which puts you in the camp of really being pro illegal immigration. Welcoming them to New York City.

GIULIANI: I was opposed to illegal immigration. There was nothing I could do about illegal immigration.

COLMES: But you welcomed them when you made that statement.

GIULIANI: The reality is that I wanted to make sure that illegal aliens in my city reported crimes and put their children in school and felt comfortable to do that. And the reality is that I reported every single illegal immigrant that committed a crime. Because I wanted them thrown out of my city. So I had to make a distinction. Because the federal government was supporting only 759 illegal immigrants out of 400,000. I had to distinguish between those who were not doing anything wrong, who were not going to commit any crimes, I wanted them to report crimes, I wanted them to put their children in school, otherwise I would have had more violence. And what I also wanted to do is to get the immigration ...

COLMES: But you said if you're undocumented we want you here in New York City.

GIULIANI: If you're not committing any crimes. If you're not committing a crime. If you're committing a crime I want you thrown out of the city.

COLMES: Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for coming on.

GIULIANI: Thank you very much.

COLMES: Thank you very much for your time. And we check back now with Carl Cameron with an update telling us about what kind of reaction we are getting and Carl, some of the highlights of the debate.

CAMERON: It is mind blowing, Alan. You talk to the staff of these campaigns. And for every single candidate on the state there is like a dozen people that will tell you that each one of them won. So this is Kevin Matton (ph), he's one of the communicators for Mitt Romney. Some people say that he was hired because he looks like the candidate. So Kevin, why did Mitt lose?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be kidding. These spin rooms are really hard work when you work for the candidate that didn't do well. That's why I'm sitting here talking to you. No one in this place is talking to you, that's why I'm sitting talking to you.

CAMERON: But everybody was saying that Mitt's team and the governor of Massachusetts, he is feeling all beat up because he faced such terrible, tough questions. Did he get a fair shake?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, look. We are big boys. We area good campaign. We have the best candidate in the race. So these are not hard questions. These are not as hard as anything we face out on the campaign trail every day. We do all these town halls and we call them "Ask Mitt Anything" for a reason.

And what are you doing with that? Live blogging?

CAMERON: This is the super-duper close-up of Kevin Matton.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How's my nostril hair look?

CAMERON: The next question has to be why didn't Fred Thompson come take these questions?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you will have to ask Fred Thompson that. I guess Steve Brown is going to be out there in Iowa. You'll have to ask him that tomorrow. So, look, 30-second ad vs. 90 minutes on stage with the people of New Hampshire. We will take the 90 minutes every single day.

CAMERON: Kevin Matton, also known as Mini-Mitt. Just kidding. Sean, we'll send it back to you.

COLMES: All right, Carl. Thank you very much. This is a special post debate edition of HANNITY & COLMES and we want to hear from you either way and what you think and who you think won tonight's debate. You can text us your vote to FNCTV or 36288. We are now joined by former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Were they too rough on you tonight?

MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, I thought it was fun. This was a great night. What I liked about tonight, is we finally got to the distinction on a number of key issues.

Immigration being one. Mayor Giuliani thinks that immigration is about crime. And of course we're concerned about illegal immigrants who are criminals but that is not the issue. The issue is jobs and the rule of law in this country. And 12 million illegal immigrants. He said they were welcome if they were undocumented in New York. That is something which is going to stand out.

COLMES: You presided over, as was pointed out tonight, sanctuary cities, Cambridge ...

ROMNEY: I didn't preside over them. Bologna.

COLMES: Those were on your own front line, governor.

ROMNEY: Are you saying that Governor Pataki is responsible for Mayor Giuliani's sanctuary city?

COLMES: Who takes responsibility, then?

ROMNEY: The governors do not enforce the federal law on cities. As governor, in this case, in my case, I did. Because I got our state police authorized to enforce the law in our sanctuary cities and non-sanctuary cities. So I did take action. That is the distinction. And really, looking forward, the question is, will the mayor supports the ending of sanctuary cities? I want to cut back federal funding. He does not. Will he say that people who come here illegally are going to be able to have - as he says, if you work here and you pay taxes here, we'll sign you up. I disagree. That's amnesty.

COLMES: You also talked about building a wall, you came in very much in support of that tonight. Spending a lot of money on protecting the border. You also talked about lowering taxes. How do you continue the surge, continue the war, continue fighting the war on terror, build a multi billion dollar wall, and talk about lowering taxes all in the same breath?

ROMNEY: Well, the wall is a very small cost ...

COLMES: Billions of dollars.

ROMNEY: Compared to our federal budget and the trillions that we have, the wall is a very small cost and the burden that is associated with illegal immigration far away justifies building that wall. We have to stop illegal immigration so that we can welcome legal immigrants and we can manage our own system to bring in the people we need for our workforce. Legal immigration is great for America. Illegal immigration is not.

COLMES: How are you going to pay for it, though? They are saying the wall will cost three to four times even what has been projected.

ROMNEY: The wall is nothing. There are bigger elements. The big ones, of course, are Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and I have a budget box. Everything I look at spending I match against revenues that are coming in. The truth of the matter is that our economy grows in part by reducing the taxes we take away from individuals and allow them to save their money going forward. I was happy I got that out during the debate as well.

HANNITY: Governor, good to see you. Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. One of the tougher questions came from Carl Cameron was in the diner about the comparison that you had made. But you apologized and the day after.

ROMNEY: When you do as I have in Iowa and New Hampshire, 462 events, now and then you're going to say something you don't mean. And right afterwards, I said this isn't what I meant. That is not what I meant. And look, my boys are working for me. They are not working for the United States. There is no comparison.

HANNITY: I have some sympathy because I am on the air for four hours a day.

ROMNEY: Now and then you say something you say, oops, that was a mistake. I didn't mean that. There is no comparison. Obviously. Anyone who thinks there is a comparison would be nutty. And all I can say is that is not what I meant and I apologized for that.

HANNITY: The other issue that came up sort of was a little battle that came up between you and Senator McCain. It was over this issue. You said the surge is apparently working. And you believe it's working and you believe that General Petraeus in his report next week is going to affirm that point.

ROMNEY: It was not much of a battle. I am just obviously holding out until we hear from General Petraeus. I have not been to Iraq for a year. I cannot say firsthand whether it is working fully or it is not working fully. I see the good news reports. I am pleased. I think we are going to see the surge being successful. I certainly hope so. But I am glad Senator McCain - as I recall, he made a statement several months ago saying that it was safe in Baghdad. That turned out to be a little premature. I want to wait and make sure we get the report from General Petraeus.

HANNITY: You have been more willing than some of the other candidates to point out some of the distinctions in your positions. Like your challenging Mayor Giuliani tonight on the issue of sanctuary cities. Some of the distinctions with the other candidates on immigration and some other issues here. Are the Republicans now firing too much at themselves? Is that a natural evolution and maybe not paying attention to Senator Edwards and Senator Obama and Senator Clinton and the distinctions there?

ROMNEY: There was not as much firepower that went their way. I got a couple of lines in on the Democrats. But I think it is appropriate in a debate among Republicans to talk about differences on issues where we have distinctions. I thin if you look at the debate, you are going to find that people were not disrespectful or not abusive of them in any shape or form. People were courteous and showed a level of grace that I think you would expect among people in the same party. And so I do not think that is our in anyway a call to say that we should not talk about differences when we have them on issues.

HANNITY: You were asked a question about abortion and the issue of you think Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

ROMNEY: Yeah.

HANNITY: But you accept that America was in a different place right now. I wanted you to expand on that a little bit more in terms of what your opinion was.

ROMNEY: Well, it is actually almost word for word what the president has said on the same topic. And that is he was asked what do you think about the Republican platform? He was asked what do you think about the Republican platform and an amendment that would make abortion illegal in all 50 states. And he said that is a nice aspiration but that's not where America is right now.

We would welcome that kind of a circumstance but that's just not where we are. And that is why, as a pro-life Republican, I am in favor of having the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.

HANNITY: Let's the states decide.

ROMNEY: And as they overturn Roe v. Wade, they would return to the states the right to make that decision.

COLMES: We've got to run. You are going to appoint justices who will overturn Roe vs. Wade and make that a litmus test

ROMNEY: You cannot have a litmus test. But you can appoint justices that follow the Constitution and if they do that they'll overturn Roe v. Wade.

COLMES: Governor, thanks very much for being along with us.

We now take a look at one of the more contentious parts of the debate from earlier this evening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RON PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A small number of people called the neo-conservatives hijacked our foreign policy. They're responsible, not the American people. They're not responsible. We shouldn't punish them.

GOV MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Congressman, we are one nation. We can't be divided. We have to be one nation under god. That means if we make a mistake, we make it as a single country, the United States of America, not the Divided States of America.

PAUL: When we make a mistake, it is the obligation of the people, through their representatives, to correct the mistake, not to continue the mistake.

HUCKABEE: That is what we do on the floor on the --

PAUL: No, we have dug a hole for ourselves and we have dug a hole for our party. We are losing elections and we're going down next year if we don't change it. It has all to do with foreign policy. We have to wake up to this fact.

HUCKABEE: Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor. That is more important.

PAUL: We're losing -- we lost --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Joining us now is Arizona senator and presidential candidate -- Senator John McCain is back on the program. Senator, good to see you.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to see you, Sean.

HANNITY: You'll be very happy to know that we have our focus group going on right now showing that you had a lot of support tonight in this debate. One of the things I noticed is that you went after some of the other candidates tonight on their national security experience here. A small distinction, but one that you brought up, that the surge is working, not apparently working with Governor Mitt Romney.

MCCAIN: Well, the surge is working. Those who keep track and are in constant communication with the men and women serving and fighting over there, know it is working. There is not anything apparent about it. It is working. We are succeeding. We have to stick with it. Again, we lost a little bit of focus, Sean. The great debate is going to start on the Senate.

The Democrats are going to want to withdraw. That would be catastrophe. That will be chaos in the entire region. We saw the president of Iran said four days ago, when the Americans leave Iraq, Iran will fill the void. This is a serious issue. This is the serious issue of our time. There's no apparent about it. We have to win.

HANNITY: You even said it is the McCain strategy.

MCCAIN: I didn't say that. I said some Democrats said it.

HANNITY: One of the things that interested me tonight is you had a chance to explain why you were against the Bush tax cuts because you wanted spending reduction. One of the things you have even acknowledged, on some conservative issues, McCain-Feingold, on the issue of that tax vote, and this latest amnesty bill, you might have lost some support with conservatives. Do you disagree with that premise.

MCCAIN: Of course, and you calling it an amnesty bill is, of course, intending -- look, the fact is that I and the president tried to come up with a resolution. We failed. We know. Now, we have got to secure the borders. I have said and I will say again, we have to secure the borders. We have the border state governors; as president, I will demand that the border state governors say their border is secure. And we will secure the borders.

Then we have to move on to the other aspects. We failed. Now we know what we have to do.

HANNITY: Now you're supporting the Lindsay Graham bill, which is the 2007 Secure the Borders First Act, without dealing of these other issues of guest worker --

MCCAIN: We will move on to other issues, but first we have to secure the borders. That is the lesson of this great debate. Americans did not have trust and confidence that we will actually act to secure the borders. In 1986, as you know, --

HANNITY: Were you surprised? You have even acknowledged that may have hurt your campaign, the position that you took on that bill.

MCCAIN: Lots of positions that I have taken on issues that have --

HANNITY: You have attacked me and Alan.

COLMES: That does not happen.

MCCAIN: Lots of times I have taken positions because I believe in what is right, and that is far more important than any political ambitions.

COLMES: Good to have you back on our show, senator. Thank you very much for being here. Talk about the surge working; and, you know, they talked about benchmarks that had to be met. We just had a report from the General Accounting Office that said 11 benchmarks were not being met, and only four were partially met. The other three being met. That is not a very good report card, based on what the administration itself said would be the literal benchmarks they would use to determine if the surge has worked.

MCCAIN: Actually, a number of those benchmarks I thought were unrealistic from the beginning. The fact is, the facts on the ground are that we are succeeding. And we have to succeed and we have to give it a chance to succeed. I believe that in the coming months we will see more and more signs of success. I understand, as I said, the frustration and the sorrow of people, because this war was so badly mismanaged.

You're talking about unpopular positions. I took an unpopular position when I opposed Rumsfeld's mismanagement of the war, because I knew what the right strategy was, my friend.

COLMES: We are finding out, according to the GAO report, that there has been a failure to eliminate militia control of security forces, failure to increase the number of army units operating independently, failure to legislate political reconciliation, which was one of the key benchmarks. How can one say the surge is working if the main clause of the surge was to make sure conciliation took place and that's just not happening, according to this report.

MCCAIN: Because we are seeing on the ground, locally, significant political progress. I believe over time we will see that as the military situation continues to improve. Anbar Province, to a large degree, is far more secure than it was. Areas of Baghdad are for more secure. We are seeing other parts of Iraq that we're seeing progress. We have a long way to go.

The Maliki government is not doing what we wanted it to do. I agree. There are other problems with the police.

COLMES: Should Maliki not be in charge there and should there be another leader of Iraq?

MCCAIN: They have a parliamentary procedure and a no-confidence vote. But I think you would recall that when we replace leaders ourselves, like we did in Vietnam, I think that is dangerous. But they have a parliamentary system. But I am deeply dissatisfied with their performance so far.

COLMES: President Bush just met with the deputy prime minister of Australia and he used the phrase we are kicking ass. Should he have said that?

MCCAIN: I can't account for everything the president says. But we are succeeding. I hear from these young people all the time, as well as the leader, there is a very different attitude over there now, Alan. They are enthusiastic because they are succeeding. I want to say again, we are going to go on tour with some Congressional Medal of Honor winners, with some Iraqi war veterans. We are going around this country and we're going to make the case that we have to win this debate in Washington and let this strategy succeed.

HANNITY: Senator, good to see you. We appreciate it. I agree with you on surge. It's got to work. I think you'll see when we show the dial positions, that was one of the big lines of the night, by the way, with our focus group.

MCCAIN: Thank you. Thank you, Alan. It's always a pleasure to be with you all.

HANNITY: Senator, thank you very much. Stay with us as we continue our live coverage and analysis of the debate. By the way, keep texting your votes. Who do you think was the winner of tonight's debate? You can text your vote to FNTPB, or 36288. Those results are coming up.

Also, do not miss tomorrow's HANNITY AND COLMES. We're going to have an exclusive interview with the newly announced Republican candidate, Fred Thompson. He will be right here tomorrow night as we continue straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: Welcome back again to a special post-debate edition of HANNITY AND COLMES. And you the viewer, by the way, have been participating in our you vote text messaging poll to see who you think won tonight's debate. And here are the results, as of now. In first place with 35 percent, Ron Paul. Rudy Giuliani came in second.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: ... with 16 percent of your votes -- 17 percent of your votes, that just changed, in third place, Mike Huckabee, who we'll talk to in just a moment. Fifteen percent -- you can keep sending us your votes throughout the rest of the show to fnctv or 36288.

Joining us now is the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

Why do you better on these polls than you actually do in the polls having to do with your standing in the race?

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, because I think a lot of the polls reflect name ID. What you're seeing tonight, people who actually are watching and listening, and so what I want to do is to get all those people to vote for me out there, you know, and bring those numbers up.

COLMES: You know, you always hear this talk about first tier, second tier. I'm sure that drives you crazy. But what do you have to do to break through, to be where you need to be in order to get the nomination?

HUCKABEE: I really think that we did break into the first tier after the Iowa straw poll. With limited resources, we showed that we were pulling people to vote for us, not because they were being paid, but because they really believed in what we were standing for, and we distanced ourselves from the field.

We now -- in Iowa, for example, we are tied with Fred Thompson, ahead of Rudy Giuliani and ahead of John McCain. I think that's front tier by most anybody's standards.

COLMES: A lot of people look at you and say, here's a guy, executive experience, you know, ran a state that...

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: ... from which someone came and became president at one point. Not in the top tier, but maybe he could be a vice presidential candidate. Is that a position you could accept?

HUCKABEE: You know, right now, I do not think anybody goes and says, gee, I really want to be number two. I want the silver medal. So what I'm just continuing to focus on is becoming president. And I still think that if you look at the trajectory over the last eight months, we're on the track to get there. And I still think that's going to be a bigger issue of who am I going to pick to be vice president, rather than will I be vice president.

COLMES: And who will that be, by the way?

HUCKABEE: Well, I don't know just yet. It depends on how nice these guys are...

COLMES: Don't look to your right.

(LAUGHTER)

HUCKABEE: Actually, you know, Stephen Colbert sort of...

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: Well, you've got a ...

HUCKABEE: He gave me the Colbert bump on national television.

HANNITY: Is that right?

HUCKABEE: Yes.

HANNITY: So that means that he's ahead of me in the competition (ph)?

HUCKABEE: Have you given me the Sean bump yet?

HANNITY: Here's the Sean bump.

HUCKABEE: There you go.

COLMES: (inaudible) I have got all the sound bites that are going to hurt him if he's your running mate.

But you know, you talk about things in these debates -- how focused are these debates in terms of the issues you believe the American people should be hearing about?

HUCKABEE: Well, I do not think we have yet captured a lot of the issues we need to talk about. We had five debates now. Not one education question.

Americans are concerned about education. They're concerned about jobs. They're concerned about health care. And...

COLMES: But isn't the war a big issue?

HUCKABEE: It's a big issue, but you know, we're debating an hour and a half, and I think if you look at it, there's really one candidate of all of us who is substantially different than the rest of us. That's Congressman Paul.

So we can kind of clear that air and maybe give 20 minutes to it, and then we need to be talking about if you're president of the United States, what are you going to do to keep all of our jobs from going to China? What are you going to do to change our tax system and give us a tax code that we can live with?

COLMES: But you guys have been in power for a long time. You've had both houses of Congress until recently. You've been running the war on terror. Some would say not as well as many Americans would like. The war in Iraq, not going well, according to most Americans. Why should the American public re-empower the party who gave us all that?

HUCKABEE: Well, they shouldn't re-empower the party if they're Washington addresses. But they should give us a chance if we've been running a state. And I think one of the reasons that I ultimately will end up being the nominee is because rather than saying, look at all this Washington experience I have, that's what people are upset with. They haven't solved problems. But in our states, we have improved education and health care and rebuilt our bridges and roads. We've done the things that really matter to the American people.

HANNITY: Governor, one of the more interesting and lively exchanges tonight was between yourself and Ron Paul.

HUCKABEE: Yeah.

HANNITY: What did you think of that exchange, and more specifically, what he was saying?

HUCKABEE: Well, I just had to call him out on it. And I have great respect for Congressman Paul. He's a man who's got deep convictions. He stands by them. He doesn't care who likes him or doesn't, and for that I appreciate him.

But you cannot have a country where you don't stand united behind your president and your Congress. And here's the thing, Sean, that I feel so strongly about. I don't care whether Bill Clinton is the president or George Bush is the president. When we are at war, we're not two countries, we're not three or four countries. We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We can't be anything else, or we are not going to survive.

HANNITY: He is coming up a little bit later, and I think we're going to have a little bit of a battle because of some of the things that he said and some of the positions he took.

The other question that came up was the quote that they brought up about the issue of people that oppose illegal immigration and the race issue here. And you said you wanted to distance yourself. I don't see a lot of that. I think most people that I talk to on immigration, they want to secure the borders for national security, they see what it's done to the infrastructure of the country. Do you really see a lot of that?

HUCKABEE: No, no, no, not a lot. I was asked, do I see any? And I said, yes, I do. I do see some.

HANNITY: You do. Some.

HUCKABEE: But overwhelmingly, it's not that people are racist. Overwhelmingly, people are angry at their government. They're angry at a completely incompetent, failed government, who has had 20 years and has still not secured the border. It's harder for me to get on the airplane in Little Rock, as I did yesterday, than it is for an illegal to cross the international border. And people in the government act as if we don't know what in the world to do. And that's why I said that we can track packages better than we can keep up with 20 million people.

HANNITY: You took a position on abortion. You said life begins at conception.

HUCKABEE: Yes.

HANNITY: It was interesting, as I listened to your position and Governor Romney's for example, where he talked about, you know, America is not there right now. Did you agree with that statement? And do you think there is a way to perhaps change people's minds on that issue?

HUCKABEE: You know, America wasn't there on slavery either, but we knew that it was right to abolish slavery, that no human being should be treated as a second-class citizen, that no human being could be treated as if they did not have the basic intrinsic rights as other human beings.

This is really a deeper issue. It's not just something that we can argue with politically. We've got to come to the simple conclusion, is it a human life or it isn't? If it is a human life, then that changes everything.

HANNITY: If I look at the candidate, with the exception of Ron Paul, on the issues of Iraq and immigration and on taxes, virtually all the candidates have -- there are distinctions, but they have very similar positions...

HUCKABEE: Pretty close.

HANNITY: ... especially compared to Democrats.

HUCKABEE: Right.

HANNITY: On the issue of taxes, though, you take a very strong position in support of the fair tax.

HUCKABEE: I do. And Sean, the reason is is because we have a saying in the South that, you know, if duct tape and WD-40 can't fix it, nothing can. Well, our tax code cannot be fixed even with duct tape and WD-40.

HANNITY: By the way, I have enough WD-40 in my garage to last a lifetime, Governor.

HUCKABEE: I mean, it's great stuff.

COLMES: Thank you very much. Got to go.

Thanks so much for being here.

HUCKABEE: OK, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: And more highlights from tonight's New Hampshire presidential debate coming up next.

And don't forget, by the way, you can still vote for tonight's debate winner. Text us your vote to fnctv, or rather that is 36288. 36288. More coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: And welcome back to our special post-debate edition of "Hannity & Colmes." I'm Sean Hannity.

And back now with us is Campaign Carl Cameron, on the other side of the spin room here -- Carl.

CAMERON: Natural habitat, I suppose, for political reporters.

Well, we've got to sort of pay our respects and give appropriate props to our hosts here at UNH. So we're going to talk to Andy Smith, who's one of the big political gurus here at the state.

So tonight, there was a lot of rhetoric from the candidates, some joking, some not so funny shots at Fred Thompson for not being here. And we had Fergus Cullen in the news today, saying, you know, we're all disappointed.

So we're not making this stuff up. There is a sense in New Hampshire that he's made a mistake. Explain it so in your role as arbiter of all things fair and balanced for the University of New Hampshire what's going on here.

ANDY SMITH, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE: Well, I think it starts with the George Bush campaign of 2000. George Bush started going downhill in New Hampshire in 1999 when he didn't show up for the first Dartmouth debate. And I think there's a concern that Fred Thompson will do the same thing.

The difference is that, in 1999, George Bush was leading the polls fairly high. Here, Fred Margin doesn't have a lot of margin for error. So we've seen in the Union-Leader this week that there was an editorial that was criticizing Thompson for not showing up.

And there's a sense among a lot of people that -- a story line that he's not necessarily the most vigorous candidate, and may be a lazy candidate. If this plays into that down the road, I think that he could have some trouble.

Again, he doesn't have a lot of real margin for error in New Hampshire because there really aren't that many social conservatives in this state. It's a moderate to liberal Republican state, and that's not that favorable for a social conservative message, anyway.

CAMERON: And yet, he's second or third in a lot of polls. And he's got a lot of buzz, and most undecideds don't make up their minds until the last second around here.

SMITH: Well, I think that's the key thing. What we're seeing in our polling is that 71 percent of likely Republican primary voters said they haven't made up their mind at all about who they're going to vote for.

And they won't make up their mind who they're going to actually going to pull that lever for until the end of December or January.

CAMERON: Seventy-one percent of New Hampshire voters have not really made up their minds, Alan and Sean. And the truth is, the great big secret in New Hampshire, as well as in Iowa, they don't make up their minds until the last couple of weeks. So this Republican race is wide open, notwithstanding the debate tonight.

HANNITY: Hey, Carl, thank you very much. And we'll be checking with you throughout the evening on this special edition of "Hannity & Colmes".

And joining us now from Manchester, New Hampshire, political pollster Frank Luntz. And Frank, you've been doing dial groups and focus groups. In fact, you went to the FOXNews.com web site earlier tonight. You can see the dials as they were turning upward or downward as the candidates were speaking earlier this evening.

LUNTZ: It was very interesting response. The reaction was not as positive this time as it had been for the other debates that we'd been testing. And it was interesting that our group was a little bit disappointed with what they heard and in some cases what they didn't.

They thought that the candidates were not as clear as they were expecting, there wasn't quite enough specifics as to what they were going to do. But even the style itself seems to be just a little bit short on a communicative nature.

I want to show you the one exception to that. The single most interesting reaction was between Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Now, you can see these dials go up and down. The red line represents moderates turning their dials. The yellow line represents conservatives.

Watch what happens when the two of them go back at each other. Clearly, Mike Huckabee was the winner, and Ron Paul was the loser. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: Congressman, we are one nation. We can't be divided. We have to be one nation under God. That means if we make a mistake, we make it as a single country. The United States of America, not the divided states of America.

PAUL: When we make a mistake -- when we make a mistake, it is the obligation of the people, through their representatives, to correct the mistake, not to continue the mistake.

HUCKABEE: And that's what we do on the floor of the Senate.

PAUL: No. We've dug a hole for ourselves and we've dug a hole for our party. We're losing elections and we're going down next year if we don't change it. And it has all to do with foreign policy and we have to wake up to this fact.

HUCKABEE: Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor. And that is more important for the Republican Party.

PAUL: We're losing -- we've lost...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LUNTZ: Not losing our honor. Clearly, principal won out in this exchange. But this wasn't actually the -- Mike Huckabee did quite well. But this wasn't the top response.

John McCain, who had not been doing well in the sessions that we've done up to this point, exceeded expectations. And in fact, it was his clarity. In a phrase, he said what he meant and meant what he said.

Watch the reaction of our dial group when he talks about wasteful Washington spending and vetoing pork.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: My proposal in 2000 and 2001 was not just to cut taxes but to stop spending. And we let spending get out of control. We destroyed the trust and confidence of our Republican base of fiscal conservatives.

We allowed spending to get out of control to the point where it bred corruption. And I don't say that word lightly. We have former members of Congress in federal prison as we speak.

I pledge to the American people I will veto every pork barrel bill that comes across my desk, and I will make the authors of those pork barrel projects famous. And that's what I've been doing for a lot of years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LUNTZ: Almost off the charts, guys. It's not just that New Hampshire is a low tax state. It also is a state that hates wasteful Washington spending.

COLMES: All right, Frank. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks so much for being with us.

As we come to you live tonight more from New Hampshire, University of New Hampshire, more from New Hampshire and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo coming on this special edition of "Hannity & Colmes" in just a moment.

By the way, don't forget to participate in You Vote. You can text your pick to FNCTV or 36288. And we'll see your vote in real time right here on our screen as you watch "Hannity & Colmes" tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

COLMES: Welcome back to a special post-debate edition of "Hannity & Colmes". And before we get to our next guest, let's take a look at the results so far for tonight's You Vote.

In first place with 33 percent, Ron Paul. The Paulites, I guess, are busy dialing and redialing the phone.

Rudy Giuliani came in second with 16 percent of your votes. And in third Mike Huckabee, 15 percent. There is still time for you to cast your vote. Send us a text to FNCTV, or 36288. Joining us now, Colorado Congressman and Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo. Congressman, thank you for being with us tonight.

REP. TOM TANCREDO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Where is my family? Why aren't they --

COLMES: You have a big family. You know what, it's the illegals. The illegals are not voting for you. Let me ask you about this; you said something tonight that I found very troubling. First of all, you talked about rule of law. Then you say you do not have a problem with water boarding. Isn't there something called the Geneva Convention and isn't that the rule of law? If we're going to respect the rule of law, doesn't that apply to the treaties to which we are a signatory?

TANCREDO: Actually, the Geneva Convention, I do not think there is a specific citation for torture. It talks about torture. It doesn't talk about water boarding. That's what I meant when we got into the whole issue of the definition of something called torture? You can go to certain extremes -- you can go to certain lengths in order to get the information you need.

You know what, I really believe that in every war we have ever had and every conflict this nation has ever been in, we have done things of that nature. I am not saying gouging people's eyes out.

COLMES: Water boarding is making somebody thing they're drowning. It's considered torture by experts on torture.

TANCREDO: If you are actually trying to get information -- remember the question that was posed to me -- remember what it was, three bombs had gone off. This was the original question; three bombs had gone off in the United States. A fourth was going to go off that was the big one, and we had somebody who had the information we needed. Are you telling me we should not do everything possible to get that?

COLMES: Yes, I am telling you that. In fact, John McCain, who spoke right after you, pointed out -- you think John McCain knows what he's talking about when he says the information we get from torture is never counter-balanced by the damage it does to America's reputation. John McCain knows what he is talking about.

TANCREDO: Listen, reputation? When you're trying to save your country, am I going to be concerned about what somebody in another country thinks about me?

COLMES: Yes, because if we torture, we have had more risk of being tortured ourselves, as McCain pointed out.

TANCREDO: Bologna. They don't care one twit about our activities.

COLMES: Does John McCain know --

TANCREDO: John McCain knows a great deal. But I'm telling you there are other people in the military who feel exactly the opposite about this issue. So just because John McCain thinks one way about it, isn't necessarily the way it is.

COLMES: You don't get accurate information. You're torturing someone. They will say anything you want just to prevent. That is why we have the Geneva Convention.

TANCREDO: We also have been told that we have received good solid information from individuals from doing things of a nature that you are describing and it has saved American lives.

COLMES: Where would you draw the line?

HANNITY: I'm listening to your debate here with my good friend Alan, and I am thinking of this in the context of two bombs went off to end our battle with Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and tens of thousands of people were killed to end a war. This was a very specific scenario, if America was at risk of a nuclear attack, you would do everything possible to extract information that may save lives?

TANCREDO: Yes, of course. I can't believe that any president would not. Frankly, as I said before, that is the ultimate responsibility of the president of the United States. You rely on the military. I would rely on the military to obtain the information that we need and to do so in measures most efficient and most available to us. You know what, we can do that. We have been able to do that. And we should not try to hamstring them in their efforts to get that information.

HANNITY: Let me ask you this, one of things that I thought you were very hard on your fellow candidates tonight on the issue of immigration. You really were outspoken in saying their positions on immigration, which has been a position you have been long outspoken about, was based on political expediency. Do you feel that way about all the other candidates?

TANCREDO: What can I say? The fact is that in the past -- you look at Mayor Giuliani, for instance. He talks a great deal about his leadership. He has provided great leadership, no one disagrees with that, to the city of New York. But you cannot just say, well, I did provide great leadership. On the other hand, I did go to the courts twice to try to stop the federal government from actually imposing the sanctuary city law on us.

And then come out and say I am all for sanctuary city laws. What do you say? How do you square that circle? You were at one point completely opposed to the whole idea of the federal government trying to stop you from having sanctuary cities. Now you are saying that we should do so.

HANNITY: We're just out of time. Congressman, good to see you.

(CROSS TALK)

HANNITY: Mr. Colmes, go right ahead.

COLMES: We head back to Fox's own Carl Cameron, Campaign Carl, on the other side of the spin room. Carl, what is going on?

CAMERON: I am in the middle of interviewing Alan, Sean -- rather, interviewing Governor Huckabee, Alan and Sean. This is interviewing the interviewer that you just interviewed I think.

HUCKABEE: I think that's right.

CAMERON: The question we asked Governor Huckabee -- look, there is royalties involved here. If he holds it shooting me while I am talking to you, I think Sean might get paid for his radio gig. I'm not exactly sure. This is what really happens in the spin room afterwards. Everybody switches roles and we get to ask Governor Huckabee, as I did just a minute ago, if he had such great night when Fred Thompson was not here and mixing it up with Ron Paul, is that a moral victory?

HANNITY: I like the fact that he is filming you right now --

HUCKABEE: -- shows up to play the game is whoever is going to be able to be declared a winner. If you don't show up, you forfeited it. Fred Thompson forfeited tonight and decided he couldn't play on the stage with us. So he played on a stage he could maybe win on.

CAMERON: He is beating up on Fred Thompson. Sean, Alan, I will send it back to you.

HANNITY: Thanks very much Carl. By the way, Carl, I like how he turned the tables on you a little bit there and was filming you for the blog. I think --

(CROSS TALK)

HANNITY: I think role reversal is a good thing every once in a while. The candidates can start asking us questions at some point. Anyway, Campaign Carl Cameron right here on the other side of the spin room. We are now joined by -- Senator Brownback is with us. Senator, how are you? Good to see you.

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am doing well. How did you think it went tonight?

HANNITY: I thought this was the liveliest debate so far that we've watched. I really did.

BROWNBACK: I was just thinking, this is a good chance to turn the roles back around, so we can get a feel for what you guys think.

HANNITY: Senator, I guess it comes down to really three major issues that are driving this campaign, immigration, the war in Iraq, the economy, and taxes. It always comes back to these three major issues.

BROWNBACK: Those are key ones that I think are developing. But what you're seeing in these campaigns now is it's developing further. We are putting out this optional flat tax, personal Social Security accounts, and then talking about what are we going to do with the Petraeus Report? It is going to show the military is working. Politically, nothing has happened.

What I think we need to do now is just let's develop further these things, because this is what is on the mind of the American public.

HANNITY: What about the recent developments we've had just in the last week and a half now, where there seems to be reconciliation on the political front. We've all chronicled the military success of the surge, but there seems to be beginnings or the formations of political success. Are you confident?

BROWNBACK: No I am not, as far as the Iraqi political success, no.

HANNITY: Why?

BROWNBACK: Well, you're looking at Maliki, even his predecessor is now calling for him to be removed. The set up you have right now, you are bound to get a week Shia government. That is all that the Kurds and the Sunni are going to agree with. But they can't put the leadership in. So you're going to have a week Shia government, and I think you really have to start giving the Sunnis --

COLMES: Senator, how do you get a fair report from General Petraeus, who may be a great general. But this is the Petraeus surge. This is his idea. He is going to give us a fair and balanced report, which, by the way, is being run through the White House before it gets to the American people, which has a vested interest in showing their surge is working. That is going to be a fair and balanced report?

BROWNBACK: Because it will be based on facts and it has to be based on empirical evidence. I think you are going to see and I think he is going to say militarily there has been excellent progress, based on the facts.

COLMES: -- saying that the benchmarks that the administration came up with that are not working.

BROWNBACK: That's my point on the political surge being made now. Now is the time to capture some of the military momentum that's been made for a political -- Send Jim Baker over to cut the deal and have the Sunnis have their area, like the Kurds already have their area.

COLMES: The whole idea of the surge was to give the political process a chance for reconciliation --

(CROSS TALK)

BROWNBACK: It is a flawed political setup in Iraq. This political setup will not succeed.

COLMES: What does President Brownback do when you're in office? How do you fix the situation?

BROWNBACK: You do what happened in the Dayton Accords in Bosnia. You bring the leadership together and they split that country. You had a long- term U.S. military presence to ensure this. That's why I think we will be there for a long period of time. But the political answer we have today is not working.

COLMES: How long a military presence and how many troops are you talking about?

BROWNBACK: We long have we been in Bosnia? Fifteen years.

COLMES: How many troops are you talking about?

BROWNBACK: Much further pulled down. And you put them in places like the Kurdish or the Sunni regions, where you have some stability.

COLMES: Senator, thank you for being with us. I appreciate it. Just ahead, presidential hopeful Ron Paul, got into it a bit tonight in the debate. We'll have him here live on this special edition of HANNITY AND COLMES, then the results to the You Vote. The lines are still open and every vote counts. Send us your text to FNCTV or 36288. Coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: And welcome back to our live coverage. We are in the spin room tonight and joining us now is Texas congressman and presidential hopeful Ron Paul is back with us. Good to see you, congressman.

REP. RON PAUL, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Nice to be with you.

HANNITY: I got very angry with you tonight.

PAUL: Oh my.

HANNITY: We have some opinions .

PAUL: First time? The first time ever? You should be nice to your guests.

HANNITY: You said not to threaten Iran. Is this the same Iran that is funding Hezbollah, a terror group, a hundred million dollar a year, the same Iran that is providing troops to kill American soldiers and providing the IEDs that are killing American soldiers and we should threaten them .

PAUL: Let me answer with a question. You know who .

HANNITY: You be the host.

PAUL: You know who kills the most by suicide terrorism in Iraq? The Saudis. Over 50 percent are Saudis. The are in there, they are infiltrating a lot more than Iran.

HANNITY: You are distracting from the original question.

PAUL: You should be talking about Saudis.

HANNITY: We can talk about Saudi Arabia's support over terrorism. But the issue I asked you, you said tonight in this debate, do not to threaten Iran. Iran is funding the IEDs that are being used to kill Americans.

PAUL: Do you have proof of that? It's no proof.

HANNITY: It's absolutely proof of it. It's been chronicled all over the place.

PAUL: You're wrong.

HANNITY: We have found Iranian weaponry all over Iraq. We have Iranian inside of Iraq. Iran is funding Hezbollah to the tune of $100 million a year.

PAUL: In a way they have more justification than we do to be in Iraq. They are the next door neighbor. This is like what if Russia was in Mexico. Do you think we would have a right to be annoyed by that? We are in their backyard. We are 6,000 miles away and we invaded that country.

HANNITY: So I shouldn't have to educate you about this but if you take in the history of when they invaded Kuwait and were raping and pillaging Kuwait.

PAUL: Who did?

HANNITY: Iraq did. And we went in.

PAUL: Yeah but .

HANNITY: Hang on. We had a cease-fire agreement and we had UN resolution after resolution he would not abide by it. So we had no alternative.

PAUL: You have your history all screwed up.

HANNITY: No. My history is exactly right.

PAUL: All screwed up.

HANNITY: I'll educate you on it.

PAUL: Because they were making progress, they turned it down, they chased the UN inspectors out. And the whole works. So .

HANNITY: The only other thing that I wanted to get into, you talk about you want to eliminate, let's go through the departments you want to eliminate.

The IRS. The CIA.

PAUL: Sure. You like the IRS?

HANNITY: No, not really.

The CIA you want to eliminate.

PAUL: They do a lot of mischief.

HANNITY: What other departments would you want to eliminate that relate to national security.

PAUL: The Department of Education.

COLMES: Congressman, you said something very interesting during this debate. You said you are the anti-war, you are representing by being the anti-war Republican with traditional Republican values. And that every other Republican has a wrong.

PAUL: They have only been wrong since maybe the year 2000. Remember when Bosnia came up, and Somalia? Eighty percent of the Republicans voted against that intervention. How did Bush win the election? He ran on a -- I am running on Bush's foreign policy. A humble foreign policy.

COLMES: Ronald Reagan, when he left Lebanon after the barracks disaster, was he called a cut and runner by the very people who now say Democrats like me are cut and runners because you want to get out of Iraq?

PAUL: He said I finally realize how irrational these people were and he says I changed my foreign- policy. That is what he wrote in his memoir. He finally said they have been fighting too long and it is totally irrational. So he at least had the good sense enough to leave.

COLMES: So you agree with me on foreign policy. You agree with Sean on economics and a whole bunch of other things. Given that diversity, how you get the Republican nomination if you are not really saying the things that most of the base actually believes, who are going to vote in the American primary?

PAUL: I have to remind them of their history because this is what they used to believe, they used to be conservatives, they used to want to balance budgets. They used to be against the Department of Education, they used to be against the wars.

COLMES: What happened?

PAUL: They lost their way. They have been taken over by ex Democrats who are the neoconservatives, they came over and believe in entitlement and believe in war. They picked the two worst parts .

COLMES: How do you get the nomination given your positions which are not at all in line with the people who are resonating in the polls with Republicans who are voting in the primaries that you need to get elected.

PAUL: Well, in a place like New Hampshire, you just invite the independents, you explain this to the Republican base and a lot of them will support me on these issues, as well as the individuals who respond to this, because they are sick and tired, 70 percent of the people are sick and tired of this war. So in open primaries we have a very, very good chance. The Republican Party is getting so small that you have to build the party in order to do that.

HANNITY: Can I get one point, Alan, if I may? Ronald Reagan, congressman, confronted the Evil Empire in his time and I do not think he would say he was quote, a neoconservative. Ronald Reagan defined conservatism in our time and the world was better and safer for him standing up to that evil in our time.

PAUL: But he never invaded the Soviet country.

HANNITY: It was a different situation but he was willing to build up our defenses, he was willing to pursue SDI, walk away from Reykjavik, and challenge .

COLMES: He walked away from Lebanon and said we had no place in the Middle East at that time. Was he called a cut and runner by Republicans?

HANNITY: Ronald Reagan built up the military through strength.

COLMES: Did he cut and run from Lebanon?

HANNITY: Not the same thing.

PAUL: The big difference is Iraq didn't have a nuclear weapon. Neither does Iran.

HANNITY: Iran may have a nuclear weapon .

PAUL: Pakistan, they have one .

HANNITY: They say they want to annihilate Israel. They fund Hezbollah. But I got to run.

PAUL: But the Soviets wanted to annihilate us as well too, but we didn't invade them.

HANNITY: Always good to spar with you, congressman. Thank you.

COLMES: Thank you, congressman, nice to see you. Hold on one second.

HANNITY: When we come back, presidential candidate Duncan Hunter will be here with us. By the way, don't forget to keep those texts coming and you can text your vote to FNCTV or 36288. And by the way, you can see your vote come up in real-time.

That is all straight ahead as this special edition of HANNITY & COLMES continues tonight from the spin room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLMES: Welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity & Colmes." We are live tonight from the spin room in New Hampshire -- University of New Hampshire at Durham. Joining us now is Duncan Hunter.

Thank you very much for coming on with us. One of the issues.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Alan.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: . all these cattle (ph) through the chute (ph) here.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: . show.

COLMES: . yourself as a piece of cattle tonight. You know, one of the things that you addressed specifically during the debate was the fence and the whole -- I know immigration is very near and dear to you. That issue is near and dear to your heart.

The cost of building and maintaining a double set of steel fences along 700 miles of U.S.-Mexico border, according to the non-partisan Congressional resource -- Research Service could be five to fifteen times as much as they said, $49 billion.

Are we really prepared to spend that kind of money on something which has been questionable in terms of what it can actually do?

HUNTER: Yes -- no, what it really costs, the first section of fence that I built in San Diego, which works, and it is really two fences with a Border Patrol road in between, it costs $3 million a mile. So if you extrapolate that, you can do a thousand miles for $3 billion.

And let me tell you, and here is the answer to your question, we have 250,000 criminal aliens who came across from Mexico presently in our federal, state and local penitentiaries and jails, we spend $3 billion a year incarcerating them. So one year's incarceration cost would pay for 1,000 miles of fencing.

COLMES: By the way, you know, statistically, there are fewer people proportionately in jail who are here illegally, undocumented, than are here who are documented, are Americans.

HUNTER: But that's -- the statistic I just gave you is a hard statistic, $3 billion a year, we could build 1,000 miles of fence for $3 billion.

COLMES: By the way, John Cornyn, not exactly a liberal like me, but the conservative senator from Texas, says this is a 19th Century answer for a 21st Century problem in terms of the fence.

HUNTER: Well, you know, everybody has got a hotshot answer to the fence. But you know something, the smugglers do not have a hot shot answer. By Border Patrol's statistics, we reduced smuggling in our sector, which was the number one smuggler's corridor for the entire country of people and drugs by more than 90 percent by building the fence.

COLMES: But they go around the fence, over the fence, under the fence, or to areas where there is no fence. That's what they have done.

HUNTER: They're learning now. We know how to find the tunnels. The reason the tunnels are on the front page of the newspaper is not an accident, Alan.

COLMES: What happens to you now in terms of getting you to leap over the other candidates who are polling better than you? What do you have to do?

HUNTER: Well, here is what happened, I just -- on Saturday I won the Texas Straw Poll at the Texas State Convention by two to one over Fred Thompson, the next nearest competitor, two to one. And that was because of the border fence.

HANNITY: Congressman, you answered the question about Larry Craig, which came up tonight. And one of the things you said I thought was very interesting, you said, our guys leave, Democrats, you know, when they are involved in scandal, they become the chairmen.

HUNTER: Yes, yes. Well, I was thinking of guys like Gerry Studds turning their back on Congress and basically confirming that they had done everything that they did...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: That was a 17-year-old page in that case.

HUNTER: Yes, but saying the heck with you, and the Democrat Party not taking any disciplinary action. So, you know, I think we clean house pretty effectively.

HANNITY: Well, let me ask you this, is there any chance that Larry Craig is really innocent in this particular case even though he didn't plead guilty to lewd behavior, but to disorderly conduct?

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: Yes. I think when he pled guilty, that pretty well closed the door on the case.

HANNITY: You mean, he shouldn't be.

HUNTER: Yes. I think it was the right decision. I think our party has got to move on. And again, we redefine the Republican Party in this presidential. We redefine the character, the principles, and I think we have got a great bunch of folks out there doing that.

HANNITY: You are retiring from Congress and your son who is serving in Iraq now is running to take your place. He is actually trying to -- he can't campaign while he is out there fighting, but his wife and your wife are out there campaigning for him. How is that campaign going?

HUNTER: You know, the campaign is going great. And in fact, he told me he was going to run for my seat, whether I leave it or not.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNTER: But -- no, he is a great American. And he signed up for the seat and two days later he got a call up from the Marines out of the Reserves. And he called them and said, I want to go back tomorrow. And they said, no, you don't have to go until next year. He said, I want to go tomorrow.

So he is on the ballot. He will be back from Afghanistan in November. And I think he's going to win. But there is going to be tough battleground out there.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, it's interesting. I mean, certainly he has a case -- you told me something though, somebody told you that, oh, it's going to be hard to attack your son, but we'll find a way. So the politics, I guess.

HUNTER: Yes. One political consultant said, you know, it is going to be tough doing the hit pieces, but then he smiled and he said, don't worry, we will find it. So you have got a lot of money, big money will be in that race. And he is going to leave one battlefield to go to another one. But he is a pretty good fighter.

HANNITY: Good to see you. Thanks for being with us.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: Thank you, Sean.

COLMES: Appreciate your time, coming on again. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

HUNTER: Thank you, Alan. Thanks.

COLMES: And it is your last chance right now to make your vote count. It is easy. Just text us at FNCTV, or 36288. Coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. It is time now for the final results from our text messaging poll. And in first tonight, Ron Paul. He is having all those 3 percent of people call in, I'm sure. He got 33...

COLMES: Maybe he just did very well.

HANNITY: He got 33 percent. Well, it happens. Anyway, in second place tonight, Mike Huckabee getting 18 percent. And taking the third spot is Rudy Giuliani getting 15 percent.

Now I want to give you a quick -- oh, by the way, fourth place is John McCain with 14 percent and Mitt Romney with 12 percent tonight. And taking the six spot, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter both with 2 percent tonight.

Now I want to give you a special programming note, as you know, Senator Fred Thompson announcing that he will be entering this race and we will have a special interview right here, "Hannity & Colmes," our regular time, 9:00 Eastern, with Senator Thompson.

And we will probably ask him some of the questions that were asked to the other candidates tonight. You know one thing that is emerging here, and I know you love the Democrats, there are distinct differences on Iraq, on immigration, securing the borders, on taxes, on health care, on education. There is going to be a very interesting.

COLMES: Yes. And this will be good debate. And most -- if you look the most of the polling, most of America is where the Democrats are, and certainly on the war. The war on terror, the war in Iraq , how it is being conducted, how it is being fought, on education, on health care and a whole variety of issues.

Interestingly enough.

HANNITY: You sound like a campaign.

COLMES: . Frank.

HANNITY: . commercial.

COLMES: Thank you so much. And I will send you a bill. But you know, Frank Luntz, earlier tonight in focus (INAUDIBLE) group showed that - - and it did not show up on our text polling, that John McCain, according to the group he was with, did very well tonight than he has in previous debates.

HANNITY: Well, sometimes -- there is a natural ebb and flow to this. And as people absorb a little bit more of the interview, sometimes things change over time. I will tell you this, the debates -- we are now in Labor Day. People are paying attention. They have expedited this process. We will have the caucuses and the primaries in January. And then we get into the interesting debates between the Democrats and the Republicans and those differences.

COLMES: And that's when it gets really interesting. Then we see where America truly stands.

HANNITY: Well, this is -- I doubt it. But this is where.

COLMES: Oh, well, we will see where America truly stands.