Observers Discuss The Latest Numbers

ALAN COLMES, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight on HANNITY AND COLMES, as we count down to the new year, the presidential candidates gear up for the big showdown in Iowa. How would Bill Clinton fare as first man? The former first daughter brushes off that question from a pint-sized journalist.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg fans the flames of his potential third party candidacy. But does he have company?

All that, plus we'll go live to Time Square for a look at the biggest New Year's Eve party in the nation. Michael Bloomberg, Chelsea Clinton and the biggest party in the land; HANNITY AND COLMES starts right now.

And this is a Fox News alert; Fox News exclusively obtained a clean copy of the Huckabee attack ad that he ordered to be pulled earlier today. Carl Cameron is live in Des Moines. He's got the latest on that. This is the ad, I guess, he claimed he didn't want anybody to see and then held a news conference, Carl, to tell the media about the ad and show it, right?

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: A New Year's Eve surprise from Mike Huckabee. He's been slipping in the polls a little bit. Mitt Romney has been pounding him pretty aggressively. Mr. Huckabee has made some mistakes on the campaign trail with foreign policy, specifically related to Pakistan, and he's dipped in the polls as a consequence right at the wrong time, now three nights before the Iowa caucuses.

This afternoon, Mr. Huckabee called the national political press to a news conference to unveil what was to be a tough rebuttal ad counter- attacking Mitt Romney for what's been an onslaught of critical commercials from the former Massachusetts governor. Instead, Huckabee pretty much shocked all of us by saying, look, I'm not going to run the ad. It's too tough. And then he proceeded to show it to most of the media.

The problem was, he did it on an overhead projector, and we really couldn't see it. The audio kept on cutting out, so nobody got a clean copy of it. They did distribute the ad to TV stations across Iowa. Those stations got it, and they said don't run it, cancel the ads. Well, Fox News has obtained a clean copy, the only clean copy available of the entirety of the Huckabee attack ad that wasn't. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Mike Huckabee, and I approve this message because Iowans have a right to know the truth about Mitt Romney's attacks on me and even an American hero, John McCain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Romney's record? Over 700 million in new taxes, left office with a deficit, no executions, supported gun control, and Romney's government mandated health plan provided a 50 copay for abortion.

HUCKABEE: If a man's dishonest to obtain a job, he'll be dishonest on the job. Iowans deserve better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMERON: Mike Huckabee said once he showed that ad to the press, the press would understand why he chose not to run it. He said it was just too mean and he didn't want it to go on the air and be part of that. And yet by showing it to the news conference today, by talking about it, he virtually guaranteed that it ultimately would come out. The question now is whether or not Mike Huckabee gets blamed for not defending himself on paid commercials across the state, and potentially loses the Iowa caucuses, or if by not waging a counter-attack that many viewed as quite negative, he actually engenders more support from those Iowans who believe that a positive campaign is what they deserve.

It's a gamble. Huckabee has acknowledged it. That is the first time and perhaps the last time anybody is going to see that particular ad, Alan.

COLMES: Thank you, Carl. We'll see you in Iowa in just a couple of days. I just want to know -- We'll find out in a moment in the fastest segments in politics -- does he or does he not approve of that message? And joining us Rich Lowry. Rich, nice to see you once again.

RICH LOWRY, FOX NEWS GUEST ANCHOR: Hi, Alan.

COLMES: Sitting in for Sean. And there are three days left until the Iowa caucus, which means it's time for the fastest two segments in all of politics. While the candidates are pulling out all the stops to get last minute votes, it looks like they may have one more hurdle to watch out for, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In an article this weekend, the "Washington Post" said the following; "New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans who will join him in challenging the major party contenders to spell out their plans of forming a Government of National Unity to end the gridlock in Washington. Those who will be at the January 7th session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to go beyond tokenism in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they'll be prepared to back Bloomberg or somebody else in a third party campaign for president."

Will Mayor Bloomberg become the third party candidate? Let's ask tonight's panel, TownHall.com columnist Amanda Carpenter, from Real Politics, Tom Bevan, and "Democracy, A Journal of Ideas" editor Andrei Cherny. Andre, what do you say about this; is he in or is he out?

ANDREI CHERNY, "DEMOCRACY: A JOURNAL OF IDEAS": We'll see in the next couple of weeks. I think there's a huge market right now for an independent candidacy, for somebody talking sense. They see two parties that have been at this war with each other over the past decade. And if Mike Bloomberg, along with the other people who have been part of his movement, can come together and offer some real solutions from the political center, I think he has a real shot of making this thing happen.

COLMES: Amanda, more and more -- he supported Bush, supported the war in Iraq, praised him over and over again since September 11th. I wonder where he's going to fall, indeed, politically, ideologically, should he be the candidate?

AMANDA CARPENTER, TOWNHALL.COM: I'm interested in this kind of unity government concept, because on the big issues I don't see a lot of unity between Republicans and Democrats. Where is the middle ground on Social Security? Where is the middle ground on something like the Iraq war? Either we're going to finish it or we're not. I would be pleased if this new coalition would be more to the right of center than they may --

COLMES: That's funny, I feel just the opposite. Funny you should say that. Let me put up a new poll that shows the top three Democratic candidates and how close it is, the Strategic Vision Poll, Obama with 30, Clinton 29, Edwards 28. And you know something, Tom, a lot of people counted Edwards out. It looks like he's a contender in Iowa right now.

TOM BEVAN, REAL CLEAR POLITICS: Absolutely, he's been coming up here in the closing days. It looks like he's got some upward momentum. And Obama looks to be slipping a bit. It's still tight. It's all within the margin of error. There's a poll coming out in about a minute and a half here, a "Des Moines Register," the Iowa poll, which is considered, sort of, the gold standard. So everyone's looking toward that to get another indication of where this race is going to break in the last couple days.

COLMES: Andrei, it seems like the Democrats though seem more happy -- more excited. The crowds are bigger. They're more excited about their candidates. It's truly a three-way race -- than what the Republicans are doing.

CHERNY: It's been amazing to watch this past year. With each passing month, we've seen people more engaged, more interested in the campaign. You remember back in January and February of this year people were saying oh, this campaign is starting so early; people aren't going to care about this campaign by summer, to say nothing of by the time we get to the voting. We've seen the opposite. We've seen thousands of people show up at election rallies, hundreds of thousands of people becoming part of these campaigns and donating money and opening the doors of the political system.

This has been something where we've seen a huge amount of energy behind the Democratic candidates, all of them out there.

COLMES: One other item, before we move over to Rich here, is that Chelsea Clinton apparently has -- I don't know why they're making a big deal about this. Chelsea Clinton doesn't give interviews. A young reporter, a nine-year-old reporter asked for a few words from Chelsea Clinton, do you think your dad would be a good first man in the White House, Sidney, the young reporter, asked. But Chelsea brushed the question aside, "I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press, and that applies to you, unfortunately, even though I think you're cute." Good politicians touch there.

Chelsea says to the point-sized journalist. Amanda, I don't know what other children of candidates are on the campaign trail, but I don't think you can blame Chelsea Clinton for doing what she's always done, not talk to the press, even if the press is a nine-year-old.

CARPENTER: I don't know. If you look at somebody like Mike Huckabee's daughter, who is running her campaign, John McCain's daughter has talked to press. She even has her own blog right now reaching out to young people. She should have just humored the small child and had a good time with it. But this shows that she clearly follows in the footsteps of her mother and not her father.

LOWRY: Hey guys, it's Rich Lowry. Alan, where's your heart? This is the cutest reporter on the planet. This isn't Tim Russert.

COLMES: I didn't turn her down. Have her contact me, I'll talk to her.

LOWRY: Let's look at another poll. Tom, let's get you in on this, because Real Clear Politics -- you guys follow this closer than anyone. Everyone relies on your compilations of the polls every day. New Rasmussen numbers out nationally show basically a four-way tie for first with McCain a little bit ahead and Thompson lagging a little bit behind. How do you read this race nationally now, Tom?

BEVAN: I think we've seen Giuliani was a front-runner for so long, but he's lost a lot of altitude recently. And it just goes to show, the race, even as we get down to the final days here, is so fluid and so open. And that's reflected in the early states too. We could have split winners in these early states, and that's why I think Iowa and New Hampshire are potentially going to be so important and have such an impact on these national numbers.

The next ten days are going to be crucial to the outcome of the campaign on the Republican side.

LOWRY: Let's look at another campaign ad. This is from Mitt Romney. And just so everyone out there knows where I'm coming from, my magazine, "National Review," endorsed Mitt Romney. But he has a new ad out that tries to end on a positive note. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everywhere my family and I go we hear that America's challenges are simply too big for Washington politics. I have spent my life tackling big problems, helping turn around business, the Olympics, and state government. Together, we can grow our economy, stop illegal immigration, defend life, and preserve the values that make America the hope of the Earth.

It's time to turn around Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOWRY: Amanda, what do you think of that? Is that going to help Mitt Romney close the sale in Iowa?

CARPENTER: Yes, I think it's a nice uplifting message. I don't think Mitt Romney is actually capable of making a bad advertisement. And so it's a good message, and I kind of think he made that image with the flag in the back. He might have brought a note from Huckabee there.

LOWRY: Andrei, what do you think of that ad?

CHERNY: It's a great distillation of the message he's been putting out there. I think it's going to do him a lot more good than the kind of negative attacks he's been running on both John McCain and Mike Huckabee over the past few weeks. His new year's resolution should be to show this kind of candidacy, not what he's been doing since the rest of this month.

LOWRY: Last item before we take a break; Tom, two more newspaper endorsements for John McCain up there in New Hampshire, the "Concord Monitor," which isn't a big surprise -- it blasted Mitt Romney just the other day -- and the "Telegraph of Nashua." Tom, what's this -- what's going on in New Hampshire? It seems you can't be a publication based there without endorsing John McCain?

BEVAN: We can argue about whether these endorsements mean much at all, but I think in the aggregate they do. Certainly McCain in New Hampshire has had almost clean sweep. It's like 26 or 27 of the papers up there, including the "New Hampshire Union Leader," which is a conservative paper that's in Mitt Romney's backyard. I think that does help him on the margins, especially with independents, which is the biggest voting block in New Hampshire.

LOWRY: All right, guys. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more in the fastest two segments in politics coming up. Plus, the feud between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee continues. We'll play you the latest sounds from the trail.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: This morning, I ordered our staff to pull the ad. I told them that I do not want it to be run. We will run only the ads that talk about why I should be president and not why Mitt Romney should not.

I know some of you are saying, well, did you really have an ad? I want to show you the ad. You'll get a chance to find out exactly what we're doing. No, I want you to see it. This is what we planed to do. And I think once you see it, you'll realize this is why we're not going to run it. And it's why it's being pulled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOWRY: That was presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee from earlier today, explaining why he pulled his most recent ad attacking Mitt Romney. And, of course, we saw that ad exclusively here on Fox, with Carl Cameron. We continue now with our panel, Amanda Carpenter, Andrei Cherny, and Tom Bevan. Andrei, where do you come down in this debate that's consuming the political world today, about whether Mike Huckabee had a tremendous gaff out there in Iowa when he did this ad maneuver, or whether it was a brilliant cynical move to get this negative ad out in the atmosphere while saying he was too good a guy to run it?

BEVAN: I think it was a pretty sad day for Mike Huckabee, honestly. He's gotten to where he is today by being somebody authentic, somebody honest, somebody who is a different kind of Republican than we've seen over the campaign for the Republican nomination, as well as over the past few years. And for him to resort to this kind of low-grade political trick is really beneath him and beneath the excitement that so many, especially in the Republican party, had about him.

LOWRY: Tom, what do you think? It has been one of the more interesting phenomena this year. Here you have this very socially conservative Southern Baptist pastor that the media has loved. But today at that press conference you saw the reporters just laughing at him.

BEVAN: No, and I think part of this -- perception becomes reality, and the way this has come out today and the reports that we've seen have been terrible for Huckabee. The Associated Press said this is the first time that reporters were actually laughing with Huckabee as opposed to laughing with him. The only silver lining here is that it's New Year's Eve and maybe not a lot of people are paying attention.

LOWRY: Let's move to Fred Thompson because there's been something that he's been generating controversy with lately, and it's a statement having to do with his ambition. This is what he said; "I like to say that I'm only consumed by very, very few things, and politics is not one of them. The welfare of my country and my kids and grandkids are one of them. But if people really want in their president a super A-type personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to be every night thinking about for years how they could achieve the presidency of the United States, someone who could look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning, I ain't that guy."

Amanda, I was just out in Iowa this weekend. And I have to say, Fred Thompson does not look like a candidate who's enjoying himself?

CARPENTER: No, he's telling us that he is not enjoying himself. Don't we want somebody who is really up for this job, that really wants to be there? Frankly, I really don't understand this message. I understand it's this kind of laid back, down home, folksy appeal. But it doesn't sound like he's up for the job.

LOWRY: Andrei, I have to say, I don't think it's really an act. I think this is really who Fred is. He's not a super type A personality who enjoys glad handing all over Iowa.

CHERNY: This quote for him is not exactly a news flash. It's not going to be Fox's developing news for the moment.

LOWRY: It's a slow news day, Andrei.

CHERNY: That's right. Happy New Years Eve. It's been clear since he got into this race that he'd rather be anywhere than at the campaign events, and he's canceled a bunch of them on a daily basis, and has basically seemed like he's going to the dentist office, not running to be leader of the free world.

COLMES: Before I get to the next item, I want to show you an ad I don't want you to see. No, I'm just kidding. "News Day" is reporting that the -- a surging in John Edwards could actually be a blessing for Hillary Clinton. Let me show you what "News Day," a Long Island newspaper, is reporting; Clinton needs a viable John Edwards, says "News Day." Her worst case scenario is that Obama takes first place and Edwards comes in third here.

Actually, they're quoting University of Iowa pollster David Rolowsky (ph). And it says, if Edwards falls into irrelevance, that really hurts her because he's splitting the vote against her. Do you agree with that, Tom?

BEVAN: I do, actually. An Obama win in Iowa opens the door for him to run the tables on her in the early states, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Clinton can afford Edwards to win there because -- for the exact reason you mentioned, it weakens Obama. And Edwards has a much trickier path to get to the nomination. So, I agree with that statement completely.

COLMES: Let me go to you, Amanda, John Edwards help or hinder Hillary Clinton, depending on how he does in Iowa?

CARPENTER: I think she would much rather face him in off in New Hampshire and South Carolina than Barack Obama. She's giving him a little media attention, talking about people kicking and screaming. So she's trying to build him up a little bit so she can tear him down.

COLMES: So now we're going to hear from conservatives that Clinton is behind the Edwards surge. This is a big conspiracy now.

CARPENTER: It's not a conspiracy.

COLMES: OK, speaking of the Clintons -- everything's a conspiracy involving the Clintons -- President Clinton stumping for Hillary Clinton. We're going to show you just what he's been saying. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's very, very important that you pick the best president. I always say at every stop that if I had known Hillary as I have for the last 36 years, but we had never been married, knowing what I know of the presidency, and the demands of this current moment in history, just knowing what I know, and if I'd have known her, and she asked me to come here and campaign for her, I would do it without thinking, because I think she's the best candidate for president I've had a chance to support in the 40 years I've been a voter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLMES: Andrei, big hypothetical there. What do you think about what he said?

CHERNY: I think throughout this campaign Bill Clinton has tried to kind of get his sea legs in the modern media environment. I think right now he's really hit his stride, and he's making a powerful case for Hillary Clinton's candidacy in a way that only he can, not only as her husband, but as somebody who was president and is beloved by the Democratic party and whose opinion is respected. He's helping her a great deal out there.

COLMES: Andrei, thank you. Amanda, we thank you. Tom, Happy New Year. Thank you for coming out on New Year's Eve and talking to us.