| | NPR host thinks GOP 'agenda' is to help Obama win Dem nom Many political insiders and pundits seem to be more interested in whom the Republicans want to win the Democratic presidential nomination than anyone else.
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh recently said he wants to raise money for Senator Hillary Clinton in order to "unite the party," while Ann Coulter dislikes Republican frontrunner John McCain so much that she - seriously or not - said she may vote for Clinton. However, the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corps. empire, endorsed Obama in the New York primary.
On Fox News Sunday, NPR's Juan Williams told The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol that he thought Republican analysts want Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee because they actually believe he will be easier to defeat than Clinton.
"I think Bill Kristol is being very supportive of Mr. Obama, but you have an agenda," Williams charged. "You guys think it's easy to beat Barack Obama going forward."
Brit Hume, the Washington managing editor for Fox News, objected, saying, "Barack Obama is not the favored nominee among the Democrats for the Republicans. They want to run against Hillary Clinton."
"The polls are very easy and clear on this," Kristol added. "John McCain is the strongest Republican nominee. Barack Obama is the strongest Democratic nominee. Obama consistently runs 3, 4, 5 points ahead [of Clinton against McCain]. You find me one intelligent uncommitted Republican or Democratic who thinks Hillary Clinton is a better candidate than Barack Obama."
Fox's Chris Wallace joked, "I thought he was going to say find one intelligent Republican. A question to be answered later."
Blogger David Seaton also fears that many Democrats are being 'Punk'd' into believing that the right fears Obama more than Clinton.
"Peggy Noonan, who wrote some of Reagan's best speeches, is the right wing's Maureen Dowd: Irish, beautiful, witty, subtle and dangerous," Seaton notes. "In today's Wall Street Journal, she joins such arch-conservative pundits as George Will and David Brooks in praising Barack Obama and favoring him for the Democratic nomination."
According to the expatriate blogger, "I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to smell a rat here."
"It is this simple: in recent decades the Clintons are the only Democrats that win elections against Republicans... They don't want to ever face them again, no more complicated than that," Seaton blogs.
The following video is from Fox News Sunday, broadcast February 10, 2008:
Transcript via closed captions
:: senators mccain and clinton
previewing what the debate in the general election this fall may sound like. and it's time now for our sunday regulars, brit hume, washington managing editor of fox news, and fox news contributors mara liasson of national public radio, bill kristol of "the weekly standard," and juan williams also from national public radio. well, let's look at the results from last night and yesterday in the democratic race and here they are. obama wins in louisiana by a wide margin. obama wins in nebraska by more than 2-1. and obama also wins big in washington state. and as of this morning, our latest count gives clinton a 25, believe it or not, 25 delegate lead out of more than 2,000 who have been chosen so far. so, brit, given all of that, where does this race stand now and do you see either of these guys, clinton or obama, with an edge?
:: the short-term immediate outlook will be that obama will gain on her further because the chesapeake primaries are right in this area and obama figures to do very well.
:: that's maryland, virginia and d.c.
:: right. he figures to do well in those. well enough in those that he may well overtake her by that time. the next one up from that one is wisconsin, which looks like a good state for obama as well. he may soon be in the lead even if you count the super delegates where she has, you know, enjoyed a lead. and the super delegates are free to change their allegiance. it's clearly advantage obama.
:: the clinton people are prepared to come out of the next round behind. i don't think it's just lowering expectations. i think he's in a very good position to overtake her. i think in the end, though, even after ohio, texas and pennsylvania, the three big firewalls she's counting on, in texas, a lot of hispanic voters, that's her coalition, the clinton people expect that this is going to come down to super delegates, which is an amazing scenario, that it's going to be potentially unelected officials, now obviously there are members of congress and governors and senators who are part of the super delegate pool, often they just vote with the way their state or district went. there are a lot of unelected super delegates who aren't accountable to any voters. .
:: and they're all unpledged.
:: not all of them. some of them are pledged. as brit said, they can still change their mind. harold dickey is a super delegate.
:: so is bill clinton. i think we know how he's going to go. i think we know how he's going to go. he could shift depending how this race goes. before we get to the super delegates and the possible mess there, do you agree with the calendar that the rest of february looks pretty good for obama but march with ohio and texas, bill, and then -- i can't believe we're talking about it, pennsylvania on april 22, that those all probably trend a little bit towards clinton?
:: well, they do right now, but they're further off than the elections on tuesday, and that's a huge advantage for obama. i think brit made a very important point. it is likely on tuesday night that obama will be head in delegates, even including the super delegates. she has a 100 delegate lead so far with super delegates. he's ahead with elected delegates. he's ahead with the popular vote that's been cast. exclude michigan and florida which were taken off the table. it could be a big moment tuesday night. when people see obama in the lead for the first time, he's never been in the lead, because the super delegates and clinton have had that cushion, when people see obama in the lead in elected delegates and popular vote, i think you may see polls switching in texas and ohio and obama's campaign will have a ton of money to go on the air in texas and ohio and persuade those working class white voters and hispanic voters that they might want to reconsider.
:: juan, let's talk about the bigger picture here. this is obviously going to be very close for a long time and some top democrats are now getting worried about a mess or a train wreck, as some of them are calling it. you'll have super delegates who are unpledged who might vote against the democratically expressed will of their states. you've got, as bill mentioned, michigan and florida which were stripped of any delegates because they moved up ahead of super tuesday. now the question is who's going to be representing them? are they going to have to vote again? is there a potential here if this race stays very close and ends up going into may, june, august with the convention, of a real train wreck for the democratic party?
:: well, i guess there's a possibility, but howard dean, the chairman of the party, said this week the party can't afford it. and that he would intervene at some point and literally create some sort of settlement, i guess by going to the super delegates and working with the candidates, and i guess --
:: how does he do that?
:: i don't know. but there's the possibility, i guess, of a ticket or some kind of accommodation down the way. but the problem i think is that what you're looking at right now is that among the democrats, especially the way that it's breaking out racially, leads to the kind of civil war that everybody wants to avoid. if you look at the results yesterday from louisiana, barack obama did better than 80% of the black vote, half of the voters were black in the democratic primary yesterday in louisiana. he gets 80%. mrs. clinton gets about half, a little more than half of the white voters. so what you're seeing here is that black and white are splitting in a way that i think is untenable if you want to hold together the coalition of going forward. obviously, the field favors democrats, but it's very difficult. i think bill kristol is being very supportive of mr. obama, but you have an agenda. you guys think it's easy to beat barack obama going forward. one of the discussions that took place this week is obama, when mitt romney went on about his silliness about you've got to get out of the race in order to allow the republicans to come together and fight the war on terror, obama said the same old rhetoric, fear, division.
:: let's turn to the republicans. i'll give you a chance to respond to that and everything else you want to say, bill. excuse me, in a moment. let's turn to the republicans and the race on that side yesterday. in louisiana, huckabee edges out mccain. in kansas, a much bigger win for huckabee over mccain, but in washington state, a narrow victory for mccain. as for the delegate race in the gop, mccain still has, still enjoys a big lead over mike muck bee -- huckabee. president bush in our interview said it seems pretty straight forward that mccain has a job to do. given those victories, three out of four victories for huckabee after mccain was the presumptive nominee, does he have more work to do than the president may think?
:: he'll have to keep campaigning. the mathematical odds against huckabee are long, but mccain will still have to beat him. huckabee shows no signs of getting out. it won't be contentious. they both promised that. huckabee probably promised it first. i would say this in terms of the activists in the republican party on the right who are disturbed about john mccain. they now want him to dance to their tune and do it again and again and really prove to them that he's okay. the truth is they'd like to see him elected and not see the democrat elected, they ought to let john mccain do whatever he needs to do. in other words, they should not force him into a fight to solidify his base. they ought to let him have leeway now to move to the center center, an area where he has some credibility, which would give him a better chance of winning the election. i don't think they will, but that's what they ought to do.
:: i don't think they can do that. they would have to coalesce around another candidate. they were too late to do it around romney. other than talking a lot on talk radio that they have any point of pressure from mccain.
:: maybe we're reaching too much into it, mara, the fact that after this week, when everybody -- at least we're all saying mccain's the nominee, that he loses two out of three races yesterday.
:: huckabee has done very well in the south. huckabee has a kind of real niche of the party where he does really well. when you look forward, how is he going to make up that gap? he's about three times -- mccain has about three times as many delegates as him. i don't see him as the kind of opponent or threat to mccain that even mitt romney was.
:: i guess i'm not talking, bill, so much about whether or not huckabee can beat mccain, but does it show some weakness on the part of mccain?
:: a little bit. it's pretty common. clinton did this. jerry brown won a primary or two. dukakis did this. i think mccain is pretty well situated. he's got an opponent who will be very polite to him. mccain will win primaries on tuesday. i think he's in pretty good shape.
:: the democrats are looking forward to running against mccain saying, listen, mccain is just a third term for president bush. do you really want a third term? do you want an extension of the war in iraq? do you want someone who knows nothing about the economy, says he knows nothing about the economy, bought alan greenspan's book to learn about the economy. you can see the shape of this. and obama says he'll represent change. he's a 46-year-old versus a 71-year-old. clinton says she's the one who's going to bring the country together compared to mccain. i think the democrats are thinking, well, let the right wing attack john mccain right now. there's no way john mccain gets back to the center while he's trying to please brit hume and the right wing.
:: didn't you hear what i just said?
:: i did. i agree with you.
:: here's another point about that. first of all, john mccain is not the favored nominee of the republican party for the democrats. they all want to run against mitt romney. second point. barack obama is not the favored nominee among the democrats for the republicans. they want to run against hillary clinton.
:: there's a lot of -- the polls are very easy and clear on this. john mccain is the strongest republican nominee. barack obama is the strongest democratic nominee.
:: where did you get that data from? they're both -- clinton and obama both run about equal against john mccain.
:: that's not true. obama consistently runs 3, 4, 5 points ahead. you find me one intelligent uncommitted republican or democratic who thinks hillary clinton is a better candidate than barack obama.
:: i thought he was going to say find one intelligent republican. a question to be answered later. thank you all. thank you panel. see you next week. up next, the most eventful week
 
|
