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Glenn Beck
GOP Debate Analyzed
Aired May 04, 2007 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, Republicans take center stage. I`ll bring you the debate highlights and the somewhat awkward moments.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I`ll follow him to the gates of Hell.
BECK: OK.
Plus, a beloved ex-president makes a surprise appearance.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: From Ronald Reagan...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... Ronald Reagan...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... Ronald Reagan...
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Ronald Reagan.
BECK: Oh, yes, and let`s not forget about these guys. What`s with Obama getting Secret Service protection this early?
Tonight, politics in the spotlight. It`s a special roundtable Friday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Tonight, for the full hour, we`re going to be talking about my favorite subject: politics. I got to tell you, I hate -- well, I`m not sure if I hate politicians or politics more, but as odd as it may sound, they are fascinating, at least they were last night.
Rudy Giuliani being honest and yet trying to win social conservatives with his odd abortion stance. John McCain looked strangely old and yet still the kind of like the maverick that he was eight years ago. And Mitt Romney, with his rich Corinthian leather tan.
Last night was the first Republican presidential debate of the `08 campaign or, as I like to call it, "American Idol" for dorks. I was one of the dorks that watched it. There were 10, yes, 10 candidates sparring it out. I swear to you, about half of them, I didn`t even know who they were. I`m watching it, I`m like, "Who`s this guy again?"
Here are some of the highlights and, as you will see, Iraq was on everyone`s mind.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEWS: What would you need, as commander-in-chief, to win the war in Iraq?
MCCAIN: We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos, there will be genocide, and they will follow us home.
FORMER GOV. TOMMY THOMPSON (R), Wisconsin: I believe the al-Maliki government should be required to vote as to whether or not they want America in their country. If they vote yes, it gives us a legitimacy for being there. If they vote no, we should get out.
MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS: We need leadership that`s strong and that shows America what we can do to lead the world. Ronald Reagan was a president of strength. His philosophy was the philosophy of strength.
MATTHEWS: Many people think you`re pro-choice. Could you define it in a couple of seconds?
GIULIANI: I would respect a woman`s right to make a different choice. I support the ban on partial-birth abortion. I support the Hyde amendment, but ultimately, I think, when you come down to that choice, you have to respect the woman`s right to make that choice differently than my conscience.
MATTHEWS: Mrs. Reagan wants to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Will that progress under your administration?
MCCAIN: I believe that we need to fund this. This is a tough issue for those of us in the pro-life community.
ROMNEY: I will not create new embryos through cloning or through embryo farming, because that will be creating life for the purpose of destroying it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: So, tonight, we`re going to be talking politics with both Republicans and Democrats for the full hour, with my guests, president of Rasmussen reports, Scott Rasmussen, Republican strategist Amy Holmes, and Mike Allen, chief political correspondent from the Politico.
Mike, let me start with you, and then I`m just going to go around real quick. Who won last night?
MIKE ALLEN, POLITICO.COM: Well, Glenn, unlike the Democratic debate where everybody had something to lose, a lot of people had something to gain here. And Governor Mitt Romney finally got the chance to tell a broader number of people, show them a little bit of his secret sauce, a little bit of why he`s doing great with donors, as you know, and why he`s done very well in picking up staffers from President Bush and, as you know, has support from the president`s many staffers, for the president`s governor, the president`s brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida.
BECK: Amy, who won last night?
AMY HOLMES, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, there`s a joke going around conservative circles that it was Fred Thompson who won last night, watching -- he must have been very pleased to see the candidate who we thought going in would have the most charisma seemed to have the least, and that was Giuliani.
But if you`re just looking at the guys up on the stage, I think it`s clear Mitt Romney won. He was thoughtful. He knew the issues. Some people are criticizing him for being too detailed and too specific. I thought that that showed he`d really like done his homework.
BECK: I know. I`ve never heard anything like that.
And, Scott, who do you think?
SCOTT RASMUSSEN, RASMUSSEN REPORTS: Well, I think Romney won, but I think you also have to keep it in perspective. This is spring training. This was entertainment for political junkies. What happened last night has no impact on the regular season.
BECK: You know, I have to tell you, Romney, to me, I liked his specifics, and he looked presidential. He was one of the only ones that really looked it. Besides, oh, who was it? There was another one, I can`t remember which one it was, Brownback that kind of -- he looked like the president that would be on "24," but Romney had the whole package together.
Rudy Giuliani was surprising. It was almost like, at 4:00 in the afternoon, he went, "Oh, crap, I`ve got the debate thing to do." I mean, is he coasting or is it just me?
HOLMES: Somehow -- sorry, my thought coming out of it, looking at this, is someone needs to get him to a church. And they need to get him to a church soon. This is a man who...
BECK: What does that mean?
HOLMES: He was so uncomfortable with issues of faith, the question about people of faith. I mean, clearly, he was someone who couldn`t even say, "Some of my best friends are evangelicals." He just needs to have a big evangelical love bomb. I`m calling it "Operation Come to Jesus." And to just give him some comfort level with it.
BECK: Hang on. Hang on. Scott, let me go to you, because you`re a guy who does polling. I think people are sick to death of people who are packaged. I mean, I think that Rudy Giuliani was uncomfortable last night, but I had a lot of respect for him, because he said, you know, he said something I didn`t want to hear about abortion, but he didn`t try to, you know, change himself, you know, to appease a bunch of people. He was who he was. Isn`t that what America`s hungry for right now?
RASMUSSEN: Well, sure. Everybody wants the candidate to be what they are and who they are, as long as you agree with the voter. That`s the trick.
BECK: But you can`t.
RASMUSSEN: Of course you can.
BECK: You can`t do that.
RASMUSSEN: Of course you can. But voters will say they want somebody who`s authentic. And on some issues, on peripheral issues, you can get away with that.
The challenge I think that Rudy Giuliani failed on last night wasn`t his answer, where he gave his full answer on the abortion issue, I thought he did OK. But he was seventh or eighth in line on the question about Roe v. Wade, and all he could come up with was, "OK."
BECK: Let me play this. Here`s the clip from it last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Starting with you, Governor, would the day that Roe v. Wade is repealed be a good day for Americans?
ROMNEY: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: Senator?
SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom.
MATTHEWS: Governor?
GOV. JIM GILMORE (R), Virginia: Yes, it was wrongly decided.
MATTHEWS: Governor?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most certainly.
MATTHEWS: Congressman?
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA), HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Governor?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Senator?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`d repeal.
MATTHEWS: Mayor?
GIULIANI: It would be OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: You think that`s a...
RASMUSSEN: He had all that time to think of it. He should have had a better response.
HOLMES: Well, he had more than just that time on stage. I mean, he`s had his entire campaign. When he was asked if the Christian Coalition was a good thing for the party, boy, he tried to get away from that as quickly as he could. He couldn`t just give the obvious answer, which is yes.
BECK: You know, I`m wondering if -- I felt this way for a while. I like Rudy Giuliani. I`m a one-issue guy right now. I think the Islamic terror that we`re facing is just going to overwhelm us, if we just don`t pay attention to it. And I like Giuliani, and I like his stance on that, but I have felt for a while now, he`s a guy waiting to implode. You know, he`s starting the race so far ahead of everybody else, all he has to do is just make mistakes.
ALLEN: But, Glenn, if I could say one more quick thing about Giuliani, because, when we look back at these debates, we`re always a little bit revisionist. He was fine as long as he was talking about taxes and terrorism. And sitting in the hall, I actually felt he looked quite comfortable. He laughed at some of the hard questions that other people got. He rocked back on his heels. He`s obviously done this before.
The diagnosis that one person gave to me is that Mayor Giuliani is used to being the star in the firmament. It`s very unusual for him to be sharing the stage with anyone else, which, of course, when you`re president, you don`t do. But that may have been a part of the issue last night.
BECK: And did you see anybody there that had like the fire in the belly? I was looking for -- you know, the one thing about Ronald Reagan did have, -- I mean, everybody was invoking Ronald Reagan last night -- the one thing he did have was fire in the belly. He did have that moment where he could say to people, "We are not the country we have allowed ourselves to become. We`re better than this," and he believed it. And you believed it because he believed it.
Did you see that from anybody last night that really had something that they connected to right in their soul that said, "Listen, America, this is who we are"?
HOLMES: You know, I think, with that format, with 10 different candidates, it`s hard to project that, beyond the questions and the Q&A. I thought Romney had a lot of energy. McCain surprisingly -- he came up with some energy that`s been lacking up to this point.
But getting back to your question about Democrats embracing the far left and conservative, and particularly Christian conservatives, being sort of shunted off to the side, what I saw last night that was interesting was how all the candidates were quite happy to say, "I`m a conservative. Actually, I`m more conservative than the guy next to me."
And last week at the Democratic debate, you didn`t hear anybody saying, "I`m a big liberal, and this is my governing philosophy."
BECK: OK. We`ll have a quick break here in just a second. Stay where you are.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: All right, we`re talking politics tonight with the president of Rasmussen Reports, Scott Rasmussen, Republican strategist Amy Holmes, and Mike Allen, chief political correspondent from the Politico.
Let me start with a little bit from last night, in case you didn`t see the debate last night. There was a special guest on stage, a very well- respected and well-loved president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: What we can borrow from Ronald Reagan.
THOMPSON: Big ideas, like Ronald Reagan.
MCCAIN: President Reagan sought it.
ROMNEY: Ronald Reagan was a president of strength.
FORMER GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE (R), ARKANSAS: It`s important to remember that what Ronald Reagan did...
BROWNBACK: Because I believe in the Ronald Reagan principle.
GIULIANI: You look in Ronald Reagan`s eyes...
ROMNEY: ... optimist we thank Ronald Reagan...
GILMORE: I was an alternate delegate for Ronald Reagan...
GIULIANI: Kind of inculcate some of that Ronald Reagan optimism.
HUNTER: You know, Ronald Reagan said...
MCCAIN: ... in the tradition of President Reagan.
GIULIANI: Ronald Reagan.
ROMNEY: Ronald Reagan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ronald Reagan.
MCCAIN: Ronald Reagan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: It was nuts last night. First of all, guys, was there a Ronald Reagan on the stage? I didn`t see one.
HOLMES: No, but Giuliani said that he would channel him when speaking to the Iranian president, that, when he looked into his eyes, he`d see Ronald Reagan.
BECK: Can I tell you something? I spoke to Rudy Giuliani a couple of weeks ago, when the sailor thing was going on, and I said, "If you were president, would this have happened? What would you have done? And would you have handled it the way Tony Blair?" And he said, "They wouldn`t have done it, because if I was president, I would have been handling them the way Ronald Reagan handled him," and I believed him when he said it.
RASMUSSEN: I think Rudy Giuliani did a good job early in the debate in trying to tie his administration to the Reagan era. And what was good about it was he wasn`t trying to say he was Ronald Reagan. He was saying it`s the Republican Party is Ronald Reagan`s party, not the current president`s party, and I`m my own man in the mold of a Ronald Reagan.
BECK: You know, one of the other guys, John McCain, who tried to make himself look tough like Ronald Reagan, and I believe he is tough, was John McCain. Watch this piece with John McCain, where he spoke about his chase on Osama bin Laden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCAIN: He is now orchestrating other attacks on the United States of America. We will do whatever is necessary. We will track him down. We will capture -- we will bring him to justice, and I`ll follow him to the gates of Hell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: And then he had that weird smile. I mean, you know, I want to track him down to the gates of Hell, because I think that`s where he`s residing. But that anger didn`t seem to work for me. I don`t know why.
ALLEN: Right, right, Glenn, I think, clearly, Senator McCain wanted to show vigor, and he did come out of the gate harder than the others. You saw him sort of chopping the podium a little bit, and by invoking Reagan, and how well he knew Reagan, it`s a way to actually put his age in a positive light.
But you`re right. That great bite that you just played did result in a lot of conversation around the library. One person who was picking up on the smile, like you did, said it seemed like something from "The Shining."
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: It was like, "I`m home."
ALLEN: Exactly, exactly. And somebody else said, he came of like an old man, you know, "Get off my lawn!" But it did remind me of the Winston Churchill quotation which says, "If you`re going to go through Hell, keep going."
BECK: Scott, because you do polling and you have seen so many voices around America, I don`t understand this corruption thing, where everybody says that the Republicans lost on corruption. I think that the Republicans lost because they were corrupted. Their soul was corrupted. They lost who they were. They alienated the people that sent them there. It wasn`t just the corruption.
I view the corruption as lying to me about small government and then handing out prescription drugs. I see corruption as the border. There`s got to be some answer there. I see, you sold yourself out on war. You were the people who were supposed to know how to fight war, and you`re fighting it by tying the hands of our soldiers behind their back. Is that the kind of corruption that people were talking about, or is it really just corruption?
RASMUSSEN: Well, you`ve got to back up. The reason the Republicans lost control of Congress was not corruption. It was Iraq. The war has been the defining issue in this country since it began. It actually, really, since 9/11, and this is an issue that Republicans were doing very well on. And in 2004, President Bush was able to make the case that you trust Republicans more than Democrats on this issue.
That`s no longer the case. Only about half of Republicans think you can win the war. That was the issue that changed Congress. Corruption added to it, and some of the corruption you`re talking about really gave Republicans and conservative Republicans a chance to say, "They`re no different than the Democrats."
BECK: Right. You know, here`s the thing that -- I`ve never heard anybody say -- and I wonder why -- when they say that this was a referendum against the war, then why is Rudy Giuliani polling so big with independents? Why is he polling so big with some Democrats who are even saying, "I`d vote for Rudy Giuliani," because he`s not going shut this war down. He`ll kick butt and take names.
RASMUSSEN: Because they think he`ll implement the war differently, because they have a confidence.
BECK: That`s different. That shows that the course is wrong for the Democrats. They`ve read the room wrong, doesn`t it?
RASMUSSEN: It shows that there is support for a successful policy. The challenge is -- I mean, John McCain right now is staking his whole campaign on the notion that things are going to turn around in Iraq. If that happens, the world changes.
BECK: But, Amy, doesn`t John McCain -- and I don`t mean to stick him out -- but, I mean, it`s old guard. I don`t mean that as an age thing. I mean, I think any of these people -- I think Hillary Clinton, if it wasn`t such a machine, I think anybody who`s in Congress right now, they look like you`re part of the problem. You`ve been there the whole time, and you couldn`t get anything done.
HOLMES: Well, they do, but that`s also historically true of presidential elections, that the successful candidates are able to say that they`re not from Washington, they`re coming from outside of the Beltway, and they`re going to clean up the swamp here in our nation`s capital. So I think that that`s an historic problem.
And I don`t think John McCain is getting enough credit for the fact that he said, "All along, we should have had more troops," and that the surge is actually a change in course of policy, one that he had been advocating. Now that it`s happening, he can`t quite exactly say, "Oh, now I`m against it."
I think John McCain, he`s advocating policies he sincerely believed in. I thought last night you saw Republicans, far more than Democrats the week before, talking about, where do we go from here for a successful resolution?
BECK: Let me go to -- there are a lot of people on stage last night that I thought, "Boy, how did they get on stage?" But there was one in particular that just baffled me, and his name is Ron Paul. Watch this, if this isn`t the worst...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: I guess, in medicine, I made a lot of critical decisions. I mean, you`re called upon all the time to make critical, life-saving decisions. But I can`t think of any one particular event where I made a critical decision that affected a lot of other people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: That`s got to be one of the worst answers I`ve ever heard to the question, "Have you ever made a critical decision? Tell us how you made a critical decision where it affected a lot of people." The guy`s been in Congress now for how many years. Every decision he makes affects 300 million people, and that was his answer? How did this guy get on stage?
ALLEN: And more narrowly, it`s unbelievable that you don`t prepare for a question like that, some of these rather obvious questions. But just to remind your viewers of something, when you`re talking about Mayor Giuliani and Senator McCain and Iraq, is that they`re both trying to do -- and I think maybe Mayor Giuliani does viscerally -- what the president has struggled to do, and that is put Iraq in the larger context of the war on terror, because the American people do support fighting terrorists.
There`s no American that wants to cave to Al Qaeda, but, rightly or wrongly -- and perhaps rightly -- Iraq has become isolated, and that`s what`s so deadly for this president and, perhaps, for Senator McCain.
BECK: You know, I have to tell you, I think we`re in a different place than we have been in I don`t know how long. I don`t even know if we`ve had this time in my entire life, where we have had just bad communicator after bad communicator after bad communicator, especially in the Republican Party, for so long.
And here we`ve got, I think we have three of them. We have Fred Thompson. We have Mitt Romney, who is a great communicator, and Rudy Giuliani. You want to talk about following a Republican? I mean, we have addressed the one problem that we`ve had with George Bush, and that is, we don`t even understand what the hell he`s even saying at this point.
We`re going to come back in just a minute. We`ll discuss some of the ridiculous questions that the candidates were asked last night in the debate. We`ll be back in just a second.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: President of Rasmussen Reports, Scott Rasmussen, also, Republican strategist Amy Holmes, and Mike Allen, chief political correspondent from The Politico join me again. We`re talking about the debate last night. And there were -- you know what? I can`t take these stupid questions anymore. I really can`t.
One of the most ridiculous aspects of last night`s debate was the amount of just idiotic questions. I think my favorite bad question was this one. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Daniel Duchovnik (ph) from Walnut Creek, California, wants to know: What do you dislike most about America?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: What? What do you dislike most about America?
HOLMES: I actually loved that question. I was on the edge -- I did.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Good for you, Amy. You tell Glenn.
HOLMES: I was on the edge of my seat. Was he going to say, "Britney Spears, low-rider jeans"?
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: Here`s what you say: America, I would like to say right now, the thing I hate most about America is just stupid people with stupid questions.
HOLMES: No, and he gave a brilliant answer.
ALLEN: That would have been a good answer. That would have been a good answer.
BECK: Amy, what would you have answered that?
HOLMES: Well, he did give a brilliant answer. He took the high road. He talked about patriotism. And I thought, well done, because I would have sat there and thought about things from the culture, gangsta rap, you know, celebrities showing their private parts, you know, on the red carpet.
BECK: You know what? I`m telling you, that is the Ronald Reagan optimistic America kind of thing coming out. He does have that down.
HOLMES: And let`s face it, in a Republican primary, you can`t have too much patriotism.
ALLEN: Glenn, I have to point out to you, the smart questions that also came in, in these interactive rounds...
BECK: This was your stupid event. First of all, what the Hell is The Politico? You guys have been around for like three minutes. Who`s the funding coming from? I want to know. It`s big oil, isn`t it?
ALLEN: Politico.com, Glenn, it will tell you everything you want to know about the White House, about Congress, about politics.
BECK: All right, pipe down.
ALLEN: And it won`t -- but I just want to point out to you real quickly that some of these readers had very good questions. For instance, one of the questions that came in from Carrie in Connecticut, "Do you trust the mainstream media?" Now, Glenn, you can`t have thought that was a stupid question.
BECK: No, because it`s an obvious question. The answer is, no, you can`t.
HOLMES: Actually, I thought the stupid questions were actually coming from the moderator. The question about Karl Rove, would you have him in your White House? Well, a new administration wouldn`t have him. And Scooter Libby question, this was the inside-the-Beltway, you know, hardball preoccupation with this administration official or that, and it didn`t help the viewer know who these candidates are.
BECK: And also, the other question -- I`m going to play other two quick questions here. First of all, give me the Clinton question that they asked last night.
HOLMES: Oh, I loved that question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Stop, Amy, you loved that question.
HOLMES: I loved that question.
BECK: I don`t even want to hear the answer. I don`t even -- of course, what are they going to say? Yes, and that`s why I`m endorsing Hillary Clinton.
And then the other question was -- and, Mike, since you were the guy that, with The Politico, looking at all of the little questions, you have to answer it. Here`s the last one.
ALLEN: All right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This question comes from Eric Taylor from California. He wants to know, what is the difference between a Sunni and a Shia Muslim?
Joanie from California wants to know how many American soldiers have lost their lives in the Iraq war and how many have been injured to date.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Go ahead, Mike, you`ve got 30 seconds, you`ve got less than 30 seconds.
ALLEN: See, those are smart questions.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: If these guys want to run, they should know. And I believe the person who answered the question about the deaths and injuries was way off on...
BECK: Notice he could be -- Mike could be president of the United States. He didn`t answer the question I just asked him. Back in a flash.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Well, last night, the Republican candidates for president had their first debate. And last week, the Democratic candidates did the same thing, but some are saying what could make this race especially interesting are the third-party candidates. And we got a little taste of the craziness last night with civil libertarian Ron Paul. No offense, libertarians, but really? That`s the best you could do?
Between now and Election Day, we could see the likes of Ralph Nader, Fred Thompson, or Michael Bloomberg enter the race. Now, I am fed up with the usual suspects of Democrats and Republicans, and I think that these guys, at least Ron Paul, made me not want to kill myself last night, kept it entertaining at least.
Joining me here on the set is Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky. And from Washington, Republican strategist Amy Holmes. And in Los Angeles, Mike Allen, chief political correspondent from The Politico.
First of all, let me start with you, Julie. As a Democrat, who won last night?
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Mitt Romney. I don`t think as a Democrat. I think as anybody would say. Mitt Romney, he hit it out of the ballpark. This guy looks presidential. He sounded presidential. He didn`t equivocate. He was well-prepared, unlike Rudy Giuliani, who I think was very badly prepared on the abortion issue, for example. He was wonderful. He was a great -- not maybe on substance, but on style, won, and hit it out of the ballpark. And these debates, substance always loses out to style.
BECK: You know, it`s amazing to me that everybody is saying that he is too slick, and yet everybody is crying out now with George Bush, "Please, could we get somebody that can say a sentence"?
ROGINSKY: I`m just released that we have a guy who can put a sentence together without having 20 run-ons.
BECK: You know what? But we have that for the first time -- we were talking about it a few minutes ago -- for the first time, I think, in my lifetime, Barack Obama, very well-spoken, and he is just a guy who you just feel -- he seems like a guy whose just talking to you.
ROGINSKY: Well, look, I think Bill Clinton`s was very well-spoken.
BECK: No, wait, but I was going to say is, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Giuliani is the same way, Fred Thompson is the same way. You`ve got some people who have the potential of just being actual human beings talking to the American people.
ROGINSKY: I`m glad I`m not getting confused listening to somebody try make a point, whether they`re the decider or they`re the commander guy, you know, it`s like an action figure. I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: OK, let me go to the third party. First of all, Amy, Fred Thompson, do you know -- when is he going to come in?
HOLMES: Well, actually, during the break, Mike and I were just talking about that, and Mike said that he`s hearing June, July, that there`s a real great advantage in him not jumping in the race, because then he doesn`t get the constant chipping at, and he can maintain that aura, you know, of the great savior of the Republican Party.
BECK: You know, I saw him, Mike, on television a couple of weeks ago. And my problem with him -- he`s very, very well-spoken. But I just have this feeling that there`s a want for a new kind of guard. And if you put him up in a race against somebody like Barack Obama, who is that fresh, never-been-to-Washington kind of appearance -- I know he`s a senator now, but he doesn`t have the grime of Washington on him, and he`s young and vibrant. Can he win, Mike?
ALLEN: Well, certainly he can. He brings with him celebrity, which I think will be a tremendous help in his campaign. You know, Glenn, now that I discovered that you`re the secret elitist that doesn`t want voters to ask questions, I can see now why you would be dumping on Fred Thompson, a guy who...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: ... dumb questions, Mike! I mean, jeez. You know, I can write a bunch of dumb questions and send them in for you. I`d like somebody with a little more brains than me asking the questions.
ALLEN: You`ve got your own show. Jill in Idaho doesn`t have a show.
BECK: When it comes to third party, Scott, you say that this is the time for a third party, because, really, I think Democrats haven`t hit that wall yet, but they`re going to. I feel the Democrats are being sold out just the way the Republicans were sold out by their people. We`re disenfranchised from these parties.
RASMUSSEN: I think it could be the time for a third party. The trench warfare, the red-blue state map that we all know and have memorized, is not going to be in play this time. In the last six or eight months, the number of people calling themselves Republicans has tanked to the lowest level of the Bush years, and actually it`s approaching the Reagan-era numbers.
Since they took control of Congress, the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats has fallen by 2.5 points, and we`re seeing a frustration. The last two presidents came in with a majority in Congress, and they both lost it. I think somebody like Michael Bloomberg, who has enough money to spend to make himself serious, could shake up the race.
ROGINSKY: Shake them up, but this is an ego -- Ralph Nader, you know, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot...
RASMUSSEN: But there`s a difference -- sure.
ROGINSKY: Let me just -- I mean, the point is this: These guys just take votes away from whoever on the Republicans or Democratic side. We`re not...
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Scott, Scott, you need to be realistic, that`s the way it is. And, Scott, Scott, it is.
(CROSSTALK)
RASMUSSEN: Here`s the other issue, though, on why Michael Bloomberg is different or somebody with a half-a-billion dollars to spend. He can actually win some states and some electoral votes.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: He can`t even get on the ballot in a lot of states, because you need to be affiliated with a party to get on a ballot in states.
HOLMES: And Scott, just using your historical, you know, comparison, if Republican numbers are sinking as low as they were in Reagan`s era, Reagan won two terms.
BECK: Absolutely.
HOLMES: So that doesn`t necessarily make the argument that...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: But Reagan was the guy -- Reagan was the guy that redefined everything. And that`s what`s needed, is somebody who`s going to redefine everything. I think Barack Obama could do that for the Democrats. He could redefine the party. It may not be what he wants, but he could redefine it.
Romney might be able to do that. Al Gore could redefine things, if he came as a Green Party member. Is there a chance of that happening?
ROGINSKY: No, I don`t think so.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: May I mention something to you that I think really would shake up the race? And that`s someone that`s not even running on it, but you saw -- you may have saw last night, when Governor Schwarzenegger escorted Nancy Reagan in on his arm. They got a standing ovation. It was a reminder of the very humbling setting that we were in during that.
Glenn, I did an interview with Governor Schwarzenegger in which I got the strong feeling that he plans to endorse either Senator McCain or Mayor Giuliani shortly before the now-decisive, pivotal California February 5th primary. And if he endorsed one of those people, California would be in play in the general election, and that could rethink all of our thinking about the map, along some of those lines Scott was mentioning.
RASMUSSEN: And Rudy Giuliani, by his own presence, redefines the map here in the state of New Jersey, becomes more competitive, depending on who the Democrats are...
ROGINSKY: I don`t think so about that.
RASMUSSEN: He`s not -- I`m not suggesting it`s an automatic Republican state, but it becomes competitive.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: New Jersey, I think New Jersey`s too far gone for the Republicans.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: See, I think these -- Rudy Giuliani is not a Republican. There are conservatives like me that have enough problems with Rudy Giuliani.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Do you think that the conservatives like you and others will sit home and not vote in November of 2008 if Rudy Giuliani is your nominee?
BECK: No.
ROGINSKY: I would actually argue -- you think you would?
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: You think you`d vote for Rudy...
BECK: Over Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? I`d walk through a wall of fire.
ROGINSKY: But I think many others wouldn`t, maybe not some as political you, maybe just the base...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: I`m not that political. I`m not that political. I`m really not. I don`t care. If the Democrats put somebody that I thought was better, I`d vote for a Democrat.
ROGINSKY: But you would never think that a Democrat would be better than a Republican.
BECK: Do you know how many times I voted for Joe Lieberman and how many issues I disagree with Joe Lieberman on?
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: I would vote for Joe Lieberman. I don`t care about Republicans or Democrats, and I don`t think anybody does.
ROGINSKY: Then you`re not -- well, the base certainly does. The Republican base certainly does.
BECK: The Democrats and the Republicans, what they don`t understand, both parties, is that America is sick of the parties. They want the right choice.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: Hang on, let`s go to Amy. Amy, go ahead.
HOLMES: Even the polling shows that Giuliani is running ahead of McCain among Republican voters.
ROGINSKY: For now.
HOLMES: The Republicans are also pragmatists, just like Democrats, of looking at who`s going to be the most electable. And let`s not forget, when Giuliani was mayor, as far as conservatives were concerned, he had all the right enemies. He had the teachers unions who were fighting against the reforms that he was trying to put in place. He had Al Sharpton marching against him every day.
ROGINSKY: Hey, Amy, what happened with South Carolina -- let me ask you this. What happens in South Carolina? And, look, frankly, I don`t care, because I`m a Democrat. What happens in South Carolina, when those pictures of Rudy Giuliani making out with Donald Trump in drag show up...
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: ... Republicans don`t watch "David Letterman"? Of course they do. You think that conservatives don`t watch "David Letterman"? Of course they do.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: This is the most insulting thing. Look, I`m about as religious conservative as you can get. I`m a Mormon, man. And, you know, we walk around with our Bibles. We got guys on bikes, and I get comedy. And I don`t know anybody who doesn`t...
ROGINSKY: You get people who support gay marriage or civil unions?
BECK: You know what?
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: You know what this is? This is a conservative that called me today from the South and said, "I`ve got to tell you, Glenn, nobody in the South is going to vote for that Mitt Romney guy because he`s Mormon." And I said, "Do you really think that the southerners are that stupid?"
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: ... the Republican base has a certain core set of beliefs that Rudy Giuliani is not meeting. You can`t disagree with that.
BECK: I can.
ROGINSKY: He`s pro-choice. He`s pro-gay marriage.
BECK: Because I don`t believe -- I believe we are entering a time in our country where we are starting to say, "We`re not going to get anybody but an amazing plastic action figure if we agree on everything and the issues are becoming too big." Hang on, I want to go to Mike.
HOLMES: Let me add, though, because there`s an answer to this, and Sam Brownback gave it last night. Sam Brownback, who`s the candidate for the evangelicals, he`s a very well-known pro-lifer, and he was asked specifically, "Would you endorse a pro-choice candidate for the Republican Party?" And he said, "Yes," he would. And he referred to Ronald Reagan and saying, "Listen, if the guy is meeting you 80 percent of the way, bring him on board. We`re a big tent. We can put him on the team."
Julie, your characterization of conservatives and evangelicals is so narrow, it`s why Democrats have been losing.
ROGINSKY: The Democrats actually have been winning, I hate to say, the last couple of years.
BECK: We`ll be back in just a second. Our presidential predictions in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: I got to tell you, I kept looking through, you know, Brownback, Gilmore, Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter, McCain, Paul, Romney, Tancredo, Tommy Thompson. I mean, Tommy Thompson, let`s be honest, his face looks like a catcher`s mitt. Tancredo, you know, God bless Tancredo, I love Tancredo, he`s right on a lot of things, but, boy, you looked like Paul Lynde last night. I mean, he just didn`t have any credibility.
I mean, I`m looking through, and every time they would ask another candidate another question. I`d say, "Well, he`s not going to win." He just didn`t look presidential. He doesn`t have a chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: There were only a couple of them that did look presidential. Looks plays a role, right?
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Can I tell you, I will never watch "Bewitched" again and not think of Tom Tancredo.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: He did. He looked like Paul Lynde.
All right, so let`s go through these, and I want to go through these quickly as we can. These are the candidates that they currently have running, in case you`ve forgotten. These are the Republicans running for president.
There`s America`s mayor, Rudy Giuliani. You have John McCain. The vaguely orange, though tan and fit, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo. You have Tommy Thompson, governor of Wisconsin, best known for having a face that I swear to you did look like a catcher`s mitt last night, Sam Brownback, and James Gilmore, who I looked at for a while and said, "Who the hell is that guy?" Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee are running. Did I miss anybody? Oh, and Ron Paul, the libertarian, who`s kind of got that weird, I don`t know, completely out of touch, Admiral...
HOLMES: You`re giving him such a hard time.
BECK: Well, he kind of reminded me of Admiral Stockdale. He did. OK.
HOLMES: Who am I? And why am I here?
BECK: Exactly right! OK, so let`s go -- at least I didn`t say he looked like a catcher`s mitt. Let`s go through this, and real quickly -- I`m just going to say the name. Anybody say "out" or "nomination." All right?
We have Ron Paul.
ALLEN: Out.
ROGINSKY: Far out.
BECK: Brownback?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out.
BECK: Huckabee?
ROGINSKY: Out.
BECK: Gilmore?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out.
BECK: Hunter?
ROGINSKY: Out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out.
BECK: Tancredo?
ROGINSKY: Out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out.
BECK: Tommy Thompson?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out.
BECK: Mitt Romney?
ROGINSKY: Out.
RASMUSSEN: Long shot.
BECK: He`s a long shot?
ALLEN: Wait, wait. You can`t say at this point that any of the top people are out. And...
BECK: Oh, stop being fair. We`re not looking to be fair. We`re judging dirty, judge and jury here.
ALLEN: I got to say something about Governor Romney. We were talking earlier about pragmatism. People talk about his flip-flops. Other people say, look, he wound up where we are. We like that. Another pragmatic -- the Christians are going to more pragmatic, too. They`re going to say Mormons have family values, just like ours.
HOLMES: I have to disagree with Scott and Julie. I thought Huckabee did himself a lot of good last night.
BECK: We did not ask that. We`re not asking that. Stop changing the rules.
(CROSSTALK)
HOLMES: ... saw a decent, thoughtful...
BECK: I`m not asking that question.
ROGINSKY: I want to work out with him, but I don`t think he`s going to be the president.
BECK: We`re asking now who`s going to get the nominee based on what you know right now. Is it going to be Romney, anybody for Romney?
ROGINSKY: No.
HOLMES: Possibly.
BECK: John McCain?
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: ... not going to pick a person, but of course he could be.
ROGINSKY: I think McCain`s going to be the nominee, by default. Purely by default, he`s going to be the nominee.
BECK: You think that if Giuliani tubes, you think people will go with McCain over Romney?
ROGINSKY: I think people are going to go with McCain over Romney for a whole host of reasons. And we can go into them if you want, but I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, the Republican establishment always nominates the front-runner. It`s going to be Romney -- it`s going to be McCain.
ALLEN: Well, and it has to do with his argument. Ironically, he makes the exact same argument and almost the exact same words that Senator Clinton`s aides do, and that is that he`s been ready to be president from day one. No on the job training, he told me on...
BECK: You know what? You might be right, only because...
ROGINSKY: I can`t believe -- this is a breakthrough for us.
BECK: I know, only because of this. It seems as though we get the same bull crap every single election.
ROGINSKY: I could not agree with you more.
BECK: And it would be McCain and Clinton. That`s what it would be.
ROGINSKY: My money`s on McCain and Clinton right now.
BECK: Oh, don`t say that.
Amy, please give me some hope on that.
HOLMES: Well, I don`t think we`re going to go necessarily with the establishment candidates. Barack didn`t do so well in the campaign, but he has twice as many funders as Clinton, and he right now is a fundraising juggernaut. And, you know, Mitt Romney, you have something against his man tan. I don`t know...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: I`m actually a big fan of Mitt Romney. It is. He`s so damn good looking. He`s an audio animatronic from Disneyworld.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: Oh, come on.
All right, let me go through the -- let me go through the match-ups, then. Who would win in a match-up between Clinton and Giuliani?
HOLMES: The Republican every time.
ROGINSKY: Oh, you know why the Republican is going to lose, whoever it`s going to be? Because of the Iraq war. Seventy percent of the people disagree with it, and none of these guys have the nerve to stand up and say the president`s going in the wrong direction. They keep it up, not only is the Republicans going to lose the White House, they`re going to lose more seats in Congress, too.
RASMUSSEN: The Democrats have not repaired their brand on terrorism and national defense.
BECK: Yes, if somebody does that, they will. All right.
So, let`s go, Hillary-Romney, who wins?
ROGINSKY: Hillary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary.
BECK: Hillary-McCain?
ROGINSKY: Hillary.
HOLMES: McCain.
BECK: Let`s go to Barack Obama and Giuliani.
RASMUSSEN: You know, that is impossible to call, because they`re both unpredictable at this point in time. And there is a campaign between now and the election that might have some impact on that one.
BECK: What are you guys trying to -- this is freaking television, man. Why all of a sudden do I get the principal`s guests? Jeez.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Let me just say this. And I believe this, and I don`t even say this as a Democrat. I say this as somebody who reads polls. At the end of the day, if these guys keep it up in Iraq, which the vast majority of the American people disagree with them on, and that`s the number one issue...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: What you don`t understand is, if you keep this up with the Democrats, you are not going to be able to be strong on anything by next February.
ROGINSKY: What are you talking about?
BECK: About the way you are just -- we`re losing the war. Let me show you...
ROGINSKY: Did I say that? Wait a second, did I say that we were losing the war? That`s not what I said.
BECK: Excuse me, Harry Reid?
ROGINSKY: Am I Harry Reid?
BECK: No.
ROGINSKY: Well, then don`t...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: You represent the Democratic side. You`re a Democratic strategist.
ROGINSKY: We`re a big tent.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Don`t put my words into Harry Reid`s mouth, either. Come on.
BECK: You`re a huge tent. As long as everybody in it belongs to MoveOn.org.
ROGINSKY: No, I don`t belong to MoveOn.org, but I welcome them in my tent.
BECK: Back in a minute. Scott, Amy, Julie, Mike, thank you for your time. We`ll be back in just a second with some mail.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: All right, let`s answer some of your letters and e-mails, but today all of your questions are going to be about my favorite topic, politics. Our first letter comes in from Maria in Boston. She writes, "Dear Glenn, I don`t know much about him, and I have no clue where he stands on the issues, but that Mitt Romney fellow really floats my boat. He just seems so dashing, like a movie star. Who do you think will play him in a movie?"
Maria, I agree. Governor Mitt Romney, from your state, is dreamy, broad shoulders, perfect hair, smile that makes your knees buckle, doesn`t it? But to answer your question, I believe it would be George Hamilton. I think he`d make a great Mitt Romney. Look at the two of them next to each other. I mean, they look like they were separated at birth. Come to think of it, I have never seen Mitt Romney and George Hamilton in the same room.
Our next question comes to us from Jordy in Baltimore. Jordy writes, "Dear Glenn, these presidential debates are a huge bore. I brewed a huge pot of coffee and tried to stay up and watch them last night, but I still conked out after about 10 minutes. Not even Chris Matthews shouting his questions could wake me up. What could we do to make these debates livelier?"
You know, very good question, Jordy. First of all, let me just say, amen. But, actually, I do have some tips that I think would make the debates a little less painful to watch. First of all, I say we let Jerry Bruckheimer produce them, you know, the guy who did "The Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Bad Boys" and "Armageddon." Wouldn`t it be cool, right in the middle of a question, like if a giant asteroid came -- better yet, that big plane, just slamming into the back right behind the candidates? Wouldn`t that have been good?
My second suggestion would be lasers. Really a no-brainer there. And my third way to spice up the debates would be: Make them actual debate. No moderator. Make the candidates ask each other honest questions, not pre-packaged questions. Let them address each other directly. Maybe then we`ll see a healthy, robust discussion, instead of some, you know, talking head spewing out overly rehearsed sound bites.
I`m really anxious to see some real people that can have actual conversations with the American people. And if that doesn`t work, just go back to the giant rock and the lasers.
That`s all for tonight. From New York, I`m Glenn Beck. We`ll see you Monday. Good night.
END
