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Glenn Beck
Will Michelle Obama Help or Hurt Husband?; Can McCain Convince Christian Right?
Aired June 11, 2008 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE PAGLIARULO, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, Michelle Obama drama. She`s the wife of one of the most charismatic candidates in decades. But will she be an asset or a liability in the election?
Plus, nobody likes paying $4 a gallon for gas, but is there a silver lining here? I`ll tell you why some people should be embracing soaring gas prices.
And what to do with Hillary? How does Obama win over his former rival`s supporters? We`ll have some ideas.
All this and more tonight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAGLIARULO: Hello, America. I`m Joe Pagliarulo, Joe Pags, in for Glenn Beck once again while he continues his comedy stage tour. Make sure you`re checking that out.
Tonight, while everyone is talking about the messiah-like ascension of Barack Obama to likely presidential -- Democratic presidential nominee and which individual he might choose as his right hand, I want to talk about the person he`s already chosen to be by his side, his wife, Michelle.
You might remember her from such fun stump statements as, quote, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country." She added the "really" later on. And the quasi-socialist sentiment of, quote, "Someone`s going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more."
I love pie.
So does Michelle Obama, as one political observer put it to "The New York Times," does she present a, quote, "target-rich environment for the GOP"? Will she be an asset or a liability to her husband come November?
Here to help me out with the heavy lifting tonight is Amy Holmes, former speechwriter for Bill Frist while he was Senate majority leader and current CNN political contributor.
Amy, really, really glad to have you here.
AMY HOLMES, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Nice being with you.
PAGLIARULO: When we take a look at Michelle Obama, she`s different from any other first lady, potential first lady, for the simple reason that she`s not standing by or even behind her man. Many times she`s out in front of her man. She is the campaign, to me, in many places. He`s there, she`s there almost on an equal level, trying to get the message out.
HOLMES: Well, sure, she`s on the stump for him. And she has Oprah Winfrey as a friend.
PAGLIARULO: That`s right.
HOLMES: Helping her out with that. But getting back to the point, is Michelle Obama going to be target? Clearly, the Obama campaign thinks so.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: Because she`s already started to dial back with that rhetoric. Some of her stuff on the campaign stump, this is a woman who`s lived the American dream.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: And she would describe like it a nightmare. This is a woman whose family makes upwards of half a million dollars a year. And she`d talk about how she struggled to make ends meet. She`s turning that rhetoric around.
And you know, you know something that`s funny that I`ve seen with the Obama campaign. That the media says, nothing to see here. Nothing to look at.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: Jeremiah Wright, you know, guilt by association. That`s unfair. The flag pin, oh, that`s a petty issue.
But guess what? The Obama camp is responding to each and every one. He disavowed -- he disavowed Jeremiah Wright.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: He dumped his church.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: Started wearing the flag pin. Now we have Michelle Barack -- Michelle Obama dialing back her rhetoric. And then just today, Jim Johnson is stepping down from his post.
PAGLIARULO: I predicted this yesterday right here on this very program. James Johnson was going to be a problem about a day and half and then he was going to go away. Just like Jeremiah Wright had to go away, just like the flag pin had to show up. You`re right. They are responding to the criticism, while at the same time saying it`s unfair to have this criticism.
As a matter of fact, Barack Obama himself said, "Lay off my wife." And oh, we felt so bad for her and for him.
Asset or liability? I say she`s going to be a big-time liability, unless this pulling her back continues. I don`t think she`s of the personality. She`s an A-type, probably, like I am. I don`t think that her personality is going to be such that she can stand behind her -- she can stand behind him. And as a matter of fact, she`s shown that over and over and over again.
Can she, though -- this is the important part for Democrats. Can she go relate to the electorate out there, to voting public who is not in the base? I say maybe not.
HOLMES: I think she has to soften her image considerably. We saw back in 1992 that Bill Clinton and Hillary had this buy one, get one free.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: Like, new idea, the co-presidency. Americans really didn`t like that.
PAGLIARULO: No.
HOLMES: They`re voting for the person on the ticket. The first lady is an unelected office, and when Hillary Clinton tried to do health care for him, that went down in flames. So I think Michelle, she`s going to have to stand behind her husband, support him. Clearly, she should be out on the stump.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: She should be going to places where he can`t, just because of scheduling. You know, you need to put your people out there.
PAGLIARULO: But don`t...
HOLMES: Yes, but this stuff about, "I can`t make ends meet on $500,000 a year." People are just not going to relate.
PAGLIARULO: All right. Listen, we`ve got to turn to today`s political panel. We`ve got a great one here: Kenneth Vogel, senior reporter for the Politico; Laura Schwartz, a political analyst and special assistant to the Clinton administration. Laura, I`m so sorry about that.
And Chris Wilson, Republican strategist and CEO of Wilson Research Strategies.
I`m glad that you`re all here.
Laura, I`m going to go right to you. I think Michelle Obama already has hurt his husband`s campaign. Where are you on this?
LAURA SCHWARTZ, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I`m the opposite, Joe. Surprise, surprise. I find her to be an asset.
When you look at Iowa, for example, she was known as, and "The Chicago Sun-Times" there in Chicago calls her the closer. Because the more people get to know her, the more that they like her. And she did very well in Iowa, throughout the state, which is predominantly white and blue-collar workers.
And around the country, you pulled out some of the things that she`s said. I`m sure she regrets how she put them, you know. Instead of saying, "Somebody who has a bigger slice of the pie. Let`s just even out the slices of the pie." These are political speaks that she`s not really familiar with, because she is not the politician.
PAGLIARULO: If she regrets it -- yes, but Laura, is she regrets it, she never -- hold on a second. If she regrets it, she never said she regretted it. And that`s a problem for somebody like me.
SCHWARTZ: Well, she doesn`t have to. I`m sorry, she doesn`t have to regret it, but maybe the phrasing of it. You know, she added the "really proud of America" after it came out. Because again, she`s not parsing her words. Unfortunately, so many politicians have to do every day.
HOLMES: But Laura -- hi, it`s Amy.
SCHWARTZ: Hey, Amy.
HOLMES: Great to see you. But looking at her pie statement, for example, that`s not a political gaffe. That`s not a slip. That`s a fundamental misunderstanding about how the economy works. It is not a fixed pie. It`s a pie that ought to be growing, and everybody gets a bigger slice.
SCHWARTZ: You`re absolutely right. Amy, it should be growing. But what`s happened? It hasn`t grown. The rich are getting richer; the poor are getting poorer.
HOLMES: But the policies that she`s promoting when she says "piece of the pie" is income redistribution. It`s not economic stimulation.
PAGLIARULO: Socialism.
SCHWARTZ: So there you go again with parsing political words. This is how she sees it.
And I think she`s been a very strong advocate. Again, she`s given many speeches about human rights, civil rights, fathers and mothers and children and health care. We can`t overlook those other powerful statements that she`s made as a working mom herself.
PAGLIARULO: All right. Ken, I`ve got to bring you in here. Now what`s the deal? When you look at this as just a political analyst, and you say, all right. Did she help? Did she hurt? You`ve got to give me answer. Which one did she do?
KEN VOGEL, POLITICO: Clearly, she has a role to play in this campaign. It`s an important one, and that is to humanize her husband. You know, Republicans are already trying to cast Barack Obama as sort of an out-of-touch elitist. She can do a little bit to counter that, presenting him as a father and as a, you know, a doting dad. And giving information about him that really shows that he is sort of just one of us. You know, she talks about him leaving his socks behind. Maybe that`s a little bit too much information.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
VOGEL: But it certainly goes to this idea that he is a person and that she is part of this relationship.
However, she also has to be very careful that she`s reading off the same page when it comes to, really, sort of central parts of the message, like what you`re talking about: dividing up the pie, being proud to be an American. Because those statements can be used to build a narrative that suggests that he is either not patriotic when you put the statement that she is proud to be an American with the first time, with Jeremiah Wright, with the lack of flag pin for a while.
This -- these are all going to be used to kind of build a narrative that paints Barack Obama into a bit of a corner. So she can help, but she has to be careful.
HOLMES: So Chris, to that point with those statements, is there, you know, a risk of Republican -- of overdoing it? Is there risk of backlash, going after the spouse of the candidate, picking on a girl?
CHRIS WILSON, WILSON RESEARCH STRATEGIES: Oh, sure. There`s always a risk of that. That`s why I don`t think you`ll see Michelle Obama become a major issue in the campaign.
But from the overall standpoint of the -- of the whole story that`s being told about Obama and who he is and this idea that he is sort of an elitist and he is out of touch. Michelle Obama`s comments play right into that.
And even more so than her comments and sort of the elitist, offensive comments about first time I`ve been proud of my country. A lot of people have spouses that have not been nominee for president, that have been proud of their country before that.
But beyond that, she`s a distraction in the campaign. And that`s the biggest liability here. Every time she makes a statement like this, Obama is off message. He`s got to explain it and he`s got to deal with it. He`s got to defend his wife, as he should. But it takes him off message. And so from a political standpoint that`s the biggest liability.
PAGLIARULO: Hey, Laura, I`ve got to bring you back in here. OK. So nobody`s talking Cindy McCain much. And for some reason, they`re making comparisons, too. Why attack Michelle Obama and not Cindy McCain? I mean, it`s like what I said off the top of the show.
She`s basically standing behind her man and not getting out in the forefront. She`s pulling for him. She wants him to win, certainly. But Michelle Obama to me, he is out there holding almost simultaneous, you know, gatherings of 50,000 to 100,000 people, as her husband is. Isn`t she sort of running along him?
SCHWARTZ: Well, you know, I think every presidential spouse runs along with them. Now, Cindy McCain has not -- has chosen not to do as many events.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
SCHWARTZ: She`s much quieter. Although next -- now with Michelle Obama, you got a guy, Barack Obama, who`s not really as well known as John McCain. So by using Michelle Obama out on the road, to speak to the man, the husband, the father, the community organizer, what makes him tick, what makes him passionate, that`s really good, because it allows those folks out there to get to know Barack Obama and then let him come in, talk about his policies. And then they have more of a full view of the guy. So that is a real asset to him. And you have to use someone who`s close to you to do that. And the wife is a perfect person to start with.
HOLMES: Last question to Ken from Amy. Is Michelle Obama redefining what it is to be a political spouse and a presidential -- and potentially a first lady, should she get to the White House?
VOGEL: Well, I`m not sure. I mean, we`ve seen political spouses come in all shapes and varieties, from Cindy McCain, who`s very much in the background, to Bill Clinton, who is very much in the forefront, perhaps to the detriment of his spouse.
So Michelle Obama is going to try to find a sort of happy medium here, where she`s helping him, but she`s also being careful to be on message.
PAGLIARULO: If nothing else, we`ve gotten this from the Obamas. Come on, Amy. Fist pump.
Laura, Ken, Chris, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We`ll talk to you again in a bit.
Amy and I are back in a minute. Coming up right here, conservative strategist and best-selling author, Ralph Reed`s new political thriller draws strange similarities to our country`s current political climate. He`s going to stop by to walk us through all of it.
And we`ll look at what`s next for Senator Hillary Clinton. Running mate, a cabinet position? How about a seat on the Supreme Court? Some fairly hefty consolation prizes being discussed. We`ll look into their practicality.
And just a reminder: what better gift for Dad this Father`s Day than an autographed copy of the "An Inconvenient Book"? That`s right. Keep Dad well-prepared this political season with Glenn`s solutions to our world`s biggest problems. Order it right now and get it in time for Father`s Day. These special autographed editions are available only at GlennBeck.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAGLIARULO: Coming up, Senator Clinton may be out of the presidential race. But behind the scenes maneuvering continues. Why the Obama campaign may still have a Hillary-sized headache on its hands.
But first does any of this sound familiar? The first African-American presidential nominee fights his female opponent all of the way to the Democratic convention. And a Republican national security conservative has problems with evangelicals. And a sex scandal on the eve of the election sends America into chaos.
OK. Almost everything up until that last part about the sex scandal. Well, that`s pretty much true, right? But who knows? It`s still early.
Nonetheless, the Christian Coalition`s former executive director`s first crack at fiction bears more than a passing resemblance to reality. The book is called "Dark Horse," and the guest is author Ralph Reed.
Ralph, thank you so much for joining us. I`m here with Amy Holmes. We appreciate you taking the time today.
RALPH REED, AUTHOR, "DARK HORSE": You bet. Thanks for having me, Joe.
PAGLIARULO: All right. The bottom line is this: you actually wrote this, what, last week? There`s no one you wrote this thing a couple of years ago, right?
REED: No, I did. I started writing it in the fall of 2006. And keep in mind, I can`t claim many predictive powers, because at the time, I thought what I think everybody thought, which was that Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination.
So when I have the woman as the vice president instead of the presidential nomination, I knew I probably wasn`t writing something that would turn out to be true. And -- and lo and behold, here we are. So I guess life is imitating fiction in that respect.
HOLMES: Ralph, this is Amy Holmes here.
REED: Hey, Amy.
HOLMES: Boy, you really do have a line up for writing this plot line. Getting back to politics, you know, with that Republican conservative who`s having trouble with evangelicals, that sounds like John McCain.
REED: Right.
HOLMES: Let`s face it. This isn`t a guy with an evangelical sensibility. So what does he do?
REED: Well, you know, I think one of the great myths, and I talk about this in "Dark Horse," is that evangelicals vote because you necessarily go to same church they do or you worship God exactly the way they do.
Amy, if that were true, they wouldn`t have voted for the first divorced man to ever sit in the Oval Office, namely Ronald Reagan, who didn`t frequently attend church and said that they didn`t use the term "born again" in his church. The reason why they voted for Reagan was, even if he didn`t always share their exact theology, he shared their stance on the issues. Conservative judges, sanctity of life, centrality of the family, lower taxes.
John McCain needs to go out and talk about those issues and connect with grassroots conservative on faith on the values that beat in their hearts and -- and that burn in their souls.
PAGLIARULO: Yes, but Ralph, I`ve got to throw this at you. I mean the bottom line, though, is, Ronald Reagan can go and fire up a crowd no matter where he went with his humor, with his sarcasm, with his wholesomeness, his deep from his soul.
You know, listen, this is -- we know where he was coming from. John McCain has got a problem in this election, in my not very humble opinion. Because Barack Obama comes off as the evangelical. This guy can gather 100,000 people, and they could start fainting in front of him. Because the words coming out of his mouth are, even more specifically, because of how he has those words coming out of his mouth.
He speaks from the soul. John McCain may be, but it doesn`t sound like he is. Isn`t that a problem?
REED: Well, look, Obama is a formidable candidate. And we just saw that in the Democratic primary, where he beat the Clinton juggernaut and the Clinton machine, which was the most feared force in the Democratic Party for the last 20 years. So he`s a formidable candidate.
But in addition to all of those things you point out, Joe, he`s also for the largest tax increase in America history. He wants to double the capital gains tax. He`s for abortion on demand for any reason or no reason at all through the ninth month of pregnancy. He opposes the partial birth abortion ban. He voted against John Roberts for the U.S. Supreme Court. He will appoint judges who will clearly be legislating from the bench rather than interpreting the law.
And in every one of those areas, he`s completely out of sync with the grassroots conservatives of faith in America, which is about 24 million votes. I don`t think he`s going to be able to close the sale.
HOLMES: But how does John McCain, again, how does he fire up those people who are going to be putting their lives on hold to go to the phone bank? To putting bumper stickers on their cars.
And we know that John McCain still hasn`t met with James Dobson, does not have his support.
REED: Right.
HOLMES: We also know that he -- there`s a lot of suspicion about John McCain because of statements he made that were aggressive about evangelicals. The whole business about agents of intolerance. How does he get over this? Let`s say the campaign is listening to us tonight, hanging on our every word.
PAGLIARULO: And they are, yes.
HOLMES: What does he need to do tomorrow to get them fired up?
REED: Well, my -- let me offer a little unsolicited advice to the McCain campaign. I would say, first of all, have those meetings. Sit down with those religious leaders. I would have private, off-the-record meetings, no holds barred, be totally transparent with them.
Say, "Look, you`re not going to agree with me 100 percent of the time, but 95 percent of the time, you`re going to agree with you." That`s No. 1.
No. 2, just as the other day, I mean, he went to Wake Forest University and gave a terrific speech on his conservative judicial philosophy, do more of that. Talk about the centrality of family. React as he did to the California marriage decision, by the California Supreme Court, ruling that same-sex marriage should be codified in law.
There are things that he can do to emphasize his pro-family, pro-life credentials. And if he does that -- look, if you look at the polling today, he`s already, today, getting the votes of 87 percent of all Republicans and about 67 percent of all evangelicals.
PAGLIARULO: Let me say something.
REED: He has already made a lot of progress.
PAGLIARULO: Hold on a second. But Ralph, as much sense as that makes, listen, John Kerry, who could not be stiffer and less evangelical in my mind, got 20 plus percent of evangelicals in `04. Barack Obama is eight times better than Kerry out there on the stump. This is going to be a major problem for McCain. If he doesn`t -- as Amy suggested, doesn`t start talking to these leaders today.
And he can make a great speech at Wake Forest. It doesn`t really matter, if he`s not sitting down and saying, "Look, I`m holding hands with them. I`m arm-in-arm with; I believe in what these people are saying." He`s got to do today. No?
REED: I don`t -- I don`t know if he has to do it today. But he clearly has to do it between now and the Minneapolis convention, in the first week of September.
But let me just interject, if I can, a word of caution. Don`t extrapolate from where John McCain is in June to where he`s going to be in November. Remember that if we were having this conversation in the spring of 1988, you would have been telling me that conservative evangelicals were unexcited about George H.W. Bush.
PAGLIARULO: Well, they were.
REED: But after he picked Dan Quayle, he had a great convention, and he ran on conservative themes and issues, he got 82 percent of their votes, more than George W. Bush did in 2004.
This idea that you have to, necessarily, be as great a speaker as Barack Obama or as smooth as a salesman as Bill Clinton, that`s not true. These are sophisticated voters. They vote on issues and on values and character. And John McCain can make a strong case on all three of those.
PAGLIARULO: We could probably do eight segments with you. Ralph Reed, author of the new political thriller, "Dark Horse." Thank you very much.
Coming up right here, Glenn likes to say you can`t recover until you hit rock bottom, right? Well, that`s bad news for the GOP, as former House majority leader Tom DeLay says his party isn`t there yet. Is the road ahead a long one for the Republicans?
And an iconic image of world famous New York City`s skyline is being sold. I`ll tell you which landmark skyscraper may fetch as much as $800 million and who is behind this offer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAGLIARULO: Welcome back. Joe Pags, along with Amy Holmes.
And you know, we want to talk about the GOP. The Republican structure has just crumbled, and you and I were talking about this before the show. The reason why this happened, because so many people believe that the PR from the Democrat side. It`s my opinion, anyway.
The Democrats went for the Republicans: this is a problem. This is no good. Things aren`t good. Is your life good? Life isn`t any good. Even if your life is good, they`re trying to convince you that it wasn`t and that PR campaign worked big-time in the 2006 mid-term elections.
Now going into 2008 general election, Republicans have a major problem here. Tom DeLay`s out in front of this. Tom DeLay, who I think is partially to blame for the GOP structure breaking down.
Where are you on this? What do you think happened to Republicans? And can they rebuild it?
HOLMES: Well, Republicans helped Democrats when they were spending like drunken sailors. For Tom DeLay to be saying that the GOP is falling apart. I think he needs to take his share of the blame there.
I think Republicans, they need to get back to core conservative values. It can`t be Democratic light. Because if you want a Democrat, you`ll vote for a Democrat.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: They have to offer a real contrast, a real alternative. They need to get back to smaller government, individual liberty, protecting individual property. They need to get back to why we are for smaller government, that whole message. And I think they`ll do a lot better. Maybe not this time around.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: Not looking good.
PAGLIARULO: I think it`s looking good for the presidential election, to be honest with you. But as far as the -- as far as Congress, I don`t think so. I think you`re right about that.
What`s interesting is you mentioned drunken sailors. They were spending money like it was just -- it was -- it was never going to end. And they became very much like Democrats.
Now, they`re acting like Democrats. And when the Democrats get in, people think there`s going to be change. When in reality, it`s going to be much of the same, times eight.
HOLMES: Well, I think another place, where you talk about the PR, Republicans have not been good at reminding the American people and the voter, who`s been in charge of the House and the Senate for the past two years?
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: It`s a Democratic leadership. And they haven`t gotten done. We`re still dealing with these gas prices. Nothing`s been done there. You have your Democrats going off on these, you know, wild chases with oil executives and not really bringing down the price of gas. So Republicans need to drive that point home.
You know what else? Let`s face it: there`s an unpopular president sitting in the White House, and the public blames him for a lot of what`s going on right now.
PAGLIARULO: An unpopular president who has ties to oil, who people want to blame for the oil. But he didn`t do it. You`re right. The Congress has been Democratic. And gas prices two years ago were what? They weren`t $4.50 a gallon.
HOLMES: What`s fascinating there, too, is that approval ratings of the Congress, those are hitting, you know, rock bottom.
PAGLIARULO: Yes, right.
HOLMES: But for some reason, the public doesn`t blame Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They blame the Republicans.
PAGLIARULO: And they`re believing, they`re believing what you hear over and over -- I use this as an example -- Barack Obama right now is running on what? Four more years of Bush. If you, in fact, elect John McCain, you get four more years of Bush. Which, by the way, he did it again today. He said, Barack Obama or George W. Bush, I`d give him another term. I honestly do.
But he`s going to keep pounding that, pounding that, pounding that until people say, "Oh, man, I just don`t want four more years of Bush."
People call my radio shows and say, "Please, don`t give me four more years of Bush," only because Barack Obama`s saying it. How is it that the era of Reagan, the Republicans were the great PR people. They were the great people who could really make you believe where they came from and stand behind their words.
How did the Democrats get that away from them?
HOLMES: Well, I think you have a lot of help with the media being able to -- excuse me, advancing.
PAGLIARULO: Yes?
HOLMES: The media advancing, advancing those sort of three more years of Bush line.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: But, I`ve been in Washington a long time. And I`ve heard Republicans complain, complain that Democrats, they out-PR them, out-media them every day. And where they have their strength is with their people on the ground, their troops, evangelicals, all those constituencies -- constituencies that overwhelm the media message.
PAGLIARULO: Core values, if they would have stuck to them, but they didn`t stick to them. On immigration, not on gas prices, not on small government, any of that.
HOLMES: Yes.
PAGLIARULO: You`re very smart.
HOLMES: Thank you.
PAGLIARULO: I could talk all day.
HOLMES: You`re not bad either.
PAGLIARULO: Hey, thanks.
Coming up right here, Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton? Scary thought for sure. But you never know, especially if Obama wins the White House. We`ll explain right after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAGLIARULO: Coming up right here, as our nation`s economy continues to struggle, hard-working Americans are finding it harder and harder to save money, especially those living on a fixed income. So how does one save for retirement in these tough times? Ben Stein stops by with his suggestions in just a bit.
But first, unless you`ve been living under a rock, you know that Senator Barack Obama has been beaten Senator Hillary Clinton in the race to become the likely Democratic nominee for president. Now we get speculation about what role she`s going to play in an Obama administration.
Amy Holmes is back with me.
And you know, Amy, this is interesting, because she`s got 18 million people who voted for her.
HOLMES: Indeed.
PAGLIARULO: That is a ton of people. He can`t turn his back on those people. My radios shows in Houston and San Antonio, every day, I get callers call in to say, "I supported Hillary, I`m mad at what Barack Obama did to her. I am not going to vote for him, I`m going to vote for McCain."
How does he possibly rally those 18 million? He`s got to do something for her, right?
HOLMES: Well, they`ve got to be talking about something for her to do in his administration, whether that`s being a senator, staying in the Senate and leading health care reform, for example.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: You hear these ideas floating around -- Supreme Court justice, Senate majority leader. I don`t see either one of those things happening.
PAGLIARULO: Good. I hope you`re right.
HOLMES: I mean, is Harry Reid just going to step aside and say, oh, Hillary, I`m really sorry about that election. Here, take my job?
PAGLIARULO: Yes -- no.
HOLMES: I don`t think so.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: But you know, something that strikes me about this is, you know, Democrats complain about Hillary`s entitlement mentality.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: Well, it`s Democrats who gave it to her. Who would have a guessed that a first lady who had never won elected office would be encouraged to run for the Senate from a state she never lived in?
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: And then from there to be running for president of the United States.
We didn`t see John Kerry telling the Democratic Party back in 2004, you know, I got, what, over 50 million votes...
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: ... I deserve to be leader of this party. No. He lost and he went back to the Senate.
PAGLIARULO: They shooed him aside, yes.
HOLMES: They shooed him aside. But I also think maybe Barack Obama`s floating this around to keep her supporters on his -- in his camp, or to try to woo them into his camp.
PAGLIARULO: Yes. But you know what? At the end of the day, he`s got to do something for her, whether it`s Supreme Court justice -- please, no - - vice presidential candidate -- please, yes, because then you`ll lose.
He`s got to do something. I`ve heard secretary of state. So have you.
If he doesn`t do something, a real overture to her that, I`m propping up Hillary, I believe in her, maybe he grabs a hold of one of her causes. You`ve heard this too, right?
HOLMES: He`s got to do it.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: I mean, those are 18 million voters. Let`s face it, they basically split the Democratic Party in half.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: And she, even by her own calculations, she says that she won the popular vote in the Democratic primary.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
HOLMES: So to keep the party together for the sake of unity and beating John McCain in November, he`s going to have to give her a fairly prominent role, both in the campaign and then possibly promise something once the campaign is over.
PAGLIARULO: Hold that thought.
Joining us now again is our political panel: Kenneth Vogel, a senior reporter from Politico; Laura Schwartz, a political analyst and former special assistant to the Clinton administration.
Laura, I`m so sorry.
And Chris Wilson, Republican strategist and CEO of Wilson Research Strategies.
Laura, you`re so easy to pick on because I like you that much.
Look, 18 million voters here. Eighteen million votes for Hillary Clinton. And you know what? John McCain, if he`s got any intelligence at all, and he does, his people will go after these voters because they`re right for the picking right now.
You agree or disagree that he can get them??
SCHWARTZ: Well, I don`t think he can get them and I`ll tell you why.
Just in the last week, Barack Obama went from five points ahead of McCain among women in America to 13 points ahead of McCain in women. And that is because the more these women get to know John McCain, they find out he`s anti-choice, he`s pro-war. There are things on his agenda that simply do not match the agenda of even those women in the Democratic Party that voted for Hillary Clinton.
Amy just mentioned, you know, 18 million voters, that`s a lot. And it almost split the Democratic Party in half. But they`re still Democrats.
And as Hillary Clinton said throughout -- and I really praise her for this -- that, hey, if you think there are differences between me and Barack Obama, wait until the general campaign. There are far more differences with John McCain. And I think that`s what we`re seeing.
Now, Barack Obama has got to work at getting those voters, hands down. When he`s out there this week, next, in the coming weeks, all the way through November, he has got to reach out to the voters and talk to Hillary`s voters, whether they`re the white, the blue collar, the women. And really talk about what he`s going to do for them. He`s got to earn their vote.
HOLMES: I agree with you he has to earn their vote, but you`re picking a very specific statistic. And that is the female vote.
What about those white, working-class voters that he did so poorly with them, and that have been opened to the Republican message? Let`s talk about those Reagan Democrats that Barack Obama, he, like, looked down his nose at when he made that statement in San Francisco, "clinging to guns and religion."
SCHWARTZ: Well...
HOLMES: Now, getting -- just a question. Getting off the talking points of, you know, supporting the Democratic nominee, if you were advising John McCain, what would you tell him to do to try to get some of those potential McCain Democrats?
PAGLIARULO: She`s not going to advise John McCain. Come on.
SCHWARTZ: Well, first of all, I`m Independent. And I`m not the talking points girl, Amy. But I do believe that Barack Obama can get those women for the specific reasons that I just said.
As far as blue collar workers, also as I said, he`s going to have to earn their votes. He`s doing a forum today on credit cards. He`s going to be talking about the economy in a sense that I believe both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton can help him work at when you go in those smaller rural areas where Hillary did exceptionally well at, and she will be an advocate for him, an asset, both for the Barack Obama campaign and for her own political career.
PAGLIARULO: I`ve got to jump in here, Laura.
SCHWARTZ: OK.
PAGLIARULO: And I want to bring in Chris in, because Chris is as Independent as you are.
Hey, Chris, so if you`re the John McCain camp, and you`re taking a look at what`s going on with Hillary Clinton, first of all, you like that the Democrats were split down the middle just about. And you`ve got 18 million potential voters here. John McCain`s more of a centrist, if not a liberal, Republican.
He`s got to be champing at the bit, no?
WILSON: Well, he is. And you look at the numbers, I mean, there`s a few things here.
To Laura`s point about the bounce that Obama go, that`s to be expected. When a candidate wins the nominee they get a bounce. And in fact, if you look historically, Obama`s bounce is actually less than you would have expected over time.
Second, you look at Hillary Clinton`s voters coming out of these primaries, you had from a minimum of 1 in 7 to as many as 40 percent in states like Kentucky and West Virginia who said they would vote for John McCain over Barack Obama.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
WILSON: I mean, that`s a problem that he has not fixed. He has to have Hillary Clinton involved in this campaign to get it fixed, but I think you`re as likely to see that happen as you are to see Donald Trump and Rosie O`Donnell go do their own TV show.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: I wouldn`t estimate those two folks. They might actually get together and do that show.
WILSON: Whatever it takes for ratings.
Ken, a question to you. What is the likelihood of Barack Obama putting Hillary Clinton on his ticket?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it`s a little bit more likely than Donald Trump and Rosie O`Donnell having a TV show.
PAGLIARULO: Only a little.
But not a whole lot more likely, and here`s why. Though she would definitely bring the demographic appeal that Obama had trouble with, you know, the white working-class voters, Hispanics, women, she would also bring a tremendous -- sort of a polarizing influence that would put off moderates and Independents. Obama can find a vice presidential nominee who would appeal to those same demographics without having that kind of baggage, and that`s what I think he`ll try to do.
HOLMES: And Ken, you know, reporting and hearing, you know, the scuttlebutt on the ground, would Obama really want the Clintons down the hall where he -- arriving at the White House? Does he want the baggage parked in the vice president`s office?
VOGEL: Well, it`s not only that. You know, the theoretical possibilities of what happens when -- if he`s elected -- but rather what happens on the campaign trail.
You look at Bill Clinton, again, arguably did more harm than good for his wife`s campaign. There`s no way that Bill Clinton is going be silenced or leashed during an Obama/Clinton presidential campaign. That`s another thing they have to consider.
PAGLIARULO: Ken, I want to thank you right now, because we might lose your satellite window, actually. Thank you for taking the time.
Laura, back to you. OK, as an Independent who leans left -- I`ll call you that, if you don`t mind.
SCHWARTZ: No, that`s good. That`s good.
PAGLIARULO: OK. What do you want him to do with Hillary Clinton? Do you want her to be the vice presidential nominee? Do you want her to be a Supreme Court justice, the secretary of state? Do you care? Does it matter?
She`s got to be involved somehow, right?
SCHWARTZ: I think she absolutely does, and especially in the campaign.
You know, before he`s elected, they just have to focus on the now to get him elected. And as I said, she really needs to do that both to rehab her legacy, as well as to promote Barack Obama.
I do not think that she should be on the ticket, because when you look at the last 15 months of the campaign, Barack Obama has been consistent with the message, whereas he`s change and she`s not. She ran as the inevitable.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
SCHWARTZ: She ran as the pseudo incumbent. Those things didn`t work for her, especially among Republicans out there that may change their parties, and those all-important Independents. They will decide this election.
So, I think having her go back to Senate to be an advocate, now, she won`t get majority leader because there`s two more senior people ahead of her to go after. Harry Reid is up in a few years. And -- but she could.
I mean, my gosh, lifelong senator. Look at Ted Kennedy. What an amazing impact she could have, even if she just goes back to the Senate.
HOLMES: Here`s a question for Chris.
Just this last weekend, I was having lunch with a McCain campaign adviser, and he was saying that they thank their lucky stars the Democrats got Barack Obama and not Hillary Clinton, that she`s a far more formidable candidate than a lot of Republicans want to admit.
Do you think her being on the ticket could actually be a tougher ticket?
WILSON: I do actually think it would be a tougher ticket. I think Laura`s right on her point that he can`t...
PAGLIARULO: Don`t be sitting here agreeing with Laura Schwartz. Don`t even.
WILSON: Well, I`ll tell you this -- Obama can`t have her on the ticket, because he was about change and she was about the inevitable. But then at the end -- but she`s right. But it`s the reason why Obama`s going to lose and McCain is gong to win.
Because in the end, Hillary Clinton became about fighting for white middle class. And the end of the day, those voters are not going to go back to Barack Obama because he will not have her as a major part of the campaign, and they`re not going to come back because they`ve already rejected Barack Obama. And that`s why in the end, John McCain is going to win this election.
PAGLIARULO: I`m also out of time.
Chris, I`ve got to ask you this very quickly. What if John McCain grabs a Joe Lieberman? Does he get a better chance at Hillary`s voters? But does he have a chance of winning with a conservative base?
WILSON: You know, that`s a really double-edged sword if there ever was one. I would say all in all, there`s a net plus, but just barely.
PAGLIARULO: All right.
Thank you very much.
That`s Chris and Laura.
And we thanked Ken before he took off.
We appreciate your knowledge, all three of you.
Amy and I will be right back.
And coming up right here, gas prices continue to hurt us all. But now, some concerns about what impact the continued drain on our wallets will have on our retirements.
Ben Stein stops by to explain.
Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAGLIARULO: All right. Gas prices, I get it. It now costs less to take my entire family to the all-you-can-eat fire-grilled shrimp special at Red Lobster -- yum -- than it does to fill up my SUV, which I love so much. And at least with the Red Lobster deal, I get dessert. But what about retirees, older Americans, like maybe your mom and dad, who are living on a fixed income and simply can`t adjust their budgets for the skyrocketing prices?
Ben Stein is the creator of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," as well as the chairperson of the National Retirement Planning Coalition.
Ben, listen, along with Amy Holmes, welcome to the program.
Wondering, why are baby boomers crying now? Isn`t it kind of late in the game?
BEN STEIN, "EXPELLED": Well, they better do some crying sometime. And now would be better than later.
What they`ve got to do is start saving immediately. And for the people who are older baby boomers, who genuinely are on a fixed income, they`re going to have to go without something. I mean, there`s nothing that`s going to be done about these high gasoline prices in the short run. So they`re going to have to do something that costs less in order to put gasoline in their tanks.
The baby boomers have got to start saving right now in variable annuities, stocks, mutual funds, ETFs. But they`ve got to do it tonight, right now.
HOLMES: Ben, I understand that you did a survey examining this, baby boomers compared to their parents and where they stand. What did you find?
STEIN: It`s a hilarious story. The baby boomers save less, have less financial discipline, have less sense about money. But they expect they`re going to live better.
I mean, that`s the peculiar thing. Why do they think they`re going to live better if they don`t have any good sense financially? They`ve got to learn the old-fashioned values of thrift and forbearance. And that will get them through. But to think you can spend all of you have now, not provide for the future, and somehow a miracle will come along and give you a home on the golf fairway, it`s just not going to happen.
PAGLIARULO: Yes. And according to the survey, Ben, I mean, it seems as though they`re blaming their parents. Their parents didn`t teach them well enough.
(CROSSTALK)
STEIN: It`s exactly like my son -- or my wife of my son, who complains he doesn`t have any work habits because we were too kind to him.
PAGLIARULO: Right.
STEIN: I mean, this is the attitude that people have. They`ve got to do it themselves. The can`t blame anybody else. Nobody`s there to rescue them.
There is no magic wand. There is no magic bullet. They have got to step up to the plate, start saving, going without. Doing things that are going to provide them with the livelihood when they`re too old to work. They`ve got to do it.
HOLMES: So, Ben, what does this mean then when it comes to reforming Social Security? What about raising retirement ages, higher taxes on Social Security? What does that mean for the rest of us who are going to be paying for them?
STEIN: It means that people who have high incomes are going to be paying a great, great deal more in Social Security taxes. If they take the cap off Social Security tax basis, it can be a staggering blow to people who have very high incomes.
I think Mr. Obama is planning, if he wins, to only take the cap up to something like $1 million. But, I mean, that`s 6 percent of a million dollars. That`s $60,000 added tax. That`s a fair amount to most people.
It`s going to be a real blow. But even that`s not going to be enough. Most people only get about 25 to 29 percent of their livelihood when they retire from Social Security. They`ve got to have their own savings. Again, there`s nobody there to do it for you. You`ve got to do it yourself.
PAGLIARULO: Hey, Ben, I`ve got to ask you about these gas prices. They`re completely out of control. It`s $4.05 a gallon as of the last time I checked today, and that`s just the national average. In some places it`s over $5 a gallon.
STEIN: It`s $5.25 near our house in Beverly Hills.
PAGLIARULO: Yes, it`s ridiculous.
OK. So, $5.25 a gallon. Some people say, you know what? This might be a good thing. If the gas prices got up $10 a gallon, maybe, just maybe, American ingenuity would kick in, right?
STEIN: Maybe. I think the price system will fix it all.
But we`ve got -- the problem is, we`ve got the legislature, namely the Congress, standing in the way and saying you can`t drill here, you can`t drill there. China can drill off the coast of Florida but America can`t.
PAGLIARULO: That`s crazy.
STEIN: You`ve got the legislators saying you can`t build new refineries, cannot change oil -- shale and coal into oil. Cannot do any of the things that would solve the problem. They`ve basically got their foot on the oxygen tube that`s feeding America.
HOLMES: And Ben, you`re an economist. Explain to me how taxing this windfall profit business, how that actually lowers the prices at the pump.
STEIN: It doesn`t lower them at all. It`s just a way of expressing and ventilating the envy that a lot of people have for the oil companies, and yet the oil companies are us.
The oil companies are us. They`re not some cabal of Texas right-wing lunatics. They`re American retirees. Those are the people who own the oil companies, American pre-retirees.
The people who work for the oil companies are, by and large, Americans. Only one or two executives there are highly paid per company. It`s just a ridiculous idea. To attack the oil companies is like shooting ourselves.
PAGLIARULO: Yes.
HOLMES: So, is there anything that we can do in terms of policy to bring the prices down? I mean, I hear the argument that you have the oil speculators that are driving the prices up, that you have China and India that are increasing demand on oil, and it`s really not American demand on oil.
What can be done at the legislative level?
STEIN: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
PAGLIARULO: And that`s exactly what`s being done -- nothing.
STEIN: Nothing can be done in the short run. In the long run, we`re going to literally run out of oil if we don`t start drilling everywhere we possibly can and start converting coal and shale and (INAUDIBLE) into oil.
It`s bad now. Think what it`s going to be like in five years, in 10 years, in 25 years. It`s going to be like "Mad Max." It`s going to be civil war over gasoline...
PAGLIARULO: Right.
STEIN: ... if we don`t start acting now and get the environmentalists off our necks.
PAGLIARULO: Well, here`s the problem. If you polled environmentalists right now, Ben, I guarantee you they would say, all right, let`s start drilling somewhere, because, you know what? Argentina - - or Venezuela, I should say, China and Cuba are going to drill 90 miles off the coast of Florida. If Canada wants to, they can probably go and get what`s hiding up there in Alaska, and we`re going to buying it from them at whatever price they want to give it to us.
STEIN: And...
PAGLIARULO: Then we`ve got politicians in Washington saying, let`s go ahead and sue OPEC to make them raise production, when we`re sitting on oil
STEIN: The behavior of our government about oil is just a mixture of envy and insanity. It doesn`t make any sense at all, and it doesn`t help anyone. All it does is hurt.
There`s got to be some sense talked into people. I saw Maxine Waters, who represents a district near me in Los Angeles, saying she wanted to nationalize the oil companies. That`s a recipe for outright catastrophe.
PAGLIARULO: Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Ben Stein, thank you so much.
STEIN: An honor.
PAGLIARULO: Coming up right here, the world famous Chrysler Building is reportedly for sale. I`ll tell you who`s willing to shell out $800 million for the storied skyscraper right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAGLIARULO: Well, it`s not surprising with the dollar reaching record lows, foreign investment in this country has escalated. What is surprising is the sort of things our overseas friends are buying. News today that the Abu Dhabi Investment Council is negotiating a deal to buy a majority stake of the landmark Chrysler Building here in New York City.
You know, I don`t want to come off politically incorrect here. I honestly don`t. But bottom line for me is, it`s fun to say Abu Dhabi, and I don`t want them to buy it, Amy. I just don`t want them to buy this building.
HOLMES: You know, there are things that just have symbolic value. I don`t know if I can get worked up over this exactly, but you remember the port deal, the Dubai port deal.
PAGLIARULO: Oh, yes.
HOLMES: And there are security implications. I`m sure this has gone, you know, through the chain. And it`s perfectly safe for America, for Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi.
PAGLIARULO: Abu Dhabi. It`s kind of fun.
HOLMES: The Chrysler Building. But, you know, come on, it`s a part of America iconography.
PAGLIARULO: Well, it is. And it`s part of the skyline that when you get to New York City, you say, that is uniquely American. And how can you say that if it`s uniquely owned by Abu Dhabi, which again is very funny. I think "Abu Dhabi," those were lyrics in a Neil Sedaka song back in the `60s.
HOLMES: Yes. Well, actually, the Chrysler Building is referenced in "Annie" in "It`s a Hard Knock Life." Now there`s a little trivia.
PAGLIARULO: Are we going to sing that one now?
HOLMES: Not tonight, I don`t think.
PAGLIARULO: It`s been a very interesting show.
You know, we had a political panel on that was very, very intelligent, which is the only kind that we like to get. And...
HOLMES: Well, I like them dumb.
PAGLIARULO: So we can just fork them over?
But the whole Hillary Clinton thing versus Michelle Obama thing, I don know that we got any answers here, but we certainly -- we worked a bunch of different angles on this.
At the end of the show here, Barack Obama -- Michelle`s going to keep going back into the distance, is your opinion.
HOLMES: I think that she`s going to recede into the distance. And I think that the media is already setting this up that, if you attack Michelle Obama, you`re a mean Republican, the kind that, you know, kicks dogs and starves babies.
And let`s remember that initially, these attacks were coming from Democrats. This was a Democratic primary, by the way.
PAGLIARULO: I`m glad you brought that up. I mean, Hillary Clinton...
(CROSSTALK)
HOLMES: It was pro-Hillary bloggers that were advancing all this stuff. Republicans were sitting back and watching the show, eating their popcorn. But, you know, be prepared that the media`s going be blamed for...
PAGLIARULO: Although you made this statement earlier before the show, that it would be stupid because her foreign policy is very different than his foreign policy. I still think Barack Obama...
HOLMES: In terms of Hillary Clinton.
PAGLIARULO: I will look at Hillary Clinton in his administration potentially as a secretary of state. What do you think?
HOLMES: There`s a possibly, but...
PAGLIARULO: No way she`s the VP.
HOLMES: No way that she`s the VP, but I think she has more longevity and more stature being in the Senate. She can become, you know, the great statesman of the Senate and be reforming or changing all of America health care.
PAGLIARULO: All right. Unbelievably, we`re just about out of time.
Really had a great time hanging out with Amy. We`re both back tomorrow.
Glenn will be back next Monday, but make sure you tune in tomorrow night, right here.
Joe Pags, signing off for now.
HOLMES: How about another one of these?
PAGLIARULO: One of these little fist pumps before we get out of here.
HOLMES: Amy Holmes signing off.
PAGLIARULO: Out of here from New York. Have a good night.
HOLMES: Good night.
END
