generation that's called on this country to step forward and save the nation and i think we're at one of those moments. so, thank you for bee willing to do that. god bless you and god bless america. >> in a city plagued by lawlessness and corruption with taxpayers suffering under an out-of-control big government shrouded in secrecy and backroom deals, who fights for transparency, accountability, the rule of law? who fights for america? a story of a group of patriots

dedicated to exposing and stopping government corruption, a story of courage and conviction, of america's watchdog in washington, the story of judicial watch. because no one is above the law. >> ladies and gentlemen scott rasmussen, founder and president of rasmussen report. >> thank you. you know, before you -- before you clap, you should remember that part of my job is to tell you things you don't like to hear. we're going to have some of that discussion as we talk about the electoral 2012 landscape. we've got a great panel here, but i want to begin with a question for you first and i want you to be honest about

this. how many of you have ever mocked or made fun of the president's call for hope and change? raise your hands. with all due respect, i'd like to say that's really stupid, and the reason for that is simple. the last three elections, 2006, '8, and '10 voters have voted against the party in power. they are unhappy with both sides. voters are looking for hope and change as much today as they were in 2008. they do realize that if we have to count on the politicians for the change, there's no hope, but they are looking for that hope, and you ought to be encouraging republican candidates, people you support, to offer that positive step forward. now, as we talk about the electoral 2012 landscape, i'm happy to have on the panel today erick erickson from

redstate.com. we've also got ralph pallow from "the washington times." and ralph reed from the faith and family foundation -- faith and freedom foundation. and as we talk about these issues just to put it in context, i want you to realize this election is being held at a special time. the last time that government spending went down in america for one year to the next was two years before i was born. that was not in the clinton era or even the jimmy carter era, dwight eisenhower was president and elvis presley recorded his first single in the same year that spending went down for the first time. the good news is voters are ready to change that. i'm not sure the politicians have caught up yet.

i wanted to ask ralph to start us off, and, ralph, the issue is very simple. right now as we look at the presidential election, we see a republican electorate that is not excited about their front-runner, but 75% of republican voters think that mitt romney will be the nominee. how do you see this playing out? >> the political landscape is littered with imponderables and improbables and unknowables far later in the contest than it usually is. and i hate to say this at a conservative political action conference, but none of these things as i see are particularly good. intensity has gone from -- usually it's with republicans. polling i've seen shows that intensity and enthusiasm about

voting is now with the democrats. i regard that as a very bad sign. the enthusiasm among republican voters for any of the candidates is dangerously low. so that if you have -- no matter who you have win this, you have to be an extreme partisan to believe it's not going on be mitt romney. he just has the money to get the job done and go all the way to the end zone. that is for the nomination. but none of these folks has the enthusiasm -- generate the enthusiasm needed in november to make -- bring more republican vote i voting independents and republican activists and so on. it seems to me that the republican party has had every

time -- i hope this is not taken as criticism of any of the candidates for the republican party. but every time the republican party puts up a candidate who is not conservative, it has lost the election. if i'm wrong on that, i'd like some data. >> well, you have been notable in your expression of dissatisfaction with the field. how did we get to this point, and what does it really mean? >> the left blames george bush for a lot of things that he's not to blame for. i actually blame bush for this. follow along here. every president generally has an ha heir apparent when they leave office, george bush had dick cheney who did not want to run, and typically what the base does, they have a referendum on the president's legacy by choosing their heir apparent or someone else. because he left the void there,

we went all the way back to 2000 and started over again, a lot of us having some of the same fights we've had and we're now at the situation where all of the candidates including romney to a degree are a bit of a victim of this void that was left by not having an heir. i think the republican party has yet to reset itself from the bush years to be able to move forward. >> ralph, on this intensity issue, has the obama administration helped the republican party in general, and more specifically, is this recent issue about the contraception mandate going to provide some of the intensity for republicans and conservatives? >> well, i think that whoever ends up being the republican nominee -- and i would guess -- take issue a little bit with my fellow ralph on the panel and say that -- >> what a shock. >> -- i've worked on every presidential campaign since 1980. i was 4 years old. and this is the most wide open,

the most topsy-turvy. think about this for a minute. there have been eight contests so far, and the front-runner has won three of them. and you've had three different winners. and sitting where we are today, with the change in the party rules so that the delegates are awarded proportionally for the most part -- i realize that later california, a lot of states in the northeast are going to be winner take all. really i would have said that the day of the convention deciding the nomination was over. and was settled by the rise of the primary. i'm not sure that will be the case in 2012, and i would say that whoever emerges from this process, whether it's romney or somebody else, will be a better and more disciplined, a tougher candidate when they have to stand on a stage with barack obama. remember, that four years ago

when barack obama had to go 12 rounds with hillary clinton and what was true in '92 when bill said, you know, you buy one, you get two, that was true in 2008 for obama as well. he didn't just take on hillary. he took on hillary, bill, and the entire clinton machine. he could have never won the general by the margin he did without first earning his spurs beating h ining them. and on this issue, scott, which is the religious liberty issue and this administration's edict that every catholic hospital in america -- and, by the way, one out of every six patients in the united states is in a bed in a catholic hospital. 90% of all the homeless shelters in america are operated by a church, a synagogue or another house of worship. one out of every ten americans below the poverty level in america, which is about 57 million americans, is a client of catholic charities. just catholic charities.

that doesn't include the southern baptist convention. it doesn't include the other denominations. and for them to be told that they have to choose between violating their conscience or providing health care to their employers shows not just an insensitivity to but an outright hostility by this president to religion and to the religious values of millions of americans. >> you know, on that point, this -- >> beyond that i have no opinion on the matter. >> the president of the united states has done something that jesus himself could not do. he has united muslims, jews, catholics, orthodoxes and southern baptists all together in opposition to it. it's striking. he really is, george bush is wrong, obama is the uniter, not the divider. >> let's put some numbers to this. in 2008 barack obama won 54% of the catholic vote.

this morning barack obama gets a 39% job approval rating from catholics. he's down 15 points. >> yeah. and, scott, is that your data? >> yes. >> okay. that's your data. add to that the pew research data. >> right. >> that shows that in 2008, this is party i.d., 49% of catholics said they were democrats, 41% said they were republicans in '08. today it's 49% republican, 42% democrat, a 15-point swing. now, those catholic ethnic voters are going to be the swing vote that will decide ohio, michigan, indiana, pennsylvania, florida, just about every battleground state. >> yeah, but what makes you think they will come out just because of what obama did on this one issue? yeah, there's been a shift, but what about back to intensity, what about feeling that they've got the vote in november or else, or else something bad

happens as far as they're concerned? >> well, i think what it does is it gives the lie to obama's argument, that obama care pose no threat to the deeply held moral beliefs of religious americans and it also -- it also gives the lie to the abortion carve-out that he did by executive order. but, ralph, i do agree with you on this, it isn't going to be enough to be anti-obama whether rum 's gingrich or whoever it is, we have to have a forward-leaning, positive conservative reform agenda that will excite and energize the grassroots. >> i want to shift gears, though, for a second. we've only got a little bit of time to cover the entire landscape. we're talking about some of the issues, but every bit of polling shows that the economy is the top issue driving election 2012. before lehman brothers collapsed, 43% of americans said their finances were in good shape. when president obama took

office, it had already fallen to 35%. by last summer, it was down to 27%, and the president's ratings were tanking. right now, 35% say their finances are in good shape, exactly the same as the date that president obama took office. if that number keeps moving up, if people feel better about the economy, is president obama a lock to win? ralph? >> i think it's a lot harder. but i don't think that will be the case. you've still got almost 1 million more people out of work today than when he took the oath of office. historically -- and, scott, i know you know this -- no one in the post-world war ii period has been re-elected as president in the year in which real personal income declined, and right now that number is down. it's not up. so, it's not just the single unemployment number, it's whether or not people feel like they've got money in their pocket. >> erick, do you think it's more

than the economy? >> i think the race should be more than the economy. unfortunately i think republicans have decided they'll go with electability instead of issues and if electability is your case and the electability is based on i can fix the economy and the economy fixes itself, then why do we necessarily need a nominee that the obama campaign is going to spend millions and millions of dollars on to be unlikable. there needs to be something more to it. ralph is right, we need to have more of an agenda. but the republicans have dropped the ball on telling the story of barack obama. they never have. they always thought that they could use the economy. there's a story to be told about barack obama. this is a man who if you want to succeed in his america, you have to be on board his campaign. he picks the winners and losers, not the free market. and there's a story to be told there that resonates i think with people in the country. i just think the republicans are dropping -- i hate to be pessimistic about an election we should win, but it seems like we are setting ourselves up to lose

if the economy improves and we should be able to beat a man who to succeed in this society he must pick you as a winner. >> ralph? >> unless the republicans -- all of these figures are interesting and they'll go back and forth and we don't know which one will be the ascendant ones and the ones that make a difference in november, but this much i believe is true. unless the nominee has a message, a simple message, he can get out in three sentences, i don't think we have a chance -- or republicans have a chance. i know every conservative here thinks of themselves as a republican, but if you think of the republican party as a repository, the only available repository of your philosophical beliefs, then the problem is you don't have any candidates so far who has demonstrated the ability to get a message out. why are any of these -- with the

exception of ron paul, why are any of these candidates running? what is it they're going to do to change america? my god, the agenda of the leadilead ing candidate, the richest candidathenominee, is 40 pages long. this is not how you do it. the problem is unless you have a core belief or a core set of beliefs and you would call that, it's hard to come up with tw or three things the way reagan did. reagan did it right. and that's going to be necessary again this time because i think the playing field right now and in november will belong to obama. he will have more money even than romney. he will have the incumbency. these are two big, big advantages. >> ralph? >> yes. >> let's go beyond the white house for a bit, what about the house and the senate in 2012?

is that looking as bleak as ralph is painting for the presidency? >> well, first of all, again, i don't want to belabor the point. but i don't think it's as bleak as ralph is making it sound, number one. i think -- i think if you look at -- i think the gallup poll last week or week before last of the top 12 battlegrounds, at that moment romney was beating obama by a point, okay? and that's before the nomination has been resolved. and usually you're stronger after the nomination than pre. now, keep in mind at that moment romney's acting as a surrogate for the pollster for a generic republican. secondly, no democrat has been elected president since the founding of the republic, not in the 20th century, not since the civil war, in the history of the united states, without carrying at least three southern states. obama carried virginia, north carolina, and florida. i don't think he'll carry one of those states.

in 2012. now, in terms -- in terms of the house and senate, i'm relatively optimistic the house will be held, and i'll tell you why. no incumbent president has gainor a re-election since world war ii, with one exception and that was lyndon johnson in 1964 and in a lot of ways that doesn't really count because it wasn't really g to on's re-elect.goin '80, it's obama '08 when it's he picked up 30 seats. it's not the re-elect. even reagan carrying 49 states and 59% of the vote, even he only picked up 15 house seats now, if you turn to the senate, i think the picture is potentially better. again, nine months out, a lot of things could change, but bob kerry bailed out of the nebraska senate race this week.

that seat is gone, so now you're at 48. assuming north dakota goes erta should, that gets you to 49. at that point to get to 51 you would have to win two of montana, new mexico, missouri, florida, ohio, and virginia, and scott brown has to be re-elected in massachusetts, and i like our chances. >> a couple of different times i have said that the scariest possible outcome in 2016 would be for the republicans to win the white house, both branches of congress and not bring about any significant change. is that the absurd scenario? >> no, i'm afraid that may be where we're headed if the republicans win, an unwillingness and inability to affect change. when you look at voters --

forget registered voters, forget about the general public. look at people who are likely to vote. people that are likely to vote are expecting real change. congress has an 11% approval rating. congress has a bad approval rating among republicans. do you know why? because the tea party that sent them to congress to effect change and they've seen them raise the debt ceiling, they've seen them compromise on spending with barack obama and they've seen them now even with the highway bill. as much as the democrats that want more spending, you've got a lot of republicans in congress who are spending too much. people across the board regardless of party want some fundamental changes in the country. i got to tell you, putting 2010 in perspective, you have to go back to the 1800s to find an election of that scale when you take into account not just federal races, but state, county, and municipal races in this country. there are cities in north carolina, south carolina, georgia where they used to be all democrat. you can't find a democrat in that county anymore after 2010.

they all became republican. now, the danger in 2012 is if we run with electability instead of big ideas for reform and then suddenly the top of the ticket doesn't look that electable, you will have a lot of people running away from the ticket who have poured money into there and don't have money to pour into state races, gubernatorial races, senate and house races. we can't just focus on the white house, we've got to focus on the house and senate and governors and state legislatures. we would be nowhere on the obama care decision without an effort by conservatives to elect conservative attorney generals. >> what would a bad turnout mean for those super pacs? >> i think a bad turnout in 2012 would actually hurt us in a number of the swing states. remember, this is the first

redistricting that the democrats have ever controlled. since the passage of the voting rights act in the 1960s, the republicans have controlled the department of justice for every census redistricting. this is the first time the democrats have ever done it since the voting rights act was passed. so, they've tried to pull back possible republican gains in the legislative races. they have tried to put republicans in tighter districts. we've got to have a good turnout in november to get these people elected. >> is it possible -- this is for either, ralph. is it possible for the republican presidential nominee to not be the leader of the conservative movement in the country. yeah, of course. >> yes. >> what happens if that happens? what does that look like? >> nobody knows the future, but i will tell you what i've observed as long as i've been on this planet, it means suicide for the republican party. >> ralph, you agree on this one? >> well, i would certainly agree it's not the best scenario. but i guess what i would say is

speaking as somebody who has been involved in the conservative movement since the late '70s that we spent most of our time on this panel doing what probably a lot of us are doing during breaks and sitting around at coffee klatches and, you know, you sort of sit around and say, well, boehner ought to be doing this and mcconnell ought to be doing that and romney or newt ought to be saying this. those are all true, okay? we need our leaders to plant their feet in concrete and take a stand, not just in season, but out of season. but having said that, i also want to put the monkey on our back a little bit. i like what newt says when he says i'm not asking you to be for me. i'm asking you to be with me. because if you look at w a billion dollars, the labor unions, president of the united states flying around in air force one with every special co back pocket and the meanest,

toughest, most vicious political team we have ever faced -- and - when you look at what that is going to on our e, it's not just on the back. it's our responsibility. how many -- how many people in this room are active or have attended a tea party event in the last two years? all right? now, let me ask you a question, what republican politician made that happen? not one! we made it happen, on facebook and on social networking, from the bottom up. >> ralph, msnbc told us it was the koch brothers that made it happen. >> i knowear on msnbc or another network, but what i'm saying is whoever the nominee is, let's not think of

ourselves as passive and them being the ones that have to make the case. let's go out there and turn out the biggest conservative vote in a presidential election in modern political history and let's send barack obama in a u-haul back to chicago where he bes. >> other than the desire to beat barack obama and a message about the economy, what is the conservatives and republicans? we've got just a quick moment. >> real quick, i think whoever the nominee is, and i don't know who it is going ike rick santorum's message, his candidacy. i think if rick's candidacy could be summed up in a sentence, it would be this -- if you want to restore america's economic strength, you must first restore america's marriages and families and homes. because if you -- if you

graduate from high school, you get a job, any job, and you get married and you stay married and you don't have children until you are married, you have an infiny t ini small chance being in poverty. our melsa agmessage is not just america back at work, although that's important. and it's not just america with a balanced budget, it's an america with vibrant why is that differ mitt romney's and newt gi ngch paul's message? aren't they all exactly that? >> i think romney is starting to get there, but he's primarily run as an economic turnaround artist, and i think he has that. that's in his wheelhouse, but i think i was glad to see him in colorado last week start to talk about this religious liberty

issue and he needs to do more of it. >> erick, what do you think? >> the very first republican presidential campaign, it was not abraham lincoln, it was 1886. lincoln set the tone for that campaign, he went up to ka ma zoo, michigan, talked to a huge crowd of people. the nation at that time was 80 years old and we were the envy of the world and how was it possible. and lincoln said he thought about it and the reason we were the envy of the world this country unlike any on earth, every man can make himself. in barack obama's america that's no longer true. the government makes you for you. and i think all of the campaigns, all of the republi n republicancirepublican presidential candidates it's the difference between you setting your own agenda or barack obama setting it for you. >> i think we all need to keep in mind every bit of polling data and every bit of policy data suggests that america's best days are still to come.

thing may get worse before they get better and the policy discussions may not go every time you want, and the elections may not go every time that you want, but this nation still has an incredibly bright future because the american people still believe, 81%, believe that we're all endowed by your creator with certain inalienable life including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. i'd like to thank ralph reed, ralph pallow and erick erickson. ♪ >> in a city plagued by lawlessness and corruption with taxpayers suffering an out-of-control big government, shrouded in secrecy and back

room deals, who fights for transparency, accountability, the rule of law? who fights for america? a story of a group of patriots dedicated to exposing and stopping government corruption, a story of courage and conviction, of america's watchdog in washington. the story of judicial watch. because no one is above the law. >> i had given one child up for adoption and i was pregnant with the fourth child. >> we were caught by channel 4 at that time the cbs affiliate in dallas attempting to do abortions on women who were not pregnant. >> when i was 18 i began my search for my birth father. >> by january 5th, 1980, and back then they didn't do sonograms. >> she was adopted as a