cain, bachman and pawlenty. >> i was held to a different story. >> tonight bachmann, cain and pawlenty look at the republican race for the white house. ladies and gentlemen, governor mike huckabee. [applause] >> hello, everybody. thank you. thank you very much. and welcome to "huckabee" from

the fox news studio in new york city. the race for the gop presidential nomination is a sport to many of the commentators and pundits. it fills the pages of the blogs and traditional newspapers and magazines. but to the men and women who are the gladiators on the field who announce their candidacy and run for the highest office in the world, this is no game. the stakes are high, the risk to one's reputation, privacy, personal assets and future are far greater than imagined to the public. and it requires every ounce of emotional, mental and political stamina that one can muster. i've often said do not run for office if you cannot stand to see the sight of your own blood. what does it take to decide to get into a race for president? equally born, what does it take to decide to get out of the race when one determines that there is just no pathway forward? even if you don't support or agree with or even like one of the candidates, you ought to be

mindful of the sacrifices they and their families have made in order to make a run. now i just might be in a position to appreciate and understand a little better than most what it means to walk the high wire of candidacy. and it is why that i get more than a little irritated with people who snugly and contempt usually speak of the candidates as if they are objects. i have been on both sides of the process, and let me tell you, it is a whole lot easier to talk about candidates than to be one. it is much less dangerous to pontiff indicate on what government ought to do than it is to actually govern. we will talk to several office-seekers about their quest for the office of president. we will get their perspective and insights into what made them start and what made them stop. we will explore the process that is going to shape this entire election cycle and explain what could happen if none of the candidates get 1144 delegates to clinch the nomination before the republican national convention in tampa this summer.

i think you will love tonight's show, and i hope that it causes you to respect those who give you and your friends so much to talk about during an election year. well, that's my view. i welcome yours. feel free to contact me and get in touch with me at mikehuckabee.com. there is a link to the fox news feedback section and also at mikehuckabee.com. and there's also information on how to get a copy of a simple government. it's now out in paper back. new york times best selling book. it has been in hard back only, now you can get it in paper back as well. not as heavy to carry around. the twelve republican race has been unpredictable from the very start. back in may of last year, as republicans started to throw their hats in the ring, the focus wasn't on who was running, but rather who wasn't. >> donald trump wasn't running. >> i will not be running for president. >> sarah palin wasn't running.

and a couple of others, too. all the factors say go. but my heart says no. >> what do i have to do short of suicide to convince people i'm not running? >> in fact, the first republican debate last may showed a line of candidates who were virtually unknown to american voters. businessman herman cain, former new mexico governor gary johnson. texas congressman ron paul, former minnesota governor tim pawlenty, and former pennsylvania senator rick santorum. later that spring and summer the field thinned out with mittñi the first contest was the iowa straw poll last august and the results were historic. >> the winner of the 2011 iowa straw poll is congresswoman michele bachmann. >> america had the first republican female winner of a presidential contest edging out ron paul by only 152 votes. >> we are stunned and humbled

and grateful and all the rest because this is really the people of iowa that did this. this wasn't us, this is the people of iowa. >> the next day the first republican candidate of the 2012 race would drop out. joining me now is former minnesota governor and candidate tim pawlenty. thanks for being here. >> good to be with you. >> i have to ask, but where the heck are you? looks like you are a locker room, something like that. >> i am in traverse city, michigan, and i know that this is not the normal huckabee backdrop but i hope you will understand. i can throw in a mouth guard and put on a hockey helmet if that will be helpful to you. >> you are one of the few guys that could actually do that and put on the hockey regala because you have done it. which is tougher, playing hockey or running for president? >> running for president for sure. although i still have all my

teeth, and that's unusual for a hockey player. >> let's talk about the pathway. what we are doing in this show is trying to explain to people how this process works. and one of the things that as we look back, the first debate happened the first week of may and then after that the field got very crowded. romney came in and ron paul came in and newt gingrich came in and santorum came in, and hunts man and bachmann all after that date. was your strategy always based on how many candidates would be in or did it have nothing to do whatsoever with the number of people on the stage with you? >> well, you know, you make, as you know, gov, some assumptions about how the race might go. but as you know, people might get in, might not get in, and there's a lot of variables so you can't ultimately control that. you just have to make sure you have a good confidence and clear vision about why you are running, what you bring to the race as a candidate, and then have trust and faith that that's going to carry the day and bring value to the debate.

you can't control the other variables. you wish and hope that you could, but in the end you can't. >> governor, the straw poll in iowa obviously was a turning point for you. you dropped out of the race the day following. it doesn't have anything significant in terms of delegate selection, it is symbolic, but it's extremely expensive. you spent a lot of money there. a lot of effort there. and then if you didn't win, you said, you know, you didn't see a pathway forward. is the iowa straw poll becoming too much of a challenge? and maybe becoming irrelevant? or do you still see it has a place in the future of the pup can process? >> i think what you saw during this campaign so far is a lot of these straw polls, iowa of course being one of the earliest and prominent being a benchmark. but for us we put down a lot of chips early on the ames straw poll and as it turns out three days later or a week later, the media, the pundit and voters

moved on and didn't have a lasting effect. if you rewrite my history, one thing we should have probably done is not put so many chips down so early on that contest that didn't have a lasting impact. i think it will still be a benchmark in the the future but no the most dispositive benchmark it has been in the past. >> you have since endorsed mitt romney. you are campaigning for him now. what was the decision point to go with governor romney? >> well, for me there's a number of things you want to look at. one is if you are going to be president of the united states, we want somebody who has actually run something and accomplished something, not just giving speeches, not just pushed yes or no. so as a former governor, as a former leader of bain capital and someone who has run businesses, started businesses, grown jobs, somebody who turned around the olympics, and somebody who has led a life in terms of his personal behavior and conduct that you can be proud of, his values in that regard line up with mine and mary's. those are some of the

characteristics that are important i think for a successful nominee and a successful president. but for governor romney, he is somebody i've gotten to know. i know you know him, as well. he's somebody who is a very, very effective leader, but he's also a good person. there's not going to be a day you wake up some morning and read that he's done something scandalous or stupid or embarrassing from a personal standpoint. he's a grounded, mature person, who i think is also a great leader. >> thank you for joining us today. by the way, you ran a very i think effective campaign in terms of just maintaining an equilibrium that a lot of candidates don't and you ran it with honor and dignity and my congratulations to you and mary for being able to walk away with your heads high after a tough battle. good to have you here, governor, and my best to mary. >> thank you very much, governor. >> up next, the debate, the candidates, the messages and the mudslinging. that's where it all starts. we will examine the republican race for the white house when we

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at the republican race for the white house. between the straw poll in iowa back in august to january's iowa caucus, the candidates had 20 weeks to convince voters that they were the right man or woman to win the republican nomination. 20 weeks. that is a lot of time for the candidates to debate and to face some very tough scrutiny. >> how do you respond to people who say that your campaign has been a mess so far? >> i took seriously to put aside the talking points and i wish you would put aside the gotcha questions. >> customers, education, and the, as they would say in china, pitt, [foreign language] >> the current tax code, that dog won't hunt. >> i don't try to define who is rich and who is not rich.

i want everybody in america to be rich. i want people in this country to have opportunity. >> the american navy picked up a bunch of fishermen, iranian fishermen that had been held by the pirates. >> ron, if we had your foreign policy, there wouldn't have been a fleet there to pick up the iranian fishermen. >> i would take the law, repeal it and go to the gop department of education, turn off the lights and lock the door and send all the money back to the states and localities. >> i can't. oops. >> joining me now is herman cain. herman, it's great to see you. thanks for doing this today. >> governor, it's my pleasure. thank you for having me on. >> good to see you. >> the strength of your campaign seemed to be the simplicity and the attract i haveness of the 999 plan. that's when things really took off for you. would you say that was the center piece of what sort of gave you the jet boost that you had during the fall?

>> the answer is yes. it was the simplicity of the 999 plan that average americans, they get it. secondly, it was the simplicity of my message relative to energy independence, made in america. it was the simplicity of my campaign relative to national security, peace through strength and clarity. that's what i believe, mike, connected with so many people. and you are right, that's when my campaign started to take off. >> well, it took off with so many people who loved the idea of a simple tax plan, especially as we get closer to the tax day of april 15th but not all of your colleagues were as thrilled about it as you and some of the people. >> go to new hampshire where they don't have a sales tax and you are fix to go give them one, they aren't interested in 999. >> reports are out 89% americans would pay more taxes under his plan. >> it was a regressive attacks.

and it was dangerous. it will raise more revenue. >> you take the 999 plan and turn it upside-down i think the devil is in the details. >> that was a lot of interesting criticisms. but let's ask, what was unfair about some of this criticisms of the 999 plan? >> all of the criticism of the 999 plan was wrong. let's start with the one who quoted that 80% of americans will pay higher taxes. no they're not. that study was flawed," mike. we know exactly the study that they got that conclusion from because, as you know, mike, in mathematics, if you change the assumptions, you will get a different result. that's what they did. the rest of the criticism, i believe, was sheer envy because all of their tax proposals rearranged the chairs on the deck of the titanic called the current tax code. i, along with speaker gingrich, were the only ones that said

let's get rid of the tax code and let's put out a new structure. now i'm in georgia today campaigning with speaker gingrich because as you know i endorse him. he hasn't gotten all the way to 999 yet, but at least he's at 12.5, 15 and 0. but he is the only one who has come that close. >> but at least he's not at 666 which would really be a problem for him at that point, don't you think? [laughter] >> exactly. and that's what i admire about him. he understands jobs, jobs, jobs. the others want to still tinge we're the tax code. that will never boost this economy and that's one of the reasons that i'm supporting speaker gingrich in this primary race. >> let's talk about the fact that you are now endorsing him. but where does he have to get his tracks -- traction back? he was soaring after south carolina and then things came

crashing down after florida. what is his pathway back? does he need to take 999 and adopt it as his plan? is that you are telling him. >> i will tell you exactly what i told him a few hours ago. i made three stops with him today. we road on his bus. i'll tell you exactly what i told him. now to his credit, mike, he asked me for my advice. go figure. number one, be specific. be specific about your tax proposal. most people don't know that his plan is 12.5, 15.0 and 0. so he said that's a great idea. secondly, i said just focus on how are you going to create jobs, energy independence, and national security. and people will get sick of all of this other stuff. and he took my advice. by the time we got to the second stop, you would have thought that herman cain wrote that speech that he gave to the audience. so he needs to be specific, which he is now doing, and focus

on three things that connect with the american people. i'm optimistic, mike, because you know some people want to say that, well, newt has lost his swagger. no, he has not. at the three events we were at today that i just left the last one, we had to turn people away at each one of them. they are here for newt gingrich, and we believe that this is going to continue to grow all over the country. so i believe all he has to do is stay on a specific, simple targeted message on those three topics, and i think he will be just fine. >> herman, we want to keep you and talk a little bit about the process from the iowa straw poll that i was with you at on forward and give our viewers a chance to understand how this thing all works. by the way, we had to turn people away from a lot of my events, but it wasn't because there were too many of them, it was because they were there to throw things at me. just to let you know. i know that by experience. more with herman cain when we come back. stay with us.

>> we are back with herman cain. i remember when i was with you at the iowa straw poll. i saw all the candidates that day. you came in fifth and a lot of people sort of wrote you off and said herman is a nice guy, he's an interesting individual to be in the race , but he has no chance of getting there. a couple months later you are riding the top of the rocket. what happened between the straw poll? and i'm not talking about so much message now, process-wise. what did you do within the context of your campaign that helped you to get people's attention that weren't paying attention to you before? >> let's start with the straw poll. see, what some people in the media cannot get, is that i woke up the next morning with no

headache and no debt. we didn't try to buy the iowa straw poll. we continued to stay on message and get as much media exposure as we could, and it started to connect with the american people. so when we went from the straw poll, we then went to florida for the florida straw poll. mike, what a lot of people don't realize, i was out there with my message of simplicity relative to those issues even before i ever declared myself as a candidate. and what happened was that message started to connect with people, and that's when we started to build that momentum. now, jump to the florida straw poll and it was an upset victory. and that was because i wasn't supposed to win it, but i did. and that made a lot of people believers in my campaign. you know the history of the rest of it from there. for four weeks i was number one in the national polls. and we were doing just great

until my character was assassinated deliberately because i was being too successful. >> were you surprised, herman, were you surprised at the intensity of attacks that came against you and the level of how personal they were? was that something for which you could ever have prepared yourself? >> i could never have prepared myself for that. i was surprised at the intensity, mike. consider this, after the first false accusation, the second false accusation, the third false accusation, they were three weeks in a row. my wife used to say she hates to turn on the tv on monday morning. and the fact that they kept bringing another one out week after week after week, that is an intensity, mike, that i never anticipated, no matter how dirty politics can be. >> did she ever just get to the place she said herman, for the love of pete, end this thing, stop the pain for me, for the

rest of the family, for yourself? what kind of conversation did you guys have? >> you know, mike, that friday night when i got home after three weeks of a firestorm, my wife, which is why i love her and have been married to her for over 43 years, never asked me to drop out. she never did. it was totally my decision. that's how supportive she has been and that's how supportive she will always be. but i know that she was relieved when i said i'm going to put family first. here's what we were convinced of, mike. the onslaught against me was not going to stop because, like you said, we couldn't anticipate that level of intensity. and because it wasn't going to stop, i make the decision that i was going to end my campaign, and i did. but here's the other thing, mike. just because i'm not pursuing the position of president, i'm

still on a mission, and that is to defeat barack obama in november of this year. >> herman cain, thank you. always a pleasure to visit with you. god bless and take care. >> great to be with you, governor. a pleasure. >> up next, primary voters finally take to the policy. we are going to have some highlights and talk to former candidate congresswoman michele bachmann when we come back. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta can help you get there, like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion.

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now back to huckabee. >> 2012 began with most of the remaining gop candidates focused on the iowa caucus. that race eventually ended in an upset and the rest of the primary races had been anything about predictable. >> you are saying that romney is going to win the iowa caucuses by 14 votes. get what? we defeated mitt romney in iowa. >> the policy have closed in new

hampshire and mitt romney is the first republican since 1976 to win the first two nominating contests. >> thank you, new hampshire! tonight we made history! >> this race has been degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks. today i am suspending my campaign for the presidency. >> i ran for president because i love america. i have come to the conclusion there is no viable path forward for me in this 2011 campaign. >> newt gingrich a big winner south carolina. >> thank you to everyone in south carolina who decided to be with us on changing washington. >> mitt romney will triumph in the sunshine state. >> thank you so much. [chanting] >> republicans in nevada pick their voice for the top of the presidential ticket. >> thanks, you guys. wow! what a great showing. thank you, nevada. >> we have minnesota, missouri and colorado.

and it could be the biggest night of the campaign so far for rick santorum. >> tonight it is not just a victory for us, but tonight was a victory for the voices of our party, conservatives and tea partyers. >> we would like to congratulate mitt romney on his win in the maine caucus. >> joining me now former candidate former candidate and minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann. thanks for joining me. great to have you back on the show. >> thank you, governor. >> watching all the moments from the campaign trail, we go back to the straw poll, you won that and became the first female in the history of the republican party to do that. you had to be on top of the world. i was with you that evening. you had every reason to be. what happened between then and sometime later in the fall that it was hard to gain or to keep that momentum? was it the perry campaign getting in the process then? what was it that changed everything? >> well, again, it wasn't great

that day. you were on the bus with me. your wife, janet was on the bus. we had a wonderful day that day. but i think what we've seen from the very beginning of this presidential election cycle until present day, and perhaps going forward, is that the voters have not made up their mind. it's almost like the voters have whiplash. they look at one candidate, and then they turn their heads, and they whiplash the other side, and it's almost, governor, like whoever wins one state, you can almost take it to the bank that they won't be winning the next state because the voters want to see who else is out there. who else should they be thinking about? so it's very clear throughout this campaign that the voters had not put their decisions in cement. so the very same voters have been on board with perhaps as many as four or five candidates even throughout the cycle. >> congresswoman, one of the personal things that a lot of people never understand is how tough it is it make the decision

to end a campaign. you put your heart, your soul, your family, everybody is in the middle of this thing. would you walk us through the process when you finally said, okay, going forward we don't see a pathway, tell us how you and your husband, marcus and family and staff, how did you come to that decision? and describe the feelings. i don't think a lot of people really understand how human this process is and how real the emotions are for a candidate. >> it is real. you are exactly right. and the reason i think that -- reasons that impelled me to make that decision about leaching the race were essentially the decision that is caused me to go into the race. we approached this on our knees and in prayer and the way my husband and myself deal with things is through fasting and prayer. we prayed and fasted as we sought the lord on what we should do. i saw as a member of congress in washington d.c. that this is it for our country. this was the last exit ramp based on what barack obama was doing. i knew that the country couldn't

survive economically or we couldn't maintain our military strength if barack obama remain in power. someone had to do something. and i prayed. it took me six months to make the decision to get in. i know that it's physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually exhausting. it's the most difficult thing i have before done in my life. i would think that the men in this race would tell you the same thing. it is very difficult because you can never make a mistake, everything you say is monitored and watched, and you have to be right all the time. and you have to continue to bring money in. you have to have money in order to be able to go on. after we had lost the iowa caucus, that night on the bus i had spent 45 minutes in prayer that evening before the results even came in. and i had asked the lord to give me a definite sign, should i go on, should i not go on? he gave me a definite sign. and when i got the results of the straw poll, it wasn't even a question. i said then that's very clear,

we won't go on in this contest. and for me, i didn't shed a tear because it was never about me. i was responding to a call because i knew that we had to repeal obamacare. i knew we had to repeal dodd-frank. i knew we had to change our tax code. that is what was uppermost in my mind. so i knew that i wouldn't be at the top of the ticket as president, but that didn't matter. the battle remains. i'm just going to fight the battle from a different per were. i announced i will be running for my seat in the house of representatives. i'm still in the fight, i'm just in from a different side and whoever the nominee is, i'm on board with that nominee and i will help them to become president. >> of. >> congresswoman, let's also talk about one of the challenges we all admit you faced was that as a woman you were treated differently. the cover of news week, this ridiculous, i thought it was absolutely shameful, calling you the queen of rage and trying to

depict you as something that all of us who know you know is absolutely not who you are whatsoever. was it more difficult? was the media treatment of you different in such a way that it made it hard to get past that proverbial glass ceiling? >> well, i'm really happy that you asked the question because throughout the campaign i never whined about how the media was treating me because i truly went into it naively believing that i would be treated the same as the men in the race. and it was made railroad evident and clear throughout the scoring of the race that it wasn't true. i was held to a different standard and there were some very negative assumptions that the media h but it was a good process. it was a tough process. i defend the process. it actually beats the not out of a candidate to go through this process. >> yes, it does. >> and that's a about good thing. you have been there, as well. it's good because our nominee has to be great. they have to be at the top of

their game because when they debate on that stage with barack obama, at that point there will be over 100 million americans that are watching that debate. our nominee has to be really good and they have to pin barack obama to the wall based on his negative policies and what they have done to decimate this country. our nominee has to be ready. that's why this is a good process i defended. >> well, congresswoman, i said it then and i'm going to say it again to you. i thought you entered the race with an extraordinary level of dignity and class and you exited with an extraordinary level of dignity and class, and congratulations for a valiant effort and a wonderful candidacy. tough, but also always respectful of the process and the other people. it's a pleasure to have you here and i wish you god's best as you go forward. [applause] >> thank you. i have great respect for you too, governor. thank you. >> so what happens if no one gets enough delegates to secure the republican nomination? we will talk about the very real

possibility of a brokered convention. and what does that mean? we will talk with veteran campaign advisor ed recallins when we come bach.

>>, you would like to be a part ever our studio audience. see how much fun they are having? you can have fun too. hope you will be in the audience soon. >> one thing for certain, the front runner and eventual nominee, eats uncertain. it looks like the kentucky derby with a new horse in the lead just about every month. bachmann ahead, bachmann in second. not in the race w perry jumps in the race and becomes the front winner. romney is back in the lead. bachmann falls to the back and herman cain gains steam. herman cain number one, and perry falls way back behind gingrich. november, out of nowhere, gingrich surges to number one. cain falls back to three, santorum is barely on the grid. december newt way ahead. double digits over romney. people start saying it's a two-man race. santorum still getting single digits. january, primary season in full swing and it's romney way ahead after a strong showing in iowa. santorum all of a sudden in

second place, which brings us to february. now a four man race, romney still ahead of the pack. oh, boy. and in recent days, polls show a tight rate between rick santorum and mitt romney in the state of michigan, no less. so what happens? if the primary season becomes so divided that none of the candidates end up getting delegates that are needed to secure the nomination? joining us now somebody who might know a little something about it, republican strategist and fox news contributor ed rollins who has been involved in republican campaign for over about four decades. ed, people are throwing this term around brokered convention. industry to people what -- >> there hasn't been a brokered convention since i was five years old and i am going to be 69. 1948 was the last one nor republicans and that was contested, not brokered. there were four candidates, four ballots and basically at the end of it dewey won. he was the nominee four years before. two wings in the party, the taft

wing and the establishment wing and the establishment winning won. in this case we are a long ways from anybody having any real delegates left and we have big states ahead, new york, california, texas that has been moved. so it's a little premature to basically say it's going to end up being a broke every body convention. if someone doesn't get 1144 and you go to the convention and try to struggle. i assume all these four will be there to the end but we will know more of a soup tuesday and as we move down the road. as you get into a brokeerd convention, unlike the old days when you have governors who controlled theirdel gags and they could move them quickly, today it's a real battle. most states have different rules, but most delegates are not bound. all of a sudden someone jumped in. people decided this field was not going to beat obama, someone jumped in, hypothetically you or governor bush. >> i'm certain it won't be me. >> you could do it but that's okay. that's another discussion for later. but at then of the day, if someone could jump in, raise the money and win some of the late

states, they would have to go in with some delegates and at the end of the day -- i apologize. >> that's probably the president calling now asking for your advice because if i were obama i would be calling you right now. tell them to call back later. we will get him on. [laughter] >> it's herman. >> so you go into the convention, no one has -- this is what happened with ford and reagan in '76. neither had the necessary delegates and they jockeyed back and forth and mississippi became the ones that became ending up, haley barber was the executive director, voted for reagan and the chairman took his delegation and voted for ford and that was the difference at the end of the day. >> it almost sounds this idea of a brokeerd convention and the pundits speak about it almost romantically like they would love to see it but it's a train wreck, isn't it? >> it's a train wreck and at the end of the day no one knows how to do it. aid prominent campaign call me yesterday and say how do you do

this, how do you down delegates and keep track of them all the way lou and i think we haven't had this kind of a process. >> could you see that happening? how realistic? >> i don't think this happens. i think what happens is either romney make a comeback and wins somewhere, some of the super tuesday, or they start splitting it up. gingrich could come back. i'm not sure he's going to take it away from santorum at this point in time. but all four will have delegates. and it's a question can you keep one from getting 1144. >> now at some point the campaigns are going to start doing some talking. not only to delegations, but perhaps to each other. if you, you know, decide to support me, i'll see that you get front row seating, i'll see is that you get an input in the v. p. nomination. what are some of the kind of deals and dealmaking that might be taking place somewhere between the middle of march, after super tuesday, and the time of a nominee? >> part of the dilemma here, as we found out last time, when you attack your opponents fiercely, as mr. romney has done, there's

not an inclination to sit down and deal. there's a little hard edge that goes with all of that and that's kind of been the campaign so far. so i would argue that let's talk about obama and what he's not doing and let's talk about what we will be doing as opposed to beating each other up. we beat each other up, it makes it much harder. ultimately the prize is who is going to be vice president, who is going to be the running mate. i'm not sure you would want to broker that away and i'm not sure any of the three that don't win would want it, but you never can tell but they may want somebody else. >> in the event that mid-romney loses michigan, how big a deal is that for him? that would be a surprise. >> it's a very big deal. in fairness to him he has not lived in that state for 40 years. he won it last time barely. but at then of the day i will not be shocked if he lost that. then he has to win some other and the problem is you go south, you go to ohio which if it comes down to one-on-one, and it's santorum and him, santorum is the conservative candidate. it's a long, hard battle. it's a hard battle for romney to

get back on top. >> we will talk more about the whole process. ed rollins understand it from the inside-out, having been a part ever so many campaigns, including mine. when we come back we will find out if any of the candidates are able to beat obama in november. ed rollins joins me again after this.

>> ed, what should the gop strategy be to defeat barack obama? >> you have to go out and basically indict him on his record. you start with the budget he just submitted. that's sort of his blueprint for the future t raises taxes and eliminates capital gains, big spending and you go out and make that argument. i would caution, though, you can't attack him personally. people still like him. he's a likable man and they

respect what he's done as far as getting elected. but i think that his policies are the thing. reagan's slogan was leadership that's working. he can spend a billion dollars and can't put the slogan up there because nobody would believe it. you attack his lack of leadership, talk about his policies and how detrimental they will be to the future and how he had many opportunities to fix it and he didn't. it has to be a positive message. >> there have been good economic numbers the last few weeks, unemployment numbers even though i think they are skewed by the number of people that just quit look for work. but on paper there are some signs of a recovery. does that make it more difficult, and how do the republicans attack that without looking like they are actually not, you know, not happy. >> you can't cheer for people to be unemployed. you have to cheer for americans to get back to work and that's a very important part of this thing. i think the key thing here is it will be a very close election. being an incumbent is very, very hard and it's only happened with carter of late and bush.

i think at the end of the day we have to make sure that it's a very precise campaign. we are looking at states individually to see what we can to to make a message that fits and it has to be very positive. here's what we are going to do, here's how it better and keep using that word leadership that you can trust. >> is obama more vulnerable on the international issue if something goes haywire in iran? >> you can't tell because sometimes people rally around when something goes wrong overseas. >> except for carter. >> that's because of a disaster the way he did it. if he ends up with civil wars in afghanistan and iraq because of his policies or the iranian situation blows up, then certainly how he handles it will basically could be a bet meant. >> how big a deal would it be if israel takes action against eye ran sometime this summer and the president does not do all he can to give them cover by standing with them and providing what has

always been a historical role for the united states to kind of keep the other countries off their backs. does that sink him? >> israel is our most important ally. it's the only democracy in that region until we try to set some up there at the end of the day. they are our friends and i think it would be a disaster. the economic issue is the issue most americans are concerned about, though. >> have you ever seen a presidential race like this one where the lead changed as rapidly and as often. >> no. >> and to as mean different team? >> no. i've been around since the 40s, and nine presidential campaigns. there's never been anything like this. i've been following politics very closely since the early 50s and there's never been a race like this one. >> it's certainly not boring. ed rollins, thanks very much for being part of this show. thanks for watching. it's been a great joy to have you here. i hope you have learned something about the process from the people who have actually been on the field playing the game. candidates that we talked toes and, of course, ed roll innings who has led many a presidential

campaign. hope you have a great week. we will be back in new york from the fox studios next week. until then good night and god bless. [appla