All posts tagged Republicans

Begins at 6:45 mark.

Transcript: first up, it’s just under an hour before polls close in michigan, arizona later. cnbc’s john harwood joins us live from detroit. good evening, john? reporter: larry, there are some polls that will be open until 9:00 in michigan, as well so we’ll have to wait a bit for those results, but we already know this is a very, very close race in michigan. pretty high stakes for the norm nation. my take is that mitt romney wins michigan in arizona he’ll be the nominee, and i think he’ll be the nominee even if he loses michigan, but it will take longer and much rougher. both went after each other by name and mitt romney singling out rick santorum. mitt romney said he’s late to that party. i’m glad he ridiculoecognize is a campaign about the economy. it’s time for him to focus on the economy and for you to all say okay, if the economy is going to be the issue we focus who has the experience to actually get this economy going again? senator santorum is a nice guy, but he’s never had a job in the private sector. but, of course, rick santorum makes the argument that it’s not only about economic issues. social issues especially those conservative christians in the western and northern parts of this state are key targets for him and so he makes a much broader, tack on mitt romney for his health care plan and imp implications for social issues. it’s about government control of economic lives and regulating you, taxing you, forcing you to buy things and forcing their values on you and your religion. which, by the way, romney did to catholic hospitals in massachusetts by forcing them to distribute the morning-after pill. why would we give those issues away in this general election? at the core of what’s at stake in this country, why would we put someone out there who is uniquely unqualified to make that case? so we’ve still got a turnout operation going on. mitt romney, larry, is at the superior organization here as in other states and what rick santorum hopes is that some of those inflammatory comments he’s made may comp state by stirring up some of those conserve tich christians, evangelicals or tvangelicals. many that cross over from the tea party. thanks for this. now let’s turn to republican senior strategist steve schmitt. he was top dog in the mccain campaign in 2008. steve, welcome back to the show. you’re welcome, larry. i want to ask you about president obama a minute. president obama talking to the uaw says this, my bailouts of the car business saved detroit, saved michigan and saved the economy and steve, we are getting better consumer confidence and we are getting better jobs. the dow is over 13,000. let me just ask you, can obama really be beaten in a better economy? well, larry, it’s a closely-divided nation. it continues to be, this has been a terrible stretch for the republican candidates and a lot of good things are happening for the president and the real clear politics average has him up about five points over mitt romney and six points over rec santorum. it’s a close election, but boy do republicans have some work to do. we are talking about things that are irrelevant to the lives of average americans. we are ceding economic arguments to the president talking about 52-year-old speech that president kennedy did in houston and talking about contraception, making from senator santorum’s perspective and i think ludicrous charges about the president wanting people to go to college so they can be indoctrinated and so republicans will have to offer to win this election a pro-growth opportunity message that explains and defines what opportunity looks like to the american people in the 21st century. we need an update in a modern, conservative argument. steve, did mitt romney get that done. that’s still obama’s area of vulnerability and i presume the budget deficit and the debt also. no doubt. did mitt romney get that done in his economics club of detroit’s speech. was he able to sell it and will he be able to sell it? no, i don’t think he got it done and i don’t think he’ll be able to make the pivot until he gets into a general election contact. the season has been disappointing for a lot of reason, but i think it’s on the course that it is right now. we’ve not yet had the candidates looking over the horizon, explaining to the american people what a 21st-century vision of conservatism is. how do you create prosperity? how do you create opportunity. how do you resuscitate the manufacturing base in the country? you know, this race has been about small things and it’s been about personal attacks and one of the consequences of it, larry is we have a fractured conservative base in the republican party, but independents who had soured on the president just a few months ago are going back to them and they’re going back to them in a big way. so we’re going to be starting this general election whoever the nominee is in a pretty good sized hole of our own making. steve, extremism in the culture war doesn’t sound like a winning issue to me. is that going to play a role tonight. did santorum lose the lkt lkt ability argument because he’s gone too far on contraception, on prenatal care, on the jfk speech on four-year colleges and so forth. will that hurt santorum tonight? well, it should hurt santorum if republican voters are focused on beating president bush. let’s look at one state, larry, virginia. republicans have to win back virginia. northern virginia is a moderate swing state area. there is no market for these issues in the american electorate that rick santorum is talking about. this is the antithesis of limited government conservatism. i believe it was a mistake for the congress to intervene in a family court decision in florida with the terry schiavo deci with the terry schiavo decision, but you now see rick santorum out there on a daily basis talking about these issues which are mainstreaming schiavoism into all manner of different areas in the party and then he spent a paragraph or two paragraphs or three paragraphs explaining and that’s a recipe for disaster? apparently he reneged on the jfk thing so he’s coming and going. absolutely. you were great to give us your time tonight. i know you’re busy. thank you ever so much. thank you, larry. let’s bring in two more experts to make the case for romney and santorum. we have gop chairman and current romney backer saul onassis and former colorado republican congressman tom tancredo. tom tancredo, you heard steve schmitt. he had harsh words for your man and saying this was is the antithesis of limited government conservatism on jfk and contraception. what is your response to what steve schmitt said. most of the stuff will not be relevant come the general election. what both of those candidates are trying to do today, what four of them are trying to do and the two really and truly at the top of the heap are trying to win a primary and in the a primary election and in the republican primary you’re going to talk to conservatives and you’ll be more conservative than you would otherwise be. we’ve seen that happen a hundred times. in this case i think santorum really is the conservative and mitt romney is trying to be because you’re going after republican primary voters. after the primary’s over with we enter into a brand new phase, but let’s talk about the issue that came up in terms of the economy. i am concerned. i think we all should be that bill clinton’s admonition to his campaign, remember, it’s the economy, stupid. the economy’s being looking better. if it looks better, that’s right — it’s even — romney loses his main issue, right? that’s his thing. if the economy is better than you’ll fight it out over ideas. saul, let me ask you. steve schmitt did not think that mitt romney got the job done with the 20% tax cut and his overall economic plan to the detroit economics club, and i presume that that’s one of the reasons this race is too close to call, saul. what’s your take on that criticism? well, look, first of all, mitt romney’s argument is going over well in michigan. i’m cautiously optimist take he’s going win tonight. i think he’s doing extremely well in the messaging. i’ve been traveling around the state and yesterday i was listening to his pitch. they want to make sure we have jobs and we have a lot of midwestern states that are hurting economically. tom tancredo, democrats may be very important to this race today. michael moore is out on the tape some place saying all his friends are going vote for santorum because he’s the weaker candidate and they want to cause mischief. what about the democrat turnout, tom? how will that impact things? i don’t know. i understand that’s an interesting thing because i know the democratic party has done a robocall for that purpose to encourage people to vote for santorum and santorum has done a robocall to democrats asking them to vote for him. so one of the two — i mean, the democrats are hoping that if santorum is the weaker candidate, but i’m telling you you better be careful what you ask for, democrats. here’s the thing, honest to goodness, here’s what gives santorum an edge and perhaps in a different election with a different candidate or incumbent things would be different. against a clinton, probably santorum would not have much of a chance. this is not a bill clinton. this is barack obama. he is the most left-wing candidate that — i mean, candidate for re-election we have ever had. you don’t have a right wing candidate against a moderate and i’ll tell you, barack obama is far more left wing than santorum is right wing and when you get those two together america votes, i think — more to the right. i understand, but saul, i’ll give you the last word. basically, do you believe that mitt romney’s economic growth message, not only the 20% tax cut, but reforming entitlements, slashing spending, getting deficits and debt down, do you think that trumps the extreme culture war and is the best way to beat obama? that seems to be the issue this evening. absolutely. i think when mitt romney is talking about the economy and he’s talking about jobs he’s winning. when rick santorum has to bring in democrats, and labor to vote in his favor, republicans all over the country i think will reject santorum’s campaign tactics here. this is about the economy. if we focus barack obama and his message, if we can focus on the economy, gas prices, unemployment mitt romney’s going to win. i think that rick santorum is basically doing a disservice to the party right now. i think that he’s being a little bit hypocritical being the washington insider and trying to run as an outsider. if you want to draw contrast between obama and a republican candidate, mitt romney is coming from the outside and run a business and can run a state and make a difference. saul, thank you very much. tom tancredo, thank you again. coming up on kudlow, eric cantor reveals his jobs act to jump-start small business start-ups. next up, live and exclusive, turns out obama may agree with cantor. free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. i think it’s a pretty good campaign message, too, on kudlow, we’ll issue right back.

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