Greta:...the poll showing Governor Romney leading President Obama by 52% to 45% among voters who have already cast their ballots. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich joins us, and good evening sir, you thoughts on this Gallup poll of early voters.
Newt:
Well, if it's accurate, it's devastating for Obama. Obama put a tremendous amount of effort into building a ground game; they were very confident that they could turn their vote out early, they talked about it with great sense of achievment, and if this is actually correct it is a remarkable result.
You know, Republicans have been saying - during all these various snapshots - well "don't worry about early voting because Republican voters tend to be older, they love to vote on election day, and all of a sudden you have these numbers... I'm really very surprised. I frankly thought... I wouldn't have been at all surprised to see it... and to see it be Obama 52%, Romney 45%, so this is a shocking number.
But it fits something Greta that you may have seen late last week. Gallup took all their questions - 19 thousand people, a pretty big universe - looked at all of them together as one group, and said "the big surprise to them was that this electorate looks much more Republican." That is, Republicans are much more likely to vote, Democrats are much less likely to vote. They said "this is closer to the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate." Now that's based on a huge sample. Ahh... if that's accurate, then virtually every poll we've seen has been wrong, and probably favors Obama by three or four points more than he's going to get, because in all those polls, the pollsters went in and they jiggered the numbers to get back to a sample that they believed was accurate. Gallup is arguing that in fact that's wrong, and we've seen a fundamental shift towards an electorate that's much more Republican than it was four years ago.
Greta:
You know, I always think of Gallup as sort of - a little bit - you know, stodgy, sort of. There's no sparkle, they don't take risks...
(Newt laughing pretty hard here)
... so I tend to... I tend to rely more on Gallup because they've been around for ever. This is a big number, 52 to 45%, and... could they just have gotten this one wrong?
Newt:
Well, they could have, although this actually conforms to what they claim they're seeing. They came out a couple days ago and said they're seeing that Romney's up at least six points. I've adopted - and you've heard me talk about this before - the "James Carville Rule." Carville told me many years ago that his standard was if you're the incumbent, you've been in people's living rooms for four years, they know who you are, you get the last poll. And the last poll for Obama is somewhere between 44 and 48, 47 percent. So this would imply that you're seeing the Carville Rule come into effect.
I decided about late last week - in fact, I think it could have been on your show - I just decided and went for broke. I said probably it's going to be a six-percent vote or more in favor of Romney; he'll probably be above 300 electoral votes, and he'll carry in a majority in the Senate. This number, tonight, would certainly fit that kind of a sweep, particularly because I think Republicans will vote slightly more on election day. So that begins to tell me it could be 54-46% by the time you get to election day.
Greta:
In terms of the storm... does that do anything... I think that Steve Hayes referred to something like the "stature gap," that this would somehow... you know, that he was losing the "stature gap," and now this will make him appear more presidential, the opportunity. And I don't mean to demean the President, or the storm, or the lives lost, but just the hard practical reality that election day is Tuesday.
Newt:
Oh, I can't tell. I think that this storm is so big, that the damage is so widespread and so intense that... I hope the President is doing his job, is doing what he should be doing. On the other hand, this storm is going to dampen some of his turn-out of his supporters who are less enthusiastic, who are less likely to vote in bad weather than Romney's, so I think it's kind of a wash. You know, if something really bad happened, and the Federal system collapsed somewhere, then he would get the blame... he's doing the right thing; I think it's perfectly correct for for Chris Christy to thank him to say "look, the President's being helpful," I suspect every governor will tell you they're glad he's paying attention, but I don't think it helps him much.
Greta:
What about on Friday, when the jobs report comes out. We don't know if it's going to go up, go down, or whether it's even going to stay the same. Um, any impact at all? You know, it's only just three or four days out from Tuesday.
Newt:
Well it'll have some impact, a little bit one way or the other. But the problem for Obama is any time the number gets a little bit better, it turns out that's because people have dropped out of the workforce, and the last report was that this last quarter, every new job on balance was a government job. I don't know of anybody who believes the economy is getting better. I don't know of anybody who's confident about next year, and see small businesses - I'm out in Missouri for Todd Akin - I don't see anybody out here, among small business owners, who say "boy, I'm revved up."
I think you could have a dramatic recovery if Romney wins because there are a tremendous number of entrepreneurs leaning forward, who'd like to do something, if only they thought they had some sense of confidence.
Now if it goes up again, if it's 8.2, then I think it's a big problem for Obama.
Greta:
Now for Ohio, the ever-important state. There's an ad that Romney's put out that says that "Obama's Chrysler deal undermined American workers," that's in essence the theme. GM, the GM CEO came out and said the Romney ad is "politics at its most cynical worst," and this is all going to play out before the voters in Ohio. Your thoughts on this...
Newt:
Well, I was in Ohio yesterday, I was in Hamilton County, which is Cincinnati, and then I was over in Lebanon which is Warren County, and then over in Delaware county, so I got a pretty good taste of southwestern Ohio. Last time, in 2008, Obama carried Hamilton county by twenty-seven thousand votes. It is traditionally a Republican stronghold, it is Rob Portman's base. They're very, very proud of him, and the role he played in the debates. The Republicans there told me that they believe they're going to carry Hamilton county by maybe as much as 23,000 votes. That'd be a swing of 50,000 votes; by itself that would virtually guarantee carrying Ohio. People in Lebanon and Warren county, very Republican, tremendously enthusiastic, they're going to vote bigger than they voted last time for McCain, and in Delaware county - it was a very rural area that we were in - I don't... I couldn't find any Obama voters, so... Obama's going to be competitive, he's going to have Cleveland, he's going to have some areas around Dayton, Toledo, but I think Ohio both electing Josh Mandel to the Senate and being carried for Romney. All of the energy developement in eastern Ohio, the natural gas, the oil that's coming out in Canton, Akron, Youngstown, and down along the river valley, and the War On Coal, which - remember - in southeastern Ohio, along the river, is a huge story, all those things are coming together. I think will almost certainly now go for Romney, he has the momentum.
I'll also tell you that when you start talking the auto thing (Newt smiles while saying this) when you realize that the Obama administration gave Chrysler to Fiat for zero dollars... I mean, you can't imagine a businessman like Mitt Romney, turning over that much real property to a foreign company for zero dollars. So I do think that the longer you look at the auto bailout, the less attractive it is, and the more Romney's approach, which was to guarantee the loans, and it was to guarantee the wavers, after a traditional bankruptcy court, exactly what United Airlines and a number of other companies have gone through, I think people are going to say "you know, I think that might have been a better road."
Greta:
Yes, except that's sort of the "global view" as you step back and look at it, and what people might think in non-swing states, but when you talk about car jobs, auto jobs, in Ohio, you don't necessarily look at the big picture... you sort of look like "do I have a job or not."
Newt:
Right, and, the fact is, as John Kasich - the governor - pointed out today, the net number of new jobs out of that bailout was four hundred for the entire state. All of the other new jobs have been in other areas. And frankly, if you're a GM worker, are you grateful to Obama, or do you actually think you've worked hard for the last two years, so that your company survived. At some point, where Obama claiming credit for your job begins to get a little bit thin.
Greta:
Benghazi. We've spent a lot of time at this network talking about it, and frankly there are a lot of remaining questions, and nobody has sort of sat down - from the Administration - and just sort of set out what happened. We've had some little bits and pieces, we've had some weird stories about videos, we've had... it's a very incomplete picture. Other news organizations aren't particularly pursuing this, we are, and a few others.
I'm curious. Is Benghazi an issue that is in any way related to... will the voters have any interest in it.
Newt:
(shaking his head) It's enormous, in terms of the election. I was talking with Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who said that every Victory Center he went to on Saturday in Wisconsin, people saying to him "tell me about Benghazi," the places I visited in Ohio yesterday, the places I've been to in Missouri today, people have been asking about Benghazi.
There's a rumor - and I want to be clear it's a rumor - that at least two networks have e-mails from the National Security Advisors office telling a counterterrorist group to stand down, that there was a group, in real time, trying to mobilize the Marines, and the C-130s, and the fighter aircraft, and they were told explicitly - by the White House - stand down, and do nothing... this is not a terrorist action.
If that's true - and I've been told this by a fairly reliable U.S. Senator - if that's true, and if that comes out in the next day or two, I think it raises enormous questions about the President's role... Tom Donnelyn, the National Security advisor's role... the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, who's taken it on his own shoulders that he said "don't go." And I think that's very dubious, given that the President has said that he issued instructions that they were to supposed to do anything they could to secure American personnel. Now, which is it? Is the Secretary of Defense usurping the Commander in Chief, or did in fact Obama not issue that order. I think you are going to see this come back tomorrow and the next day. It was suspended - for two days - by the storm coverage, which dominated everything, but I think that tomorrow, as the storm begins to recede, you'll see Benghazi come back.
The other big story that's going to break - I think - is on corruption, and extraordinary waste, in the solar power grants, and the direct involvement by the Obama White House - including the President - in the solar power grants, involving billions of dollars, and I suspect that's going to break Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
Greta:
Well, you know... the Benghazi story... I regret that it's coming out now, because - no matter - there's going to be criticism that it's being pursued for political reasons, or whatever... and we did have four Americans die, and we do have inconsistent stories, different lines. And the American people ought to be able to figure... and the families find out what happened. That seems like the right thing to do, at least in my mind. And I think that when you have two different stories, you should try to pursue the government and get the right story. But it's - unfortunately - sort of "looped in" to this election time, and I think it makes it almost unfortunate because I think... you know, you'd like to see what happened. I'd like the Administration to speak out about it.
Do you agree that the timing's unfortunate, or...
Newt:
Yeah, I think the timing's terrible, and you have to say to your self "it's been over six weeks." Why has the President of the United States, his National Security advisor, his Secretary of State, his Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence... why haven't they been able to come clean, with the American people, and tell us the truth? I mean, this is not that hard, the documents all have to be available, it should be possible to sort it out, and instead this has been - frankly - a cover up. And you're right, it's sad that it's happening just before an election, but it's been over six weeks now, and we can't get the facts out of this Administration, about an incident that is a pretty big deal. Four Americans killed, including an American ambassador, and an American facility, a town... and now it turns out it may not have been, technically, have been a consolate... that's the latest story today. It may have been "a facility," which has a different legal framing, I mean... this is a mess. We apparantly lost a number of secret documents, we have no idea what those secret documents are. There was no effort to help, and we now know - because of Colonel Bing West's excellent work - that there were, in fact, Marines available, there were C-130s available, there were fighter aircraft available, both in Turkey and in Sicily, help could have gotten there in about an hour, in terms of air power, and in about two hours in terms of Marines. The fight went on for almost seven hours, the two SEALs were not killed until about 4:20 in the morning. I mean, this is really a terrible, terrible situation.
Greta:
Mr. Speaker, you mentioned Bing West, and he's joining us in just a few seconds, and I hope you'll be joining us before election night.
Newt: I look forward to it, very much.
Greta: Thank you sir.
Great job! Thanks!