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FACE THE NATION

Sunday, August 12, 2007

GUESTS: MIKE HUCKABEE Republican Presidential Candidate; Former Governor of Arkansas

DAVID YEPSEN The Des Moines Register

KAREN TUMULTY Time Magazine

JIM VANDEHEI Politico.com

MODERATOR: JIM AXELROD - CBS News

This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed. In case of doubt, please check with

FACE THE NATION - CBS NEWS 202-457-4481

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / 202-419-1859 / 800-456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 1

JIM AXELROD, host:

Today on FACE THE NATION, an interview with Governor Mike Huckabee one day after the Iowa straw poll. In campaign 2008's first contest last night, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee came in second place after Mitt Romney. So what does that mean? Will last night's results propel him to the top tier of candidates and help him get to next year's caucuses and primaries, where the votes actually count? All questions for Governor Mike Huckabee.

And for analysis and perspective on all the weeks' political news, we'll talk with David Yepsen of The Des Moines Register, Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine and Jim VandeHei of Politico.com.

But first, Governor Mike Huckabee on FACE THE NATION.

Announcer: FACE THE NATION with chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. And now from Washington, substituting for Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

AXELROD: Welcome again to the broadcast. Bob Schieffer's off this morning.

Yesterday in Ames, Iowa, Republican voters there took part in the first critical test in the race for the White House--the Iowa straw poll. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain chose not to participate, though their names were on the ballot. More than 14,000 Iowans paid or let a campaign pay 35 bucks a pop for them to vote for a Republican presidential candidate. While the results of this straw poll are nonbinding, it is the first indicator of whether candidates can translate money and message into votes. And here's how they ran. As expected, Mitt Romney won with 32 percent of the vote. Mike Huckabee came in second with 18 percent, and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback third with 15 percent.

Joining us now from Little Rock, Arkansas, former Governor Mike Huckabee.

Good morning, Governor. Thanks for being with us.

Former Governor MIKE HUCKABEE (Republican, Arkansas; Presidential Candidate): Well, thank you, Jim. It was a great day for us in Iowa yesterday.

AXELROD: You know, in the run-up to the straw poll, I saw you quoted a couple different times saying if you were still a second-tier candidate after the straw poll, then you had a problem. So from where you're sitting this morning, you got a problem?

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: No, we're, we're in fact in the first tier, I think, by anybody's estimation. And here's why. It wasn't just that we surprised people with a second showing, it's that we did it with so few resources. I mean, this really was feeding the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves, an amazing kind of day for us. Because if you look at how much money some of the candidates spent to get the kind of votes they got, it's staggering. And we spent less than $100,000 on the straw poll. If we add everything we did over

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / (202)419-1859 / (800)456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 2 the course of the last seven weeks in Iowa, that includes paper clips and gasoline for the vehicles to get us from place to place, our total expenses were 150,000. So when you look at what we were able to achieve, it was because people came to Ames to vote for us. And we had remarkable stories of people who came literally from all over America to work for us, and then people from Ames--one girl drove from Ames to Des Moines to get her driver license, because she forgot it, just so she could vote for me. I mean, it was that kind of--it was a movement, it wasn't just a, `Hey, we're giving out T-shirts.' I mean, we gave out watermelon from my hometown of Hope, Arkansas, which, of course, is worth driving to Ames for.

AXELROD: All right. On one--on one hand, you do this on a shoestring.

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Yeah.

AXELROD: I get that. On the other hand, no Rudy Giuliani, no John McCain, no Fred Thompson. So let's put this in some kind of perspective in terms of moving yourself from the second tier to the first tier.

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, it still matters that even though they say they didn't play, they were on the ballot. More importantly, what they did was forfeit the game, and if you forfeit, it's a loss. They knew they weren't going to do well with Iowa voters because Iowa voters tend to be far more conservative. I think they looked at the clear situation and the landscape in Iowa and decided, you know, if we go and play and do what we probably will do, it'll be embarrassing, so we'll just forfeit the game. I don't think it diminishes what the rest of us did. I think it only enhances it and shows that we play in middle America and they know they didn't.

AXELROD: I'm looking at something from yesterday that strikes me as the big takeaway that eight years ago this time there were 24,000 voters who participated in the straw poll. Yesterday, 14,000. That's 10,000 fewer Republican voters playing at this. What does that tell us about the state of the Republican Party?

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: It tells us more about how hot it was in Ames, Iowa. It was about 150 degrees, and I think that had a lot to do with it, the state fair going on.

AXELROD: Ten thousand fewer voters hot?

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, I think so. I mean, it was--there were two things that were working. First of all, there was the state fair of Iowa, which is like most state fairs on steroids. I call it the Barry Bonds of state fairs. It's just unbelievable because we went to it on Friday. And then you do have a situation where the weather and, you know, right now this campaign has been dragging on much longer. So most people have sort of had a chance to take a look at some of the candidates. What we're still dealing with, though, is the universe of people who are willing to drive anywhere from an hour to four and a half hours away to come to Ames and spend all day in a hot sunshine--unless they're in one of the air-conditioned tents of the other

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / (202)419-1859 / (800)456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 3 candidates--you know, to vote in a--in a straw poll.

AXELROD: All right.l

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: I think it goes mean something.

AXELROD: Governor, let me ask you about the man who won yesterday's straw poll, Governor Romney. You said before he might be a risky standard bearer for the Republican Party because of his flip-flips. Is Mitt Romney a reliable conservative?

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, you know, that's going to be for the voters to decide. And I want to be very clear. I didn't say that he was a flip-flopper. I never said that. What I said when asked did I believe his positions on abortion now which have changed? And I said, `I'm going to give him benefit of the doubt and accept him at his word.' Mitt is a good guy. He's got a wonderful family, and I said I'm not going to criticize him for where he stands now. But if we think that the Democrats won't come and use that against him, should he be the nominee, we're kidding ourselves. And so it was reported that I took a shot at him, and actually I thought I was being rather generously charitable to him.

AXELROD: You know, a lot of people, I'm sure, waking up this morning and looking at you and looking at the results and saying, `Who is this guy?' So an ordained Baptist minister, solid conservative credentials, a great personal story. You shed a ton of weight in this battle with diabetes.

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Mm-hmm.

AXELROD: Did you ever look at the national Republican front-runner, Rudy Giuliani, the pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-gay rights Rudy Giuliani and say to yourself, `How come I haven't been able to get any traction?'

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, I think yesterday showed that we are getting traction. And I've said a long time if we had just even a little bit of the resources some of these other guys have been able to accumulate, we'd be at the top of the field because of the message. You know, I'm one of the few Republican candidates that's having the courage to talk about how we need to really separate ourselves from being the Wall Street Republican crowd. We need to be the Main Street Republican crowd. We need to quit being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the major fund managers on Wall Street and start being more concerned about people out there in places like Iowa.

AXELROD: But let me give you a chance while we're sort of in this process of maybe introducing you to the American public in a way they haven't seen prior to the, to the debate--to the straw poll. Let me ask you this question, draw some contrasts between you, Mayor Giuliani, Senator McCain, Governor Romney. What makes Mike Huckabee different?

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: There are several things. First of all, experience. And I don't mean just governmental experience. That's important, 10 1/2 years

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / (202)419-1859 / (800)456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 4 as a governor in a state that's overwhelmingly Democrat. I became governor with a 90 percent Democrat legislature, the most lopsided in the country, and was able to get things done in the way of tax cuts and transportation to rebuild roads, some of the most significant education improvements and some innovative things, frankly, that many people wouldn't expect out of a Republican--a focus on music and art in education, health care renovations that have really, I think, driven national attention to Arkansas for being the only state in the country to reverse trends of childhood obesity. But in addition to that, I think a lot of it, Jim, is personal experience. You know, I didn't grow up a child of privilege. I grew up in a working class family and first male in my entire family lineage to even graduate high school.

I think I know something of the American dream and not only understand it but can communicate it and articulate it because I've lived it. And I can relate to a lot of people out there who just want to know that people who are elected, whether it's to the presidency or to the office of city council, understand what struggle is like, because a lot of Americans every day get up and they don't face the decision between are they going to vacation in the Caribbean or the Riviera. They face whether they can squeeze the handle on the gas pump and put enough fuel in the tank to get to work.

AXELROD: But I'm trying to figure out what your road from here might look like so that a year from now you are not only still in the race but accepting a nomination in Minneapolis. I'm having trouble this morning, despite your finish yesterday, seeing what it is that makes you different so that you vault ahead of some of the front-runners as the party has them right now.

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, first of all, I think that Republicans look for a conservative who has had consistency in his principles, and there's not going to be any YouTube moments of me saying something substantially different on the sanctity of life or on the Second Amendment or on the role of traditional marriage.

AXELROD: And are Giuliani and Romney both open to that possibility?

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, you know, do a Google search, and I'll let you find the YouTube moments. But I think people are looking for consistency. They're also looking for somebody who can communicate those views that won't come across as confrontational. This country is very polarized right now, no one can deny that, and I think Americans are looking for what I like to call vertical leadership rather than horizontal. The average person doesn't care whether we're left, right, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat as much as they care as to whether we would lead this country up rather than down. And that's vertical leadership, and I think that's what Republicans are going to have to have or we're going to get our heads handed to us next year in the elections.

AXELROD: We've got about just 30 seconds left. You're a strong supporter of the troop surge as well. Can you win as a strong supporter of the troop surge?

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Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: You know, I know that I can because the American people are going to see that the surge is beginning to have an impact. I mean, even The New York Times had to admit that things are beginning to improve. General Petraeus was given until September. We ought to give him that time frame. And certainly it's not pretty, it's not something we want to be there forever in, but we also know we've got a responsibility to do it right, so we don't have to do it over.

AXELROD: And we're going to leave it right there. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, congratulations on your finish in the straw poll yesterday. Thank you for being with us.

Fmr. Gov. HUCKABEE: Thank you, Jim.

AXELROD: And we'll be back with our political roundtable in just a minute.

(Announcements)

AXELROD: With us now from Des Moines, Iowa, the dean of Iowa political reporters, David Yepsen of The Des Moines Register. Here in our studio Karen Tumulty of Time magazine, and Jim VandeHei, executive editor of Politico.com.

Thanks, everybody, for being here.

David Yepsen, let's start with you. Put it into some kind of context for us. The results we saw in Iowa yesterday, Governor Romney, of course, with the win. I don't know how big it is, and Mike Huckabee as you just heard wanting to say this vaults him from second tier to first tier status. What do you make of what you saw yesterday?

Mr. DAVID YEPSEN (The Des Moines Register): Well, first of all, I think Governor Huckabee was arguably the biggest winner yesterday because did beat Sam Brownback, and the two of them were in a real contest for the hearts and minds of the social conservatives. So I think Mike Huckabee clearly made some gains out of this. I mean, I think Governor Romney's victory's a little bit hollow, just because some of the big players in this place, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thomspon weren't in the ring. I mean, what kind of--what kind of victory is it, what kind of champ are you when the--when the other big contenders aren't in the ring with you?

AXELROD: It's been interesting to hear the spin this morning about, you know, the win, the same number that George Bush had eight years ago, says the governor. But you really can't--you can't ignore the fact that Giuliani and McCain weren't there, correct?

Mr. YEPSEN: No, that's right. And you can't ignore the fact that there were 10,000 fewer votes. I mean, there--the spin is `Well, the fair was going on, and it's hot.' Well, it's hot in Iowa every August. It was hot eight years ago, OK? And I think--I think I had one Republican tell me eight years ago the country was suffering from Clinton fatigue and this year the country is suffering from Bush fatigue and that discouraged a lot of Republicans from who

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / (202)419-1859 / (800)456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 6 are unhappy. I was really struck during the speeches about how little--almost nothing was said about President Bush in the speeches. The candidates--they weren't trashing him, but they were clearly trying to distance themselves and moving on.

AXELROD: Jim VandeHei, you know, I noticed there was a poll in Iowa last month, and I think likely Republican voters, "none of the above" was carrying the day there. Anything you're seeing in Romney's win that would have him replace "none of the above" as the favorite candidate among Republicans in Iowa?

Mr. JIM VANDEHEI (Politico.com): Absolutely not. The Republican Party is in a funk. I mean, you look at George Bush's poll numbers, they're in the tank. You have the Republican brand, which is very damaged. And the Republican faithful are demoralized. And what they want, what they need is political salvation. And they see it coming in someone who's conservative and electable. And I don't think anyone has closed the deal yet on that. I think that's why, you know, Romney is doing OK in the early states. He does have some support from some conservatives. But Giuliani, I mean, he's got to be able to convince people that he's not just electable, but that he's also one of them. And I don't think he's closed that deal.

AXELROD: And, Karen Tumulty, you were just out in Iowa following Rudy Giuliani around. What did you see, and how much does it hurt him, if at all, that he skips the straw poll?

Ms. KAREN TUMULTY (Time Magazine): Well, you know, just a few weeks ago it really looked like Rudy Giuliani was going to not give much more than a sort of a token effort in Iowa. He's clearly recalculated. He calls it a renewed emphasis on Iowa. He's spending a lot more time there. He's begun spending a little bit of money there. But there is a real question as to whether the conservative Republican electorate that you have in Iowa is, in fact, going to support a candidate.

AXELROD: What's he like out there?

Ms. TUMULTY: It's sort of funny to see what happens when you take the city boy out of the city. Everything he sort of related to something in New York. At one point he goes into a country and western wear store in Fort Dodge to buy some cowboy shirts, and he says, `You know, they have bull riding in Madison Square Garden.' And when he finds out that Meredith Wilson is from--was from Mason City, he says, `Well, "The Music Man," that's played on Broadway.' So it's--it is sort of fun to watch.

But what I was also struck by were the audiences he was drawing. They were big, they were enthusiastic, but they didn't necessarily strike me as the kind of people who are going to come out in the snow in January to caucus for Rudy Giuliani.

AXELROD: Jim, let's see--just widen out here for a second. Would Rudy Giuliani, whatever his troubles or challenges may be in Iowa, with him the

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / (202)419-1859 / (800)456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 7 sort of national front-runner in terms of the Republican polls, does this mean the Republican Party is in the process of redefining itself when you look at his core positions, and how they're counter to the traditional Republican Party positions?

Mr. VANDEHEI: There's no doubt that both parties right now are going through a broad rethinking of what it means to be a Democrat, what does it mean to be a Republican. And for Republicans, terrorism has certainly become one of the biggest, if not the biggest issue for the party. I think that really explains Giuliani's success. People still think of the imagery of 9/11, and they see him as a tough guy. And I think tough guy sells. It sells in the South, and it sells with a lot of Republicans.

AXELROD: So forget abortion and forget gun control?

Mr. VANDEHEI: I don't think you forget about it, but I do think things are changing. And one of the things is when you are looking death in the face, you start to be--think a lot more pragmatically. And I think now they're saying, `Yes, he's not with us on a lot of the social issues. But if he can win, he's sure a lot better than Hillary.'

Mr. VANDEHEI: David Yepsen, I just wanted to get to you before we go to break and ask you think about the moving of the caucuses. There is some talk about perhaps having the Iowa caucus at the end of 2007 in December. That's not going to happen now, right?

Mr. YEPSEN: Right. Last week the governor said it wasn't--he--of Iowa said he did not want this thing in 2007. The Republicans are on board with that. I mean the caucuses are important because they're a traditional start of the presidential election year. And that means these events have to be sometime in 2008. So I'd kind of block out the first two weeks in January, maybe, to be out here.

Mr. VANDEHEI: Karen Tumulty, do you think it made any difference? Or was this one of these classic insider stories at the end of the day? Does it matter if you start the voting in 2007 or 2008?

Ms. TUMULTY: Well, I think that the real problem is that voters get really, really tired of the whole election season, which is going to be a long one and a brutal one. So I think that, in a lot of ways, it's better to put this off.

AXELROD: OK. And we're going to be back in just a minute to continue our conversation here on FACE THE NATION.

(Announcements)

AXELROD: We're back again with David Yepsen, Karen Tumulty and Jim VandeHei.

David, let's talk about Democrats for a second here. What has been gelling in Iowa in this little back and forth between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama about foreign policy? Has any of that gelled, had any traction, topic of

BURRELLE'S INFORMATION SERVICES / (202)419-1859 / (800)456-2877 Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, August 12, 2007 8 conversation at all in Iowa?

Mr. YEPSEN: Yeah, I think a little bit among the activists, which are, after all, what we're talking about here. I think the polling has shown--is showing this race in Iowa to be a statistical tie with John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And that's bad news for John Edwards because he was a clear front-runner early on. I think Senator Obama and particularly Senator Clinton have come up handsomely here in the last couple of weeks. And I think that whole business of exchange over nukes has helped Senator Clinton simply because she looks to be in command, she looks like she's in charge, and I think that explains some of not only her numbers here in Iowa going up, but nationally she's picked up some.

AXELROD: Jim, do you agree with David that what's happening in Iowa is not good news for John Edwards and that once--the lead he once had seems to be shrinking?

Mr. VANDEHEI: Very bad news. You know, he--his strategy's a lot like Romney's. What he wants to do is not run a national campaign, win in those early states and use that momentum. If he can't win in Iowa, he's a goner. And the fact that his numbers are going down, I think, are indicative of what you're hearing from a lot of Democrats. I think he has sort of an authenticity problem right now that, you know, his strategy and his message this time is much different than it was last time he ran. And you have these incidents like the expensive hair cut and reports of how much money he makes when he's running as a populist. I think that has hurt him. That's the message I hear when I talk to Democratic strategists.

AXELROD: So even though you're looking at poll numbers in Iowa where he's still sort of in a neck-and-neck race, if you look nationally, it's almost like he's moving into second-tier status himself.

Mr. VANDEHEI: Right. And he needs Iowa. I mean, the fact that he is running essentially even is bad news because he's spent so much more time, so much more money and so much more focus on Iowa than the other candidates. It's much more central to his strategy than it is to the others.

AXELROD: Karen Tumulty, does any part of this surprise you at all? That Edwards just hasn't, aside from Iowa, really sort of taken a deeper root?

Ms. TUMULTY: Well, all along it's been sort of hard to see what the sort of premise of the--of the Edwards campaign was and where he would go even if he did win Iowa convincingly. And it seems like his best shot, having positioned himself sort of in the populist mode, a little bit to the left, is if the fighting between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton gets so bad that it eventually becomes a murder-suicide. At that point, John Edwards has an opening.

AXELROD: That doesn't sound like much of a chance. How solid do you see Hillary Clinton's lead right now as reflected in the national polls? Is that--is that substantive? Is it a solid lead?

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Ms. TUMULTY: It's widening, which is quite remarkable given, in particular, the excitement and the buzz and the money that has been headed towards Barack Obama's campaign. Hillary Clinton seems to be running very much of a--it's a front-runner campaign. Her message is aimed at the general electorate as much as it's aimed at the Democratic base. She's stayed--she's stayed focused, and I do think that she's becoming harder and harder to beat as the months go by.

AXELROD: What needs to--what needs to happen if you're plotting strategy for Senator Obama? What do you do? Because it seems as though, and I think he attempted to do this with this foreign policy question, but aside from that, what are the big differences there that he would be able to capitalize on to close that gap?

Ms. TUMULTY: Well, the main thing that he has got to do I think, at this point, is to demonstrate that he is sure-footed and particularly on these foreign policy questions as much as--I mean, he created some controversy with his foreign policy speech, but I think what hurt him was the back and forth that went on afterwards where all the other Democratic contenders, essentially, were jumping on him and calling him naive. And he didn't seem to quite have the grasp of the language, the grasp of the nuance of foreign policy that he needed in that kind of circumstance.

AXELROD: We've just got about a minute left.

Jim VandeHei, we're talking about some winnowing with the Republicans because the straw poll is a natural time for the field to shrink. What do you see with the Democrats have--would there be any winnowing there?

Mr. VANDEHEI: There certainly will as the process goes on, but I think everyone has a reason to stay in there and be able to have their stage when there's a debate every other hour now in Democratic politics. So people want that forum and they want to use it. I think what's been hard for a lot of Democratic voters is there's not been as much clarification about what are the differences between the Democratic candidates because I think people like Biden and Richardson so much want to work in the Hillary administration or Clinton administration or Obama administration.

AXELROD: So you don't want to be too sharp.

Mr. VANDEHEI: So they haven't been that sharp, and I think it will get sharper as time will come.

AXELROD: All right. Jim VandeHei, Karen Tumulty, David Yepsen in Iowa, thanks so much for joining us. And we'll be back in a moment.

(Announcements)

AXELROD: That's our broadcast this morning. Bob Schieffer will be back next week. Thanks for watching FACE THE NATION.

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