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Krauthammer: Romney will win the presidency
Special Guests: Charles KrauthammerThis is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," November 5, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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O'REILLY: Thanks for staying with us. I'm Bill O'Reilly. In the "Campaign 2012" segment tonight, let's go down to Washington where our pal, Charles Krauthammer, is telling the world a whole bunch of things about the presidential election.
He has been listening to The Factor this evening. So, at the end of the segment, you promised me you're going to give a prediction.
You've already given one but I want to know if you're going to hold to that. But the bigger picture to you -- what has convinced you about your prediction is what.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, look, you can do the calculation as Karl Rove does it. And I believe every word --I mean I agree with his analysis from the micro view, state-after-stare.
But I want to do it from the macro view. People say that, you know, the national vote doesn't count. Well, technically, yes. But it's very important understanding what's happened.
Last Monday, a week ago, Romney had won this race if it had ended on Monday night.
O'REILLY: Correct.
KRAUTHAMMER: He was up 4, 5, 6 in the national polls. You can't be up that much nationally and not win the electoral, the college. I don't care how you slice it or dice it.
Then something happens. Then you get the October surprise which is devastating to Romney in this sense.
And we know this empirically because in the national polls where Romney was up 4, 5, 6, he goes to zero to minus one essentially.
Number one, he becomes irrelevant. He was very presidential in the debates. Obama was small. That's reversed. He becomes irrelevant in the storm.
Number two, Obama plays the Commander-In-Chief, the picture in the Situation Room. Now, where was he in Benghazi in the Situation Room, separate issue. Nobody is going to ask it but he looks like the Commander-In-Chief.
Number three, and the biggest one, was the Christie bear hug. Here's the guy who is the most smash mouth, in your face, Republican partisan, bear-hugging the president, praising him how he cooperates.
The weakness Obama has had with the independents has been that he's been correctly as the most partisan president of the last half century.
ObamaCare passed without one vote on the other side, simply one example. So, on three counts, this huge gift Obama gets.
O'REILLY: Yes, the storm, as you said, de-emphasized what Romney was all about. Do you think that Christie knew what he was doing, the gift that he was giving the President.
KRAUTHAMMER: Look, I'm a psychiatrist but I don't play one on TV. So, I can't tell you what's inside his head. But I can say what the effect was.
That's the kind of advertising Obama couldn't have purchased with $10 million, where he gets the picture of the most partisan opponent hugging him and praising him.
Now, but here's why I still think Romney is going to win. That effect will last only three days. Whenever you have a catastrophe, the solidarity effect is three days.
And then you get the reality setting in. All the stories of Long Island, stories you know about personally, all the stuff about the abandonment, the inefficiencies, all of these stuff.
Now, it doesn't read down on Obama the way it did on Bush and Katrina because Obama is a Democrat and Bush was a Republican. And the media aren't going to play it up.
Nonetheless, it stopped the Sandy effect. And you can see it now in the nationals. If you look at the last four national polls, Romney is now coming back.
He's up. He's either tied or plus one. So, I see... and that's as of Saturday. So, you get Saturday, Sunday, today and tomorrow where, I think, Romney comes back.
He doesn't come all the way back. He's not going to be plus five. But the fact that he's coming back has an effect.
And here's where it has the effect on the battleground states, if they're all very close, all nine or ten of them, and you get a swing in the national of one percent or two, either way, then it's a bunch of dominoes.
Then all of them will go one way which is why it looked so bad for Romney on Saturday or Friday. But now that I think he's coming back somewhat nationally, you're getting an evening effect.
And, I think, they're going to split half-and-half. And there are paths, easy ones, for Romney to win electorally if, as I predict, the rebound in the national poll is continuing, which I think it is.
O'REILLY: Is there anything that Romney could have done to get himself back in the public eye with a very strong message. Because, as you know, as being a sports fan, he went into the prevent defense.
He didn't take any chances, kind of a ground game out. Is there anything that he could have done to put himself up there beside, of course, the big interview tonight on Monday Night Football where they're both doing it, you know.
KRAUTHAMMER: Once the hurricane hit, there was nothing he could do. Before, he could have done stuff. But, remember, if you didn't see a hurricane coming in the future, an act of God, I mean a lucky stroke for Obama, the Romney strategy which was a very, as you say, it was a very conservative one, a very defensive one, was working.
Because he was -- the momentum he got in the debates, while it was slowing was still continuing. And it was clearly going to carry him over the top. But, in retrospect, if you knew there was going to be this event --
O'REILLY: Yes, you would have been more aggressive.
KRAUTHAMMER: Well, what you would have done is, in the third debate, you would have -- it's Libya where he went weak.
He could have hit Obama on Libya in the third debate. He could have hit him after. He never touched him.
And the media, therefore, had an excuse to stay away from it. That, I think, would have been devastation for Obama and destruction for Obama.
And that, I think, would have sealed it. But Romney played it safe.
O'REILLY: He played it safe.
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