BILL PRESS: On set with me for the entire hour, Governor Elliot Spitzer. Good to see you, Governor.
ELLIOT SPITZER: Pleasure to be here. Thank you.
PRESS: All right, so there it is. Mitt Romney's the winner. Marco Rubio, senator, today said — early today — that whoever wins the Republican Primary is the Republican nominee. Do you agree?
SPITZER: Not only do I agree, I think this is the first of many dominoes to fall in the next couple days. The establishment, the elected officials — senators, governors, those outside from, you know, Karl Rove on down, who speak for the leadership of the Republican party — saying, not only he is the nominee, but implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, saying to Newt Gingrich, "You're staying in this race as an act of narcissism, damaging to the Republican party, get out. End it. Let us now coalesce."
Mitt Romney's having just the night he wanted. One last point. After South Carolina — and that was probably the worst week of campaigning he's ever been through, you know, from his taxes to the attack on Bain's — it was a disaster. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, the old cliché. But it's kind of true. He has bounced back and now, trial by fire, he is saying to people, "Look, I am here, stronger, better, tested. You'd better be on my team."
PRESS: All right.
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PRESS: So, Governor, you're Newt Gingrich.
SPITZER: Please, don't do that to me.
PRESS: Sorry about that. What do you do right now? Right are you thinking?
SPITZER: Look, he needs to put a positive spin. I think what David just said is maybe their best argument — "We were outspent five to one, this was not a state that was hospitable to us. But give us a few more weeks, there are southern states, there are states demographically more like South Carolina."
And, as he will say, "Look at that board right there, Romney is only getting 48 percent of the vote. The majority of Republican voters still don't want Mitt Romney. They are looking for somebody — I'm that person." Now, it's not an argument that is going to persuade many people. I think Newt Gingrich's negatives have piled on like crustaceans on the bottom of a boat. He can't scrape them off, he can't get rid of them.
Now, if it were possible for a Jeb Bush to come in and make that argument, maybe a different dynamic, but let me tell you — right now, Mitt Romney's on a roll. He has, in the public mind, won everything but South Carolina. You know, people forget, Rick Santorum actually won Iowa. But right now, Newt Gingrich is flailing away without a meaningful argument.
PRESS: And yet, Newt did say today that this is going to go on for another six to eight months. With typical Newt irony he says, "Unless Romney drops out first."
SPITZER: You got to love — you got to love the guy's bravado. He's like a cat with nine lives, he just comes bouncing back — different incarnation, a slightly different look. And crazier ideas each time, arguably. But, you know, the public will respect that, but he also isn't looking presidential. Just look at the different feel of the campaign settings tonight. New Gingrich is done.
PRESS: Speaking of not looking presidential, I like to play — this is Mitt — I'm sorry, Newt Gingrich. Last evening, going after Mitt Romney, I mean, it's — the question is whether or not this really sells with voters — the Newt that we've seen in the last week, particularly — getting more and more desperate. Here's a quick clip:
(Excerpt from video clip) GINGRICH: Every time we nominated a moderate we lose. You know? So, 1996 we nominated a moderate, Bill Clinton wins re-election by a big margin. 2008, we nominate a moderate, Barack Obama wins. Why would anybody in the establishment think that a Massachusetts moderate, which is a liberal by Republican standards — pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase, pro-gay rights — why would they think the he is going to be able to debate Barack Obama?
PRESS: A little desperation in his voice?
SPITZER: A little desperation. And, you know, he may get a job as a pundit somewhere. But that's not the candidate —
PRESS: Wait, he used to have one.
SPITZER: That's true, that's true.
PRESS: Maybe he'll go back to it, right?
SPITZER: That could be. Could be.
PRESS: But, I mean, this idea of labeling Romney as — not just a moderate, but then he moved it to "a liberal" and "a liar" — will that hurt Romney with the tea party people that he's going to need?
SPITZER: Well look, there is a harsh reality here that Newt Gingrich has got to face up to. There is, unfortunately — from my perspective, your perspective, I think I can say that for you — a lot of venom directed towards President Obama. The tea party votes are going to go with the Republican nominee, barring some third-party surge that we don't envision right now.
And so, Mitt Romney will harvest those votes and, frankly, it makes more sense for the Republican leadership to put somebody a bit more moderate in the middle who can take advantage of the anti-Obama sentiment and not be so alien to moderate voters who would be a little worried about a Newt Gingrich or some of the other — a Rick Santorum.
And so, I think it is smart for the Republican party. And I think John McCain may be looking at Newt Gingrich right now saying, "Who are you calling moderate?" You know, John McCain views himself as a down-the-road, straight conservative.
PRESS: Right. So, one thing about Florida is, if you take these 50 electoral votes in Florida — even though they were cut in half, because Florida moved its primary up — that is —
SPITZER: Convention votes. Delegates.
PRESS: I'm sorry, convention delegates, right. That is still greater than the total of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined. Plus, Florida is much more reflective of the population of the United States and demographics in the United States as a whole. So, for Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, looking at this — that this is sort of how they might run nationwide. That's got to mean something, I guess, to the Republican Party.
SPITZER: Look, Mitt Romney and the leadership of the Republican Party tonight are looking at the map — put aside Santorum's win by eight votes, whatever — and they're saying, "Mitt Romney won Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida." As you just said, that is a pretty good cross section of the nation that Mitt Romney needs to win in November to win the election.
So they're saying, "South Carolina went to the right, okay, they're going to come back, we're not worried that South Carolina is going for President Obama. So, that's fine. Give that to Newt."
They are saying, "We are positioning ourselves very nicely to make that centrist argument. Let the tea party scream and shout a little bit, but we think we can now win maybe Ohio, maybe Pennsylvania, some of those real . . ." Remember, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio — the traditional three determinative states — you have got to get two of them to win in November. They're saying Mitt Romney is showing he can win in Florida, and this matters.
PRESS: It certainly buttresses his electability argument.
SPITZER: Absolutely.
PRESS: For sure.
SPITZER: Absolutely. Governor Eliot Spitzer, we'll be back to you again.
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PRESS: Governor, while were waiting for Governor Romney to come up and listening to Ann Romney. I just want to ask you — we've been looking at these numbers since we got on the set. It's now 62 percent and still 47 percent to 32 percent. I mean, this is locked in. It's going to be 15 percent or more.
SPITZER: Absolutely, once you have 62 percent of the vote in, it's very hard, mathematically, for it to shift, and you have such a huge sample. This is an overwhelming victory for Mitt Romney — repudiation of Newt Gingrich. And — a lot of questions ahead — but clearly Mitt Romney got exactly what he wanted tonight. Newt Gingrich is sick to his stomach right now.
PRESS: And again, in terms of any bragging rights, if Newt were able to get within maybe six, seven, eight, he could say, "Look, I'm still a viable candidate." Can he still say that now?
SPITZER: Well, only to the true believers. I don't think that he has any capacity to say that — to a larger audience, outside the voters of South Carolina — he has a broad enough appeal to really challenge Mitt Romney. And I think over the next couple days, we're going to see the entire Republican establishment coalescing around Mitt Romney saying, "We have our candidate, we have our challenger."
It going to be a tight race, as Congressman Grayson said, this is going to be a real doosey of a battle between now and November. Every week with new economic data, a new political fact coming out and changing the dynamic a little bit. This is going to be a long, drawn-out, tough fight.
PRESS: I think that we cannot ignore, also, the significance that this is Ann Romney, he's been married to her for 42 years, right?
SPITZER: Yeah.
PRESS: Right?
SPITZER: Yeah.
PRESS: And this is sort of a message too, isn't it, to Republicans about Newt Gingrich?
SPITZER: Look, not only with respect to Newt Gingrich. But, let's face it — everybody knows a partisan Democrat will want the president to be re-elected. This is a very nice-looking family that speaks to what people want to see in a family where the father — or the mom some day, let's hope — is running for the presidency of the United States.
This is going to be a real, serious contest. Mitt Romney is a smart, effective guy. Disagree with him, view him as a flip-flopper — whatever the attacks may be — this is going to be a real campaign between two capable contestants. And I think Mitt Romney, after the past week, has show he can bounce back, play tough and throw a punch.
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PRESS: And I want to rap here with Governor Spitzer again. So, we're going to have — Mitt Romney's going to be the nominee, I'll just state that, all right?
SPITZER: I could not agree more.
PRESS: Up against President Obama. And the issue is the economy.
SPITZER: Right.
PRESS: All right. So, Mitt Romney's either going to come across as a guy who can fix it, or the guy who is so out of touch with the average Joe that he could never relate to the 99 percent.
SPITZER: Well, there will be screaming and shouting. The White House will say, "Which Mitt are you electing? Mitt is multiple personalities." "Mitt versus Mitt will the best debate," will be a White House line.
Three numbers, I think will determine which way this economic argument cuts.
The first one, obviously — unemployment. Does it continue to trend down so the president can build a sense of success? A sense we're moving in the right direction. The trend is the critical issue there. It doesn't need to be below 7.5, but the trend is critical.
Second, housing prices, again. Today we see they're continuing to drop. For most of the American public, that is the single biggest asset in our portfolio. If housing prices continue to drop, people feel poorer. That is bad news for the incumbent president. Foreclosures go up, all bad stuff.
Third one — the wild card, — gas prices. Right now, drifting down a little bit, but something in the Middle East could send them through the roof. That, obviously, is a wild card.
Those three numbers, I think, are forming the backdrop of how we feel about the economy. That will dictate the terms of this debate.
PRESS: That being said, of the whole crew we saw, Mitt Romney was the strongest candidate of the bunch, right?
SPITZER: There was never any doubt. I think that's why we called it prematurely, time and time again. Newt is like a cat with nine lives, but you got to believe — at some point — it's game over.
PRESS: Governor Spitzer, thanks so much for being with us tonight.
