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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks in Washington.
updated 12/27/2010 2:26:30 PM ET 2010-12-27T19:26:30





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Video: Panel eyes possible 2012 GOP field

  1. Transcript of: Panel eyes possible 2012 GOP field

    MR. GREGORY: We are back with more from our roundtable, final moments. Tom Brokaw , you know, at this stage of the 2008 cycle, we were getting ready for the new year and some new announcements as to who was going to run for president.

    MR. BROKAW: Right.

    MR. GREGORY: So what are Republicans going to do?

    MR. BROKAW: Well, I -- you know, who knows at this point, David . You've heard me say this a thousand times over, the UFO theory always holds, the unforeseen will occur. We don't know who they are at this point. It was just 15 months ago that the tea party was just a faint line on the political horizon in this country, and then suddenly it was this very powerful force. There are obviously a lot of Republicans in the Senate and in the statehouses around the country who see themselves in the Oval Office . I mean, Tim Pawlenty is running hard in Minnesota , Sarah Palin , obviously, is more than flirting with the idea. Now, Haley Barbour probably has banged himself up again a little bit in the last week or so with his comments about the white citizens council , to say nothing of people in the United States Senate , and Mitt Romney , the former governor of Massachusetts . So there's a lot of moving around going on out there.

    MR. GREGORY: Well, what kind of candidate, Peggy Noonan , do you need to run as the Republican Party , to take on Obama ? What's the theory of the case at this stage?

    MS. NOONAN: Hm . A big thing is how the tectonic plates keep moving in American politics . Harrison Salisbury once said -- a lifetime in journalism, he was asked, "What did you learn?" He said, "Expect the unexpected." If we've learned anything from the past decade, it's that anybody can arise from anywhere and become a leader.

    MR. WOODWARD: Mm-hmm.




    MR. WOODWARD: Yeah, yeah.

    MS. NOONAN: ...for clarifying that.

    MR. WOODWARD: Yes.





    MS. NOONAN: They won't vote for her for president.

    MR. GREGORY: Yeah.


    MR. GREGORY: Right.

    MS. NOONAN: there'll be a Palin primary.

    MR. GREGORY: But to the -- all right, against whom, against whom is the president vulnerable, Doris ?

    MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think somebody like a Chris Christie would be vulnerable for him because...

    MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm. Governor of New Jersey .

    MS. GOODWIN: ...because he's got...

    MR. GREGORY: Who proclaimed on this program he's absolutely not running, no way.

    MS. GOODWIN: Right. So then he won't be vulnerable, and that's it.

    MR. GREGORY: But he won't rule it out four years ahead.

    MS. NOONAN: But that kind of man.

    MS. GOODWIN: No, but that -- that kind of -- that kind of person.

    MR. WOODWARD: But, but he's the ultimate realist being made.

    MR. GREGORY: Right.

    MS. NOONAN: He is a practical man.

    MS. GOODWIN: The kind of person who speaks straight, who has a fire in his belly, who you believe him, even if you don't agree with him, that kind of person, I think.

    MR. WOODWARD: Who seems not to be a politician.

    MS. NOONAN: Who seems to mean it.

    MR. BROKAW: I think the other thing is that all of this has to be in the context of what are the conditions going to be in nine months from now.

    MS. GOODWIN: Right, exactly. The economy 's doing...

    MR. BROKAW: Are we going to have another terrorist attack? Or if the country remains secure, do suddenly we catch fire in the economy in some fashion? For example, does something happen catastrophically in the Middle East that the president deals with either in utter failure or brilliantly. All those are the unknowns up against which we have to measure what the chances are, you know, and, and we still have a long way to go for that, David .

    MR. GREGORY: Does the president make a fundamental shift, Tom , in this next year, in his leadership style and in his tonal approach to the American people that gives him a lift?

    MR. BROKAW: He better. That's what I think.

    MR. WOODWARD: Well, I remember years ago talking to Obama when he was in the Senate , and we were talking about Illinois , and he went around the state saying, "I have support here, I have support there, and I don't have support here." And I walked away realizing, "Oh, he's a politician. He knows where the votes are, and he's a realist." The question is going to be, can he grow and adapt to whatever those circumstances are, and we don't know.

    MR. BROKAW: You know, the other thing is, here's what I think about, about President Obama . We'll see whether this painful loss in November and then the recovery that we're seeing in the short term, in terms of his political fortunes, convert him, in some fashion, to a new kind of person. I always said that Bill Clinton 's career was helped immeasurably by his defeat when he first ran for re-election as governor of Arkansas . He learned a lot from that. He had to deal with a lot of people in Arkansas that were in the business community , and he also learned that he was vulnerable. By the time he got here, he'd been through that kind of an ordeal. Ronald Reagan had been governor of California for two terms before he got here. He'd been used to running a big state and dealing with Jess Unruh and the Democrats . President Obama has not been through that kind of baptism by fire. And, and I hope now that he's beginning to listen to some of the business leaders who've been rapping on his door for the last year saying, "We were for you. We have some things we think you ought to hear." And whether or not he's going to be receptive to them now about how to change the economy .


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