The Huck That Didn't Bark
by Trapper John
Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 07:27:22 PM PDT
Wolfie interviewed RNC Chair Mike Duncan about Mike Huckabee's decisive victory in Iowa. I've reprinted a CNN rush transcript in full below. Note the name that the figurehead of the Republican Establishment dare not speak in an interview on the night of the critical Iowa caucus:
BLITZER: Mike Duncan is joining us right now from Republican headquarters. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for coming us. What do you think about this? CNN projecting Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, will win the Iowa caucuses.
MIKE DUNCAN, RNC CHAIRMAN: Good to be with you this evening, Wolf, and I'm very pleased to get this campaign off to a great start. I congratulate all the candidates on both sides and the people of Iowa for doing a great job today. Wolf, my job is not to be an analyst. My job is to be a -- someone who does strategy for the party, and to prepare for the candidates coming forward. And we've been doing that. We have raised $83 million here at the RNC. I have $17 million cash on hand, and I'm ready for the Democrats.
BLITZER: You can't obviously have any favorites right now as chairman of the RNC. You love all of these Republicans. But give us a little sense of what Mike Huckabee means to the Republican Party.
DUNCAN: Well, Wolf, let me talk about what the Democrats are doing and why we're going to win this fall. We're going to win because we're putting forward our ideas. The Democrats are putting forward old ideas of more government, larger government, more taxes, less responsibility. And our candidates are talking about lower taxes, individual responsibility, and a strong national defense. That's going to be the difference. And it's going to be a difference with -- if it's Hillary Clinton on their side, it is going to be a difference about trust; if it's Barack Obama, its' going to be a difference about experience; and if it's John Edwards, it's going to be hypocrisy.
BLITZER: What do you think, Mr. Duncan, as the chairman of the party, when you see these Republicans bitterly going after each other, trying to attack each other on their views, whether Romney going after Huckabee or vice versa, or Romney going after John McCain or vice versa. How do you react as someone who would like to see all these Republicans basically on the same page?
DUNCAN: Well, Wolf, I have a front row seat to history, and as you know, I don't comment about our candidates. I will say that our candidates are talking about the issues that will resonate with the American people. They are talking about lower taxes and less government. They are talking about individual responsibility, and they are talking about a strong national defense. And what we're hearing on the other side is a real contrast.
BLITZER: So basically what you're saying is that all of the Republicans are great and all of them would be much better than any of the Democrats. We would hear Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, say obviously exactly the opposite. But give us a little flavor right now. You've become the minority in the House of Representatives, you've become the minority in the Senate. And, at least the polls show that generically, the Democrats are favored to recapture the White House. If you lose the House, you lose the Senate and you lose the White House, that's a huge setback for your party.
DUNCAN: Well, Wolf, you're talking in 2006 terms. A lots of things happened in 2007. If you have not noticed, the momentum is going with us. We won two out of three governors races; we won two out of three special congressional races this last year. We raised over $30 million more than the Democrat National Committee raised, and the recent polls have indicated that we have closed the gap, the generic gap on people who self-identify as Republicans. We took that from 7 to 2 percent right now. The Republicans are on a roll. I'm very optimistic about us winning the White House and winning back more congressional seats in 2008.
BLITZER: Are you ready to predict that the Republicans will be the majority in the House and the Senate once again, or are you just going to pick up some seats?
DUNCAN: Well, we'll talk about that. As I said, I'm not an analyst. I'm someone who puts the pieces together that helps make it possible later on. And I feel very good about our position right now.
BLITZER: Mike Duncan is the chairman of the Republican Party. Thanks very much for coming in. Good luck to you, good luck to all of the political leaders out there.
Huckabee delenda est.
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