This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” February 8, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Last week’s snow blizzard is not the only thing that has Washington shaking in its boots. A number of vulnerable Democrats are growing increasingly nervous about losing their Senate seats as they brace for the next hard-hitting storm.
And that is the November midterm elections, an event which may end up leaving a different kind of power outage in its wake. Now in the south things not looking bright for Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. One of her Republican opponents, Congressman John Bozeman, just announced his run on Saturday, and he already leads Lincoln by 23 points according to Public Policy Polling.
Then out west, Prince Harry Reid’s reign may be coming to an end. Now the latest Rasmussen poll has the majority leader running second to four GOP opponents in Nevada.
And it’s not looking much better in Colorado. Michael Bennett was appointed to office to take Ken Salazar’s seat after he left to become the secretary of interior. Now Rasmussen currently has Bennett losing to three Republican contenders including the state’s former Lt. Governor Jane Norton.
Now the seat left vacant by President Obama in Illinois was temporarily filled by Roland Burris who has decided not to run for reelection. In his place Republican Congressman Mark Kirk takes an early lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.
And in Indiana the return of former GOP Senator Dan Coates could deliver a tight race. Now Coats previous held the seat for 10 years until he retired. And it has been held by his challenger Democratic incumbent Evan Bayh ever since.
Now running to fill the seat vacated by Democrat Byron Dorgan, North Dakota’s popular three-term governor Republican John Hoeven has a lead of 21 points or more against three chief Democratic opponents. Now that’s according to a recent Daily Coast poll.
And in Delaware, well, now that Vice President Joe Biden’s son Bo Biden has backed out of the race, well, the heavy favorite is the popular GOP congressman and the state’s former Governor Mike Castle. Now he leads the Democrat challenger Chris Coons by a full 29 points.
Now there are all the seats that would be pick-ups for Republicans, leading us to wonder — is it possible the GOP could even walk away with a 51-seat majority?
Dick Morris is here to explain. Now in fairness, by the way, he’s the author of the New York Times best-seller “Catastrophe”.
You, ahead of anybody else, when you said it people wrote me and laughed, is that impossible, Hannity, Morris — and this was before Massachusetts. You think it’s even more than 51?
DICK MORRIS, FORMER CLINTON ADVISER: Yes, I do. First of all, a disclaimer, no notes on my hands.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Wait a minute, all right, hi Mom — did you see what she did — we’re going to talk about this in a minute. Did you see what she did with Rick Perry?
MORRIS: No. No.
HANNITY: No. She did that.
MORRIS: Any way, yes, if the Republicans now win every Senate seat where they are now ahead in the polls they would gain eight seats. And we only need 10 to take control. And the three of the two which were slightly behind in — one is Indiana, Coates is probably ahead of Bayh but there’s no poll.
Hostettler, the other guy, a former Republican congressman, is only three points behind Evan Bayh.
And the other race is California where Carly Fiorina is only three points behind Barbara Boxer.
HANNITY: Which is huge.
MORRIS: So three point shift in those two states and we have control. And this is a year before the election. Party trend usually builds up and builds up and doesn’t manifest itself until the end.
By the way, if you want all of these polling stats, this is all on DickMorris.com.
HANNITY: You know, but, Dick, you’re right about this. In the back of my mind I’m worrying, are we going to peak too early?
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: Seventy-five percent of Americans, Rasmussen Poll, are angry at the federal government. We see the tea parties, we see the town halls, we’ve seen the anger. We’ve chronicled it.
I have never seen it like this in my entire adult life so I’m assuming it’s going to be sustained until November.
MORRIS: Well, first just to look back over the last month and a half before you look ahead. This weekend I’m doing the final revisions on my new book, “2010: Take Back America, a Battle Plan.”
And I finished writing the section on the House races last month. And now they sent the galleys to me to correct. And I’ve listed 35 possible tight races. I went through it again, looking at the modern polling, we’re up to 60 tight races. Like Kirk in Illinois, with six points behind, and now he’s six points ahead.
It’s unbelievable, the changes. Now I think that this is not driven by Obama’s style or — fatigue. It’s driven by the outcome of his policies.
HANNITY: He’s now in the low 40s in polling.
MORRIS: And if we get another terror attack or the economy remains where it is, this is an outcome-based president.
HANNITY: Let’s say, best case scenario for the Democrats, what, unemployment, you know, goes down to nine percent?
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: Does that impact the race?
MORRIS: No.
HANNITY: If it’s not a terror attack, which we all hope doesn’t happen. They’re telling us in Washington that we’re going to be attacked by July.
MORRIS: Well, first of all, unemployment lasts over a long period of time. And when you have eight or nine unemployment for a sustained amount of time, you’re talking about like a third of Americans losing their jobs at some point during that. And many, many more being underemployed and many more giving up.
HANNITY: Right.
MORRIS: So it’s a massive damage to the national psyche.
HANNITY: Right.
MORRIS: And that lasts politically. So I think that Obama is just at the beginning point of losing his votes. I think we’ll take the Senate and we may take it with two or three to spare.
In addition to the races we’re talking about, a guy named Paul Acres just announced in Washington State against Patty Murray.
HANNITY: Right.
MORRIS: Now Murray only won with 55 percent of the vote.
HANNITY: Right.
MORRIS: … on her third incumbency. So Acres has a good shot. And then in New York, Gillibrand.
HANNITY: Gillibrand is in trouble.
MORRIS: Is just waiting to be beaten. And Ford, if he wins, he’s not going to win the general election either.
HANNITY: Well, he could — well, you never know but certainly the conditions are right if the Republicans don’t blow it.
Now we’ve got on the one hand independent voters now, see President Obama, Maris survey, in a negative light 2-1. Rasmussen now has him — 44 percent say that, you know, they only support his performance.
He’s headed to the 30s now. And what I don’t understand is why more Democrats have not had the political courage to distance themselves from him earlier. Why?
MORRIS: Well, I think they will. I think what Obama is doing now is trying to attack Republicans so that he can hold Democrats. He knows he’s lost the independents. He’s trying to hang on to his Democrats so he doesn’t go into the 30s. And that’s why he’s been so confrontational. “You have no plans, you have no proposals,” even though he holds a gigantic majority in the House and in the Senate.
HANNITY: Is he setting a trap for the Republicans to go to this meeting on health care even though he’s shut them out the entire year?
MORRIS: Well, I think he hopes to set a trap. But if the Republicans walk in there and say, OK, we want tort reform, we want the ability to sell insurance across state lines.
HANNITY: Portability.
MORRIS: We want — portability of benefits. We want no ban on preexisting conditions. We want tax breaks to buy insurance.
HANNITY: Savings accounts.
MORRIS: Savings accounts. He’s — they’ll blow him away.
HANNITY: Well, they’ll blow him away but would they actually pull off a legislative coup? Would the president go along with what the Republicans have been pushing for, for a year?
MORRIS: He can’t at this point because he’s too beholden to the liberal Democrats who want him to sign a bill that has public plans and all that —
HANNITY: Last question. Governor Palin. And we’re going to talk about this in the next segment here.
President last week talks about corpsman, talks about 57 states, spread the wealth around. How come the media attacks her because she wrote a couple of notes on her hand and he writes a — he reads a teleprompter all day long?
MORRIS: Because she’s a woman and because she’s a Republican woman and that’s a threat to the male Democratic majority.
HANNITY: She is a threat to them?
MORRIS: Yes, absolutely. She’s an existential threat. Other people can attack their policies. What Sarah Palin does is attack their base. Remember this. George Bush won 11 million more white men than McCain did but only six million more white women. That difference was Sarah Palin.
HANNITY: All right. Dick, good to see you. Fascinating analysis.
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