Newsmaker

Moderator: Susan Swain

January 11, 2008

SUSAN SWAIN, HOST, C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”: With two key presidential primaries right on the horizon in South Carolina, “Newsmakers” is very pleased to welcome this week the Republican governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, who joins us from Columbia.

And our questioners on “Newsmakers” this week – Charles Mahtesian, who is the new, national politics editor for The Politico, and James Rosen of the McClatchy newspapers. He’s Washington correspondent for that group, which has five South Carolina newspapers, including the influential “The State” newspaper in the capital.

Let me start with Mr. Mahtesian, first question.

CHARLES MAHTESIAN, NATIONAL POLITICS EDITOR, THE POLITICO: Governor, during the 2000 presidential primary season, you were an early and a very strong supporter of Arizona Senator John McCain. And at the time, that endorsement carried some political downside. It had some risk. Because you were a member of Congress, and you had some statewide aspirations, it was a pretty risky move.

Yet, now, eight years later, you’re not lined up behind anyone. And my understanding is, you’ve declined to endorse any candidate.

What’s changed in the eight years? In other words, why not John McCain in 2008?

MARK SANFORD, REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, first, I’ll disagree with your hypothesis that I had statewide aspirations at the time. But nonetheless, you know, you’ve got to be where you are in life.

And not endorsing in this go-round has not been a reflection of John’s candidacy or any of the other candidates. It’s really been a reflection of where I am in life, which is, you know, this job at hand is awfully, awfully busy. We have four young boys that are awfully, awfully busy.

And I can go down a long litany of other things that are on my plate. Without taking something else off, the idea of adding something new six months ago or a year ago was just not where I was.

So, I have had very pleasant conversations with the candidates and said, look, I’d like to help out, but I’ve got to honor the commitments that are on the table.

So, you never say never in this process, but I’ve said never thus far, and I’m about a week out from being successful in holding off on the endorsement front.

SWAIN: Follow-up?

MAHTESIAN: This year, though, I guess everyone has courted your endorsement to a certain degree. And I know that you’ve, I think, spent some time talking to Fred Thompson. And what’s interesting about the Thompson campaign is that it hasn’t caught fire the way many expected it would, even in a state like South Carolina, so far.

Since he’s conceded that he’s all-in in South Carolina, can you talk a little bit about why his campaign may not have caught fire so far?

SANFORD: Well, I mean, I think as we both know, politics to a degree is a process of timing. You can have the right idea, but if presented at the wrong time, the idea doesn’t fly. And you can have a great candidate, but if you miss your window, oftentimes the candidacy won’t fly.

So, I think that, you know, there was a real thirst out there. You know, you go back to this summer, people were really looking. They’re still looking. I mean, that’s why the Republican primaries are as fluid as they are.

But I think, in the wake of a loss, people are a lot more introspective than they are when they’re winning. And if you look at the national level last go-round, Republicans lost big time. And so, the Republican electorate out there has been very introspective, going through with a fine-toothed comb looking at each one of these candidates.

I come from the Christian faith. It’s almost as if Jesus came back, people would be looking. “I don’t know about the robe. I don’t know about the beard.”

I mean, people are really looking hard. And so, you know, people had a lot of hope. He sort of represented that candidate that they hadn’t yet found. But that seems to have slipped him by.

He’s making his last stand here in South Carolina. He has, as you correctly pointed out, put all bets on the table. It is sort of Custer’s last stand for him. And if he wins here, it sounds like he’s still in. And if he doesn’t, it sounds like he’s getting out. We’ll see what happens.

SWAIN: James Rosen?

JAMES ROSEN, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS: Good morning, governor.

SANFORD: Good morning.

ROSEN: Look forward to seeing you, either up here or down in Columbia.

SANFORD: Yes, sir.

ROSEN: In the Myrtle Beach debate Thursday night, Ron Paul, Representative Ron Paul, said that the Republican Party has lost its way, partly because, after having taken power in Congress and then in the White House, they became big spenders.

You are well known as being an ardent fiscal conservative. You have fought with some of your own Republican legislators over state spending priorities. You’ve tried to rein in spending.

Do you agree with Ron Paul that the Republican Party has in part lost its way, because Republicans have become big spenders?

SANFORD: Well, I think you’d first of all have to define party. If you’re talking about elected officials that absolutely agree with that sentiment …

ROSEN: He was – I’m sorry – he was talking about elected officials, in Washington.

SANFORD: Yes, yes. But I mean, I think that – I mean, that’s why there’s this, you know, this search, if you will. There’s a lot of distrust out there in the Republican Party based on, you know, folks have talked a good game, but they didn’t deliver in Washington.

Here we held all the keys to power in Washington, but didn’t deliver on some of the things that are key to what Republican or conservative philosophy is all about, and in many ways key to what was the spark behind the Reagan revolution – some of which was taxes and spending.

So, I think that people are genuinely frustrated. The Republicans in Washington, to a degree, have lost their way.

I think John McCain has touched on that. I think Rudy has touched on that. I think Romney’s touched on that. Fred’s touched on it.

I mean, in essence, everybody in different ways has said, you know, a lot of folks went to Washington to change Washington. And it turns out, Washington changed them.

I think Ron Paul is accurate in that assessment.

SWAIN: Governor, a question for you. Since 1980, the South Carolina primary has played a pretty important role in the winnowing process. With the compressed primary schedule and Florida right on your heals, what role will it play this year?

SANFORD: I think it’s still gateway to the South.

I think what stands out about South Carolina is that, you know, it’s the first state that really gives you a glimpse of what’s to come, which is why it’s been such a bellwether in years past, and I suspect will be a bellwether in years going forward.

You know, if you go to a coast in South Carolina, in some cases you might as well be in New Jersey or in Michigan or New Hampshire, because you have an enormous number of retirees who have come from someplace else to retire here on the coast of South Carolina.

If you go to the industrial sector of our state – you know, sort of the industrial corridor along I-85 – in some cases you have a pretty good feel for what folks in Ohio would be thinking, because there’s a very similar demographic and industrial makeup.

If you go to the interior of our state with some large pieces of the state in agriculture or timberlands, you’d get a pretty good feel as to what people think in Wisconsin. It’s a great bellwether, because of its very mixed demographic.

And I’d add to that, demographic not just in terms of income levels and ways of making income, but frankly, in terms of racial background, as well. Iowa and New Hampshire are lily white in their composition. About a third of our population is black. So, it’s a very different state and, I think, as a consequence, a very good indicator of what comes next.

MAHTESIAN: Governor, Mike Huckabee’s insurgent campaign has drawn a lot of attention so far in the primary season.

I wonder, can you talk a little bit about whether he’s poised to tap into some of the sentiment about economic dislocation surrounding trade policy? Because Huckabee’s message is very interesting in the sense that he departs from party orthodoxy on some of the tenets of trade policy. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how that might play in South Carolina.

SANFORD: I don’t know. I mean, that’ll be the $94 question I guess we’ll see answered next Saturday.

But I mean, it’s – in some ways, he got very well. We’ve lost about 95,000 direct textile jobs over the last five years in South – or it wasn’t over the last five years, but basically over the last eight years in South Carolina.

And so, for that person who lives in a small town in South Carolina where it used to be that textile was king, and textile certainly was king of that little town, that person has seen real dislocation in their life.

And so, there may be play with some of those folks. But what needs to be remembered is that, on a net basis, despite those losses of textile jobs, we’re up 161,000 jobs – 161,000 jobs over the last five years. In other words, there are more people working today than there were before.

And those jobs that had been lost in textiles have been replaced with jobs at a place like BMW or replaced with a plethora of small businesses across our state, or even with foreign investments. I mean, Haier – which is sort of the G.E. equivalent in China in making things like washing machines and refrigerators – put its first manufacturing facility in Camden, South Carolina.

So, if you go to Camden or go to Greenville and talk to some of the folks that got some of the new jobs, I don’t think it’ll play that well. If you go to the port in Charleston and talk to people about trade, I don’t think it’ll play that well, because a big part of our economy is, in fact, tied to international trade.

ROSEN: Governor, in previous Republican presidential primaries, abortion has been a hot button issue for Republicans. This go-round the hot button issue is immigration. Lindsey Graham, your state’s senior senator, supported major immigration reforms that died in the Senate last summer. Your state’s junior senator, Jim DeMint, helped kill that immigration bill.

South Carolina is not a border state. Why is immigration such a big deal for so many South Carolina Republicans? And do you think that Senator McCain can win in South Carolina, despite the fact that he was one of the primary authors of an immigration bill that its opponents called amnesty?

SANFORD: I would say on the first question, immigration is a hot button issue, because it’s fundamentally not about immigration, it’s about economics. I guess it was James Carville that said back a couple of presidential elections ago, it’s the economy, stupid. It’s always the economy, stupid. Pocketbook issues matter.

And, you know, it’s really a larger conversation about competitiveness and where we fit in the world. A lot of people are threatened by globalization and is their job going to be outsourced.

So, for a while there as a lot of preoccupation with, for instance, those textile jobs that I was alluding to just a moment ago, somebody losing the textile job, because the plant went to Mexico or China or India.

Nowadays, what they’re worried about is, oh, the plant may not leave, but somebody may come from somewhere else to take my job. Either way, I lose my job just the same.

So, I think it’s really the flip side of the outsourcing question, or the plant relocation question, in that it’s an economic issue, which is why it has such currency.

As to whether or not Senator McCain can win, you know, I was talking to a Republican activist at the debate. And they said, look. All I care is you get the border sealed, and then everything’s debatable from there. And I guess, fundamentally, his plan, like every one of the other plans, is about sealing the border, and then people sort of figure it out from there.

So I think, yes, he has a good a shot as anybody else. It’s an incredibly competitive race. It’s going to be, I think, in flux right up to the election itself.

MAHTESIAN: Governor, in leaving New Hampshire, the candidates are leaving a far more secular political environment than South Carolina. Can you talk a little bit about the role faith is going to play in the Republican primary here, and in particular, the individual candidate’s faith, given the large amount of newsprint that’s been dedicated to Mitt Romney’s faith?

SANFORD: You know, there may have been a lot of talk in media circles about Romney’s faith, but at an individual level, when I’m talking to individual Republican activists across the state, it’s not something that I’ve heard really talked about or kicked around.

I think that we’ve moved past that as a country, and I think we’ve moved past that as a state.

So, whether one is Catholic or Jewish or Mormon or Christian, I don’t think is going to be a driver at the end of the day.

I think that probably what’s caused Mitt greater problems has been the question of, well, was he over here versus over here on an issue. That has been the issue. It has not been his faith.

As to whether or not faith overall holds sway in South Carolina, I’d say the obvious answer is yes. Probably about a third of our Republican primary voters are evangelical or – it may not be quite that high, but it isn’t far from it. You’ve got a lot of folks who have a very strong Christian faith that come out in numbers.

And how people stack up, not only in what they talk about in terms of faith, but again, policy matters as it relates to how am I going to put food on the table, I think are all going to be faith issues, as well.

So, I wouldn’t restrict it just down to one’s brand of faith. But what are you going to do for that person of faith in terms of improving their life, I think ultimately is what this primary election will be about, rather than sort of a narrow band of, do you fit within this prescriptive code on what somebody does or doesn’t think.

MAHTESIAN: Governor, I understand that many of the activists you talked to would not have been talking about that. But I think also it’s not just a matter of a media issue here. This is the kind of issue that the Romney campaign was forced to issue in a speech largely dedicated to the issue of faith. And that wasn’t a speech dedicated to the voters of New Hampshire. That wasn’t aimed at New Hampshire.

And also, in the media accounts we’re talking about here, there are lots of local activists that have expressed a concern. And I’m just wondering, how prevalent is that? And does the Romney campaign …

SANFORD: No …

MAHTESIAN: … have to address that in any way?

SANFORD: You’re fair enough, in that you’ve talked to some other folks that have brought it up. I’m just saying, in the people, in the circles that I’ve traveled, it has not been the point of major debate.

The thing that’s been of larger debate with him has been, were you over here on an issue versus over here later. That’s been what I’ve heard. I really haven’t heard anybody bringing up the Mormon thing. But that may have been localized within the circles I traveled.

SWAIN: Ten minutes left.

ROSEN: Governor, I want to circle back, if I can, to something you said a few minutes ago about parts of the coast of South Carolina, you feel like you’re in New Jersey or Ohio.

A lot has been written and said about the New South in the last decade or so. And when you were in Congress in the ‘90s, you represented most of the South Carolina coast. A lot of retirees have moved there, many of them from the North, northerners.

Do you think that that transformation, that change, is mellowing your state’s reputation as being sort of stridently conservative? And if so, does that change threaten the future success of the Republican Party in South Carolina?

SANFORD: I don’t think it threatens the future of the Republican Party in South Carolina by any stretch of the imagination, because many of these folks that moved from Ohio have been voting Republican since their granddaddy was around.

I’ve literally walked neighborhoods in Myrtle Beach where every door you knock on would be somebody who came from somewhere else. But they were – they’d long been Republican.

You’ve got to remember, you know, it was traditional to be Democratic in South Carolina. And it wasn’t until Strom Thurmond and Carroll Campbell and some others that that really began to change. So, our history has really been Democratic in nature versus a lot of these other states that people come from had been Republican in nature.

So, I think the state will do fine, but it’s more economic conservativism than it is social conservativism that begins to show itself. Social conservatives still have a real strong voice in our state, and I think will continue to have a strong voice. But there is more of a mix of economic conservativism, largely playing from the coast, given that’s where many of the new residents are coming from.

MAHTESIAN: I’d like to follow up a little bit on James’ question.

Can you talk a little bit about the political taxonomy of South Carolina for people that might not know?

For example, there are very – two very distinctive regions, at least to my mind – the upstate and the low country. And does a candidate who comes into the – the Republicans and also the Democratic – can they – do they need to calibrate their messages, depending on where they’re campaigning in South Carolina?

SANFORD: I don’t think so. I’ve run statewide a couple of times, and I never have.

But you are right. There are two very different parts of South Carolina. We really have a manufacturing industrial base, steeped in textiles and other things, that runs along the western corridor of our state. And then we have a coast that’s in some ways more libertarian in it’s nature. You know, land conservation is a big thing on the coast, given the amount of growth.

So, you’re right. You do have a different complexion to the state. But at the end of the day, we’re all South Carolinians. I mean, there are four million of us. We’re a relatively small state. And how well we do really rests on how well we do together as we face the sea of, you know, 6.5 billion people spread across planet Earth.

So, I would say that, you know, pocketbook issues are going to matter, whether you’re from the upstate or from the coast. I would say something like immigration is going to matter, whether you’re from the upstate or the coast.

I’d say military preparedness and our place in the world is going to matter, whether you’re from the upstate or the coast. And I might add on that front, we have one of the highest numbers of per capita military retirees spread across our state of any state in the union. Its military service is a part of the tradition of our state, and very well represented on that front with active duty bases, as well.

And I would say that health and, you know, education – go down the litany of other sort of breadbasket issues – are going to play across folks in the state.

But I’d say the big ones are what happens next economically, probably immigration, and then the larger spot of what’s happening next in the world.

SWAIN: Let me jump in and follow up on your reference to health.

The Democrats and Republicans as parties – the candidates across the parties – are offering two very different prescriptions for health care reform, governor. And I’m wondering, can you tell us about the number of uninsured people in the state of South Carolina, and how much that might play into which primary they decide to vote in this month?

SANFORD: Well, I suspect they’d probably vote more in the Democratic primary than the Republican, but I don’t know – I don’t have any basis in fact for that.

I would say that we’re trying something very new here in this state. You know, we’re the first state in the country to offer a consumer-directed model as it relates to Medicaid, which is a state-run program with federal dollars helping some of the neediest of the needy in our state.

And our big point has been that everybody’s health care needs are fundamentally different. Therefore, one-size-fits-all really doesn’t fit all.

And so, we have everything from health savings accounts – and we’re the first state in the country to offer health savings accounts for, you know, not only all state workers and all state retirees, but, in this case, for Medicaid recipients as well – as well as an HMO plan, as well as traditional care, a range of different plans. And people reacted very well to it.

So, I would say, as you look at the Republican and Democratic models coming out of the debates in and around the country, I think that people are going to want to see custom care and something that’s tailored to them, as opposed to one-size-fits-all out of Washington.

SWAIN: Six minutes, gentlemen. Question?

ROSEN: Governor, I’d like to take you back to the ‘90s, when you were in the House of Representatives here in Washington.

You were quite involved in the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

How do you feel about the prospect of then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, now Senator Clinton, possibly becoming president? Do you think there is a fatigue about the Clintons on one hand, and perhaps a concern about dynasty politics? Will – if she gets elected, we will have gone Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.

SANFORD: Sure.

ROSEN: Or has time perhaps mellowed your perspective a little bit on the Clintons?

SANFORD: You know, I would again disagree with the hypothesis, ever so pleasantly, and say that I wasn’t real involved. I wasn’t on the impeachment trial. I wasn’t on the Judiciary Committee. I just took the votes.

And I voted to impeach, because I think that, you know, moral legitimacy is one of the precursors to a legitimate legitimacy. But that’s a whole other debate that’s long past.

And so, I guess the issue for me is not about Hillary. For me, I think there would be a natural reticence about what you just mentioned, which is Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. This whole idea of dynastic politics is at odds with what the Founding Fathers were trying to get away from, which were dynasties.

I mean, what they envisioned was an active republic and a democratic process such that anybody from anywhere could get elected. You didn’t have to have somebody else’s first name before you and their political establishment helping you to get there.

So, you know, I think in that regard, Obama’s candidacy – and I say this as a Republican; I’m not going to vote for him – but I think it is very cool that you have somebody who could well be the first black president of the United States of America, once again shattering, you know, a paradigm that’s existed for too long, and get, as well, away from the dynasty thing that I think causes everybody to have a little bit of discomfort, whether you’re a Bush or a Clinton supporter.

ROSEN: Let me just ask as a quick follow. What did you mean when you said, in regard to Senator Obama, sharing a model that’s been around too long? What …

SANFORD: I said shattering.

ROSEN: Shattering. Oh, I see.

SANFORD: I’m southern. It’s southern for shattering.

ROSEN: OK.

SANFORD: A slurring of words. I apologize.

ROSEN: OK. I’m clear. Thanks.

SWAIN: Three minutes left. Last question from each of you.

MAHTESIAN: Governor, who do you think would make the strongest Democratic nominee? In other words, who would be toughest for the Republican Party to defeat, and why?

SANFORD: I mean, again, I’m not a professional in these circles. I don’t at the end of the day have a clue.

You know, in some ways Hillary would be tough to beat, because her husband, obviously, has a very well-established political machine across the country, and a lot of folks that had been supporters of that brand, if you want to call it, for a long time.

But in some ways, at a gut level, I’d say Obama would be tougher to beat, because for all her pluses and all her minuses, people know Hillary. And some people really don’t like her, and some people love her.

That’s less so – in fact, not at all the case – with Obama, who’s fresh and new. So, I’d say, my casual observation would be that he’d be the tougher guy to beat.

SWAIN: Let me just add one other dynamic into that, looking to the general election.

If the group in Norman, Oklahoma, that met this week is successful in enticing Mayor Bloomberg into the race, what does that do to the fall campaign?

SANFORD: Again, you’ve got to talk to Tim Russert and all the experts as to what happens with that whole triangulation. The bottom line is that I don’t know. But I would generally say, the more the merrier.

You know, I think that public policy is ultimately driven by a healthy debate. And I think we’ve got to have an incredibly healthy debate going forward, not just on war and terror, and not just on immigration, but the bigger issue of competitiveness.

I really buy into Thomas Friedman’s notion that the world is flat, and that we are directly competing with the Chinas and the Indias and a whole lot of other places around the world in a way that we never have before. And as a consequence, we’ve really got to retool here, domestically, in the United States of America, so that our businesses, and individuals in our country and in our states, have as much of a shot of making it economically as somebody on the opposite side of the world.

And that really requires a paradigm shift that’s part of a much bigger debate. And if it means, you know, another person needs to enter so that we have a healthier debate, I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

SWAIN: Thirty seconds. A quick question?

ROSEN: Just real quick. Because of the super compression of the primaries this year, you’re going to have very little time after the Republican primary next Saturday, the Democratic primary a week later.

Do you think that having Super Tuesday so soon after the South Carolina primaries diminishes the significance of the South Carolina primaries?

SANFORD: Again, if history is any guide – and it has been for the last 30 years or so – whoever has won in South Carolina has gone on to win the nomination. Whether that holds, time will tell.

In general, I don’t think a compressed process is the greatest, because you want, again, anybody from across this country to have a shot at offering themselves for the presidency or for other offices. So, the more open the system, the better. At times frontloaded, it can be less than that.

SWAIN: Governor, two big weeks for the state ahead. Thanks very much for taking time out to talk to C-SPAN today.

SANFORD: My pleasure.

SWAIN: We appreciate it.

SANFORD: Thank you so much.

SWAIN: Governor Mark Sanford joining us from the state capital in Columbia.

Well, gentlemen, we’ve got a couple of minutes to put the South Carolina primary into some sort of context.

First of all, what did you hear here today that people should know is noteworthy? And help us understand the significance of the South Carolina primary, based on what happened in New Hampshire, and what’s after it?

MAHTESIAN: Well, one thing that I heard that was very interesting is Governor Sanford’s answer in terms of the strongest Democratic nominee.

He avoided a very important candidate – at least to South Carolina, a son of South Carolina – which is John Edwards. He avoided any mention of him as a tough Democratic nominee. So, that’s something that caught my eye.

I was also interested to hear him talk a little bit about the role of faith in politics, particularly because it’s such a dramatic departure from the kind of discussion that was going on in the New Hampshire primary, because South Carolina is such a very different state than New Hampshire.

SWAIN: And Mr. Rosen?

ROSEN: I was struck by a couple of things. I was a little bit surprised that sort of an ultraconservative like Governor Sanford …

SWAIN: And by that you mean fiscal and social, or just fiscal? Describe him for people who don’t know him.

ROSEN: I think, first and foremost, he’s a fiscal conservative. But he is a man of faith, a Christian man of great faith. And I think he is also – shares conservative social values.

But it was interesting to me that he said that the influx of northerners – quite a number of them retirees from New Jersey, Ohio and other states – that he doesn’t think that that threatens the Republican Party. I think there are some people who would argue that it does, just because many of these people – even if some of them are Republicans – are not nearly as conservative as a lot of the conservative Republicans in South Carolina.

SWAIN: Staying with that thought, beforehand, in an online report I was reading before we started today, as many as 28,000 new voters have registered in South Carolina, just in the last month.

Does that indicate that changing and growing population, or a real interest in this primary contest? Or both?

ROSEN: I would say it indicates both. I mean, certainly, I think some people – I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re hooked up with the campaigns to some degree. I think, you know, some people are registering in order to vote.

But the Carolinas, Georgia, have just been growing by leaps and bounds for the last – I first moved down to Raleigh, North Carolina, in the early ‘90s. It was booming then. It’s continued to boom.

This part of the country, for lots of reasons, other people want to move here. And I think it’s a little bit like the American melting pot as people move here from different places, different parts of the political spectrum. Over time, South Carolina and North Carolina or Georgia, places like that change.

SWAIN: You had a second point that you heard from the governor that you thought was noteworthy.

ROSEN: If I can read my notes here. I was a little surprised by his response to Governor – Charlie’s question about Governor Huckabee, Huckabee’s economic populism.

He talked about the 95,000 textile jobs that have been lost in the last eight years. But then he said, but we’re up 165,000 jobs over the last five years. Textile jobs have been replaced by BMW jobs, and so on and so forth.

Part of that, obviously, is trying to burnish the record of – his own record as governor. But if he believes what he said, then he really has a tin ear to the sort of arguments that both Governor Huckabee, and as Charlie said, Senator Edwards have been making about what’s been happening in small towns in the South in the last decade. It doesn’t seem to concern him very much.

SWAIN: We’re just about out of time, but with these two contests being one week apart, would you just close by telling those people who are watching this election unfold, but aren’t political insiders, what to look for?

MAHTESIAN: Well, I think Huckabee is a fascinating story there, because one of two candidates has to be knocked out. It could be more than that.

But Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee will not both survive South Carolina. So, that’ll be fascinating. Thompson has already said he’s all-in in South Carolina. So, the Republican field’s going to be winnowed down quite a bit.

I don’t think you see that same dynamic. You might see that on the Democratic side, but it’s not as pressing as on the Republican field right now.

And, of course, the other thing to look forward to is how the campaigns are responding to the attacks and how the campaigns are building momentum with the February 5th primaries right around the corner.

SWAIN: Mr. Mahtesian and Mr. Rosen, thank you very much for being here, for questioning the governor, and for your analysis for our viewers on “Newsmakers.”

MAHTESIAN: Thank you, Susan.

ROSEN: Thanks for having us.

END