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Published January 27, 2017
This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," November 7, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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O'REILLY: "Personal Story Segment" tonight, perhaps the most disappointed man in the country besides Mitt Romney, is Dick Morris. As you may know he predicted a big Romney victory, a landslide. The problem was he was analyzing Uruguay. Morris joins us now from West Palm Beach, Florida.
All right, Morris, so what say you?
DICK MORRIS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I plead guilty, I goofed, I made a mistake. I under-counted the minority turnout and women and young people, single women. I thought that the 2008 turnout was a fluke. I think on your program many times I said that if the turnout is what it is in `08, then the polls are accurate and Obama is going to win. But they are not. And I said you need to average '04, '06, '08 and '10 and take the average so that you get rid of the outlier. Well it turned out not to be an outlier. That it turns out to be a trend.
The average said that 11 percent of the vote was black. In fact, it was 13. The average said eight percent Latino in fact it was 10. The average said 17 percent under 30, in fact it was 19. The average said 16 percent single white women. In fact, it was 18.
When you take those together, you are dealing with a six to eight point move in the demographics most of which went to Obama. So when I predicted that Obama would lose by five points, Romney would win by five and in fact, Obama won by one. That's a six point move and that's because I got the demographics eight points wrong.
O'REILLY: Ok.
MORRIS: The permanent conclusion here is that as the Sabato said, America has changed. '08 was not just rally to the first black candidate of overwhelming college kid fantasy and you know rock star and all of that; `08 was a fundamental election that illustrated a change in American society.
O'REILLY: But remember you have --
(CROSSTALK)
MORRIS: And people that have done it before for 30 years like me missed it.
O'REILLY: All right, remember, you had 2010 though that went swung back the other way when the Tea Party and --
(CROSSTALK)
MORRIS: That's what threw me off.
O'REILLY: Right I mean, so and I'm not buying this whole -- I know we are in a different country and I know secular progressivism because of the public school education system and a lot of things that taken strong root. But as I said if the economy doesn't improve, two years from now, the Democrats -- the Democrats are going to get whacked. And it doesn't matter how many single women are running around. They are going to get killed.
MORRIS: Well I got -- I got something really scary for you which sets it in a very interesting context. 13 percent of the vote was black, Obama carried it 12 to one. 10 percent was Latino, Obama carried it seven to three. 19 percent of the vote was under 30, Obama carried it 12 to seven. 18 percent of the vote was single white women, Obama carried it 12 to six. Now, some of those overlap.
But based on demographics before they walked into the polling place, before they had a decision to make, Obama carried those groups by 43 to 17. That means out of the entire remaining 40 percent of the country, he needed to get 15 percent of the vote to win. Now, it's not quite so bad because a lot of the single women are black and a lot of the young people are Latino and so on.
But any way, you could basically say that it was 35 to about 12 of people whose votes were decided for them by their ethnicity, their age, or their gender or their condition of marriage.
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: Yes and I'm understanding that but those people --
MORRIS: And by four of them I don't -- I don't mean --
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: Wait, wait.
MORRIS: I don't mean that they are bossed and they're told what to do. What I mean is their perspective is a very different one.
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: But it's going to change. Yes their perspective -- their perspective is going to change based upon their economic livelihood and how well they are doing.
Now, final question.
MORRIS: Not necessarily, Bill.
O'REILLY: Yes it will, Dick, Dick. This is -- this is no night to argue with me Dick.
MORRIS: We have four more years in recession. He'll still win 12 of the 13 black votes.
O'REILLY: All right, how badly does this hurt your franchise. How badly does it hurt?
MORRIS: Well, you know, anybody else who's gotten the President of the United States elected, tell me you are better than I am at it.
O'REILLY: All right, so you're going to hearken back to the --
(CROSSTALK)
MORRIS: As far as I'm concerned, I -- we live in a world with Axelrod and Rove and Caddell and Carville because we are the only ones that have done it.
O'REILLY: All right. So Dick Morris standing there and taking the heat. All right, Morris, thanks very much.
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