Morris: Romney will win battleground states
Former Clinton adviser on 2012 race and Obama gutting welfare reform
This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 18, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, FNC HOST: Now for to the "Top Story" tonight. Reaction. Joining us from Stanford, Connecticut, the author of the big best seller "Screwed", the aforementioned Dick Morris.
All right, so basically we're crunching the numbers, not too much speculation. This is all based on the poll, but a brand new Fox poll just came in. This is registered voters and you always quibble with that -- 45 percent for the president, 41 percent for Romney. And you say?
DICK MORRIS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, last time I think I think it was seven points for Obama. Registered voter polls include roughly a third of their sample that doesn't vote. Obama is sweeping that demographic.
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: The not voting class.
MORRIS: He wins people that don't vote by three to one.
O'REILLY: Ok.
MORRIS: Among those who do vote which is the likely voter poll, Scott Rasmussen today has it at 47-44 Romney. Now, when 44 percent of the people are voting for Obama and even in some of these swing states as much as 47 percent are, that means he's going to lose the state.
Let me play a game with the people at home watching this. If you are going to be married to the same guy next year, same person next year, raise your hand. Ok. Hands down. Undecided? What does it say when you're undecided about that? I think that whenever you have an undecided voter they are predisposed to vote against the incumbent.
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: Yes that's what we said and I think that's logical.
MORRIS: And then there's one other thing which you also alluded to.
O'REILLY: Go ahead.
MORRIS: All of these polls quota African-American turnout at 13 or 14 percent; it was 14 in `08, it was 11 in `04. But when you ask voters are you likely to vote, how much are you following the election, how interested are you, the blacks are way down, way below whites on this. And I think they'll turn out 11 percent, the historic norm.
So I think all these polls are two points wrong.
O'REILLY: All right. Now, the Electoral College, the key to this is the Republicans have to keep what McCain had. They have to start with on 173. If you start getting defections from the south, I mean I saw a map today where South Carolina, they say it's in play. I don't believe that for a second. But do you see any state that voted for McCain that might go for the President?
MORRIS: No. No.
O'REILLY: All right. So that's rock. You start with 173. All right.
Now, the President starts a little higher because he's got states like California and New York and Washington State, fairly significant electoral votes there. So he's starting a little bit higher than Mitt Romney. But as you said, in states like Michigan, that's in play this time around.
MORRIS: Yes.
O'REILLY: Iowa is in play.
MORRIS: Yes. I've studied all the polls in the different states, and I think Romney is going to win almost all of the battleground states. I think he's going to win Virginia, Florida, New Mexico.
O'REILLY: But that's based on your wish, not reality, right?
MORRIS: No, it's based on reality because I've been through hundreds of elections with incumbents running against challengers, hundreds of them, and the incumbent always loses the vast bulk of the undecided vote.
O'REILLY: All right, tomorrow on "The Factor" and this is a signal to the guys upstairs right now, I want to have the polls between Carter and -- and Reagan at this point in the middle of July.
(CROSSTALK)
MORRIS: Right, you'll see it.
O'REILLY: So we'll have it.
MORRIS: Yes, you'll see it.
O'REILLY: All right. Now the other thing I wanted to ask you about is the Obama administration very quietly is telling the states they can change their welfare rules. Now, since you were one of the architects of the Welfare Reform under Bill Clinton, what do you think this is all about?
MORRIS: Oh, it's horrible, Bill. When I was negotiating with Trent Lott and working for Bill Clinton on the final version of the Welfare Reform Bill, Trent said I want an absolute lead guarantee, cinch guarantee that the Health and Human Services Administration cannot redefine the word "work" to include sleeping late or going to school or going to a truck driver school from the back of a match book, and we wrote language that was airtight about that.
Now Obama's administration is totally disregarding the statute. No question it will be thrown out by the courts, but it will take a while, and they are defining work as including study or training. In the past they've even defined bed rest, or training to become a hula dancer as work. And it completely guts the purpose of the law.
O'REILLY: Yes. And you've got to state the purpose was basically the federal government told the states listen, you've got to keep track of anybody getting welfare money to see that they're actively trying to find work, or they get cut off. And now it seems --
MORRIS: No, no Bill. No, no.
O'REILLY: Go ahead, go ahead.
MORRIS: It's not that. You have to keep track of them. They actually have to be doing work, and if they can't get a job, you have to provide a public sector job where they work 40 hours a week in return for their welfare benefits.
O'REILLY: All right. So they have to be doing something to get the welfare.
MORRIS: Right.
O'REILLY: But the Obama administration wants to do away with that. Why? Why do they want to do away with it?
MORRIS: Because he wants to spread entitlements. When Obama took office, 43 percent of Americans got checks from the government. Now 50 percent are and his goal is to expand the entitlements to expand his base.
There's something even more scary than this, Bill. In my book "Screwed", I write about the Rights of the Child Treaty which is under negotiation in the U.N. and the U.S. is likely to sign. That creates a statutory requirement to give welfare benefits to people to bring children up to certain levels.
In Britain, Cameron is being sued for cutting welfare benefits under the Rights of the Child Treaty. Read about it in my book.
O'REILLY: All right, Dick Morris everybody.
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