This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," June 5, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Impact" segment tonight: no shortage of pundits speculating on who will be the vice presidential candidates and who will win the election come November. So let's bring in one of those pundits. Pat Buchanan is the author of the brand-new book, "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World."
OK, we'll get to your book in a moment, and I want to know the relevancy of your book to today. Vice presidential — the inside baseball is Hillary Clinton's not going to get it.
PAT BUCHANAN: Right.
O'REILLY: Too much baggage. Barack Obama doesn't want to have to be defending headlines about Bill Clinton's money and this, that, and the other thing.
BUCHANAN: There's only one circumstance under which she gets it, I think. And that is Barack Obama goes into August, finds himself 8 to 10 behind McCain. He's not reaching into the Hillary Democrats, the old Reagan Democrats. He needs her to bring the women home, to bring the white folks home, working class, and to bring the Hispanics home in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada. That's the only circumstance I see.
O'REILLY: Do you think he'll wait until the convention to announce?
BUCHANAN: I think, not to the convention. He might do it in about two weeks out in case he's got problems, but pretty close to the convention. In other words, Nixon used to tell me, you do not want to give away all the suspense that is left in this convention by announcing this thing now.
O'REILLY: You know, that's an interesting point, because the soap opera that has been the Democratic primary has really helped Barack Obama in one way, as that everybody in the country knows who the heck he is. I mean, they don't know who he is...
BUCHANAN: Yes.
O'REILLY: ...but they know his name and everything like that.
Now, when you're looking at a Hillary Clinton, Bob Novak — you know Bob, right?
BUCHANAN: Well, sure.
O'REILLY: You know, FOX News analyst. Absolutely. He says there's such acrimony between Michelle Obama, who hates the Clintons, that's what Bob Novak — do you believe that?
BUCHANAN: It would not surprise me. Novak's an excellent reporter. I would not be surprised if Michelle Obama were very bitter about Hillary Clinton and her people. And she would not want her on the ticket. It wouldn't surprise me in the least. I think Obama's people don't want Hillary, a lot of them. But I think Obama's handling this a lot better than the others are. I mean, he's being extraordinarily gracious. He's letting her down easy. He's...
O'REILLY: But he has to though.
BUCHANAN: He should. Exactly.
O'REILLY: He's got 18 million people voting for her. He can't...
BUCHANAN: Well, some of his people and some of his, excuse me, his acolytes out in the media are pounding...
O'REILLY: And you know them well, don't you? You know, they are your — you're very familiar with them, aren't you, Buchanan?
BUCHANAN: I've been unable to identify them.
O'REILLY: All right, fine. On the Republican side, who do you think McCain's going for?
BUCHANAN: I think McCain will look — McCain's going to look — I think if Pawlenty of Minnesota or Romney, to bring him Michigan...
O'REILLY: Right.
BUCHANAN: ...or Portman to give him Ohio, because I think he's going to try to stitch it together that way.
O'REILLY: It's got to be Romney. I'll tell you why. If the — he's a money raiser, Romney.
BUCHANAN: Right.
O'REILLY: He's an economic guy. Can put him in front of the — getting us out of the recession. And as you mentioned, Michigan. I just can't see McCain going anywhere else.
BUCHANAN: Well, Pawlenty would give him Minnesota...
O'REILLY: No, he wouldn't though.
BUCHANAN: You don't think so?
O'REILLY: No, I don't think — I think Minnesota is a blue state.
BUCHANAN: Right.
O'REILLY: And that's a...
BUCHANAN: Well, the problem is the same problem in with...
O'REILLY: It's 10 electoral votes, by the way.
BUCHANAN: Yes, but look, look, let me just say this, that the problem with Romney is the lack of chemistry with John McCain. Now let me say this. You're right to this extent. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania will decide this.
O'REILLY: Yes.
BUCHANAN: McCain could win it, but only with Ohio. But he's got to win all the rest. He gets two of the three...
O'REILLY: He gets Michigan and Ohio?
BUCHANAN: He gets two of the three.
O'REILLY: All right.
BUCHANAN: The game is over.
O'REILLY: OK. Now, do you think McCain has enough? Because Obama's tremendously charismatic. He's got the network you work for rooting for him outright, opening up campaign headquarters for him. Got the media, all 80 percent of it. And can McCain overcome all of that?
BUCHANAN: Look, if Obama's got one problem, the Reverend Wright stuff and all these other things have put him out in the left, outside the center of American politics.
O'REILLY: Right.
BUCHANAN: He's got one foot in radicalism. The folks in West Virginia, they knew one thing about Barack Obama: Reverend Wright was his pastor. He lost 41 points.
If he can get those Hillary Democrats, if he can get back in the center, and he's got to do it, I think, in the debates, where he's got to come off with a Reagan performance where, you know, that guy's just like me. He's got values like me. He grew up like me.
O'REILLY: It's really hard though.
BUCHANAN: Really excited. It's going to be very difficult. Barack Obama has enormous assets. So he is two or three grades above McCain as a political athlete. He is in a league with Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan...
O'REILLY: Yes, he's an excellent, excellent...
BUCHANAN: ...and Jack Kennedy.
O'REILLY: Now is race going to come into this?
BUCHANAN: Well, race is already been there. I don't think Barack Obama would have won 92 percent of the African-American vote in Philadelphia if he were white.
O'REILLY: But on the other side?
BUCHANAN: Well, the other side? Some folks probably voting against him because he's an African-American. I think his problem is less that. I mean, that is a given. And he won Iowa big. But his problem is culturally, socially and ideologically. A tremendous number of Democrats suspect he is far outside the center of American politics. He's out there. He's out there with McGovern and the Reverend Wright and all these incidents...
O'REILLY: Yes.
BUCHANAN: ...have contributed.
O'REILLY: All right. It's going to be fascinating.
Now your book, "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War," why is that — people want — they like reading this kind of thing, but they want it to be germane to today. How is it?
BUCHANAN: Well, what's germane is that Great Britain gave a war guarantee to a group of Polish colonels who had participated in the rape of Czechoslovakia and told them, in effect, if you don't give this tiny town of Danzig, which was German, back to the Germans and you go to war, Great Britain will declare war on Germany, which they did. And that brought down the British empire. It burnt Germany to the ground. Poland was annihilated. Stalin inherited half of Europe. It was an insane war guarantee.
We are doing the same thing. You got people — and excuse me, Senator McCain, they're going to give war guarantees to Georgia, Stalin's birthplace. Ukraine, which is in a conflict of Russia over the Yalta Peninsula and Sevastopol. These are war guarantees they're giving up.
Bill, here's the problem with the United States. Great Britain — there's no country on earth that more resembles the British empire than the United States today as sort of a mighty and receding empire. The British made blunder after blunder after blunder, involving declarations of war twice on Germany that did not want war with them, and it broke down their empire.
O'REILLY: But sooner or later, we would have had to confront Hitler.
BUCHANAN: You would have had to confront Hitler.
O'REILLY: Absolutely.
BUCHANAN: What you do is draw a line in front of France, Holland, Belgium, and say don't cross it. He didn't want to cross it. He didn't want war with Britain.
O'REILLY: But even though we would have to get him, you can't let evil like that exist. Pat Buchanan's book, "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War." Thanks for coming in here, Pat, we appreciate it.
BUCHANAN: Well, thanks for giving me the time.
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