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PENNSYLVANIA GOV. ED RENDELL: Well, I think the message in Pennsylvania — and I think it's a national message — should be to the McCain campaign, "Look, before the economic crisis, this was a two-point race in Pennsylvania. Since the economic crisis has happened, it's blown out to 13 points."
Now, Chris, I don't believe it's a 13-point race. I believe it's tighter than that. But certainly, Senator Obama has lengthened his lead, and that should be a clear message to the McCain campaign that these personal attacks that — he's trying to describe Senator Obama as risky, or we don't know enough about him, or whatever it is — they are not working, because when the economy's in crisis, people want real answers.
Mr. Davis once said about a month ago that this campaign isn't about issues. Well, maybe that was the case before the economic meltdown. But now with the economic meltdown, it is about issues, and people want to hear what the candidates are doing.
And Senator Obama has performed far better than Senator McCain the last five weeks.
[...]PAWLENTY: Well, I think it is a fair question, Chris, to look at not only his associations, as it's been called, with people like William Ayres and others, but, you know, is he being forthcoming about the depth and scope of those relationships. And that's not the — you know, that's not the point that's been featured in these discussions.
You know, the fact of the matter is Barack Obama's political campaign in Illinois appears to have been launched in Bill Ayres' living room. And so has he been truthful about that? Has he been forthcoming about that?
But beyond all of that, to the point you raise, I don't think the country is going to like the Democratic Party running the table on taxes, on education, on health care, and have kind of the liberal unchecked imbalanced approach to all of those issues. It's going to be bad for the country.
I think having John McCain as president to balance that out and be able to work across the aisle, as he has throughout his career, to get things done would be a good compromise, a good balance.
WALLACE: Governor Rendell, don't middle-of-the-road swing voters have legitimate reason to worry about where an Obama White House and a Pelosi House and a Harry Reid Senate, possibly with a veto-proof majority, would take the country?
RENDELL: No, I don't think so, Chris, at all, and let me tell you why. I think Americans know we need our government to respond and respond quickly to the challenges we're facing, like the economy, like what's happening abroad, like the health care crisis in this country.
And I think they see the opportunity for a cohesive government to do something about that.
Let me tell you what a divided government does. Governor Pawlenty and I were the chairman and vice chairman of the National Governors Association together, and Tim was the chair and I was the vice chair.
We were trying to get the Congress to override the president's veto of the extension of the Children's Health Care Program. We couldn't get the override done, and as a result, 9 million children in this country are not going to get health care unless we can reverse that decision.
And that was because we had a divided government with two different philosophical views of things which couldn't mesh. You can talk about reaching across the aisle all you want, but on that, it was pure philosophy.
I want to say two things, if I can, about what Tim said. Number one, he called Senator Obama a rookie. I think you'll agree, Chris, that in those two debates with Senator McCain, Senator Obama looked anything but a rookie.
And then secondly, Tim talked about taxes. Well, the American people are finally getting the truth about taxes, and that is if you're a family that earns less than $250,000, not only is Senator Obama not going to raise your taxes, he's going to give you a bigger tax cut than Senator McCain will.
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