[Fredricka Whitfield, Cnn Anchor:] Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. We're going to look at the 2012 presidential contenders in this political hour. But first, an update on some of today's top stories. Occupy Portland protesters appear to be clearing out today. Although many demonstrators initially defied a midnight deadline to leave two city parks. They started drifting away as the day wore on. Portland officials say they will build fences around the parks to block demonstrators from returning. And the president of Italy has nominated an economist to be the next prime minister. Mario Monti is a former European Union commissioner. If approved by Parliament, he will replace Silvio Berlusconi who resigned last night because of Italy's debt crisis. And for first time since the tsunami last March, we can take you inside Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. A team of journalists was allowed within the last 24 hours. There are still levels of radiation around the plant, but the reading is within safe levels. The tsunami followed a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, 15,000 people lost their lives. Boxer Manny Pacquiao defended his World Boxing Organization welterweight title in a nail biter. He beat Juan Manuel Marquez by majority decision in Las Vegas last night. They went toe to toe for all 12 rounds. After the decision, Marquez left the ring apparently upset. His fans were upset as well. They, in fact, launched bottles and cans into the ring in response to the ruling. We're about seven weeks now from the first presidential contest. Talking about the Iowa caucuses. So either the Republican hopefuls or all of them in fact are trying to kick it into high gear, explaining what they would do if elected. At last night's debate in South Carolina, here is how the top three contenders said they would handle Iran's nuclear threat.
[Herman Cain , Presidential Candidate:] So I do believe they have a nuclear weapons program and they're closer to having nuclear weapons, stopping them, the only way to stop them is through economic means. And there is one other thing we can do. We can deploy our ballistic missile defense capable aegis warships strategically in that part of the world. We have the biggest fleet of those war ships in the world and we can use them strategically in the event that they were able to fire a ballistic missile.
[Mitt Romney , Presidential Candidate:] The president should build credible threat of military action and made it very clear that the United States of America is willing, in the final analysis, if necessary, to take military action to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Look, one thing you can know, and that is if we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney, if you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon.
[Newt Gingrich , Presidential Candidate:] Maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program, including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable. Second, maximum coordination with the Israelis in a way which allows them to maximize their impact in Iran.
[Whitfield:] Eight republican candidates on stage there. CNN political producer Shawna Shepherd was at that debate. She's joining us right now from Columbia, South Carolina. So Shawna, the candidates are really pushing their platforms and ideas pretty hard. It didn't seem, however, like the kind of debate where the candidates had gloves on fighting each other on foreign policy and national security. So was it Jon Huntsman, perhaps, the one with the most foreign policy experience as a former U.S. ambassador who kind of made the biggest impression?
[Shawna Shepherd, Cnn Political Producer:] Governor Huntsman did well, but he didn't get called on as often as the other candidates. What stood out for me was how well prepared all the candidates were for this first debate, focused solely on foreign policy. All eyes were on Texas Governor Rick Perry, who after his embarrassing mental lapse at the last debate, Perry held his own, discussing nuclear weapons, terrorism, and foreign aid. Listen.
[Rick Perry , Presidential Candidate:] The foreign aid budget in my administration for every country is going to start at zero dollars. Zero dollars. And then we'll have a conversation. Then we'll have a conversation in this country about whether or not a penny of our taxpayer dollars needs to go into those countries.
[Shepherd:] Zeroing out foreign aid to Pakistan, which receives billions of dollars from the U.S. in foreign aid, is popular among the Tea Party fiscal conservatives that make up the most active slice of conservative Republicans in South Carolina. Now, several of the candidates seem to agree with Governor Perry, even former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said that aid to Pakistan should be re-evaluated. And so not only did Perry escape Spartanburg without another debate gaffe, he also helped drive news in the debate. Fredricka?
[Whitfield:] OK. And so Shawna, Herman Cain, he had been rising in the polls for quite the distance, for quite a while, but he doesn't have a whole lot of foreign policy experience. So how well did he have command of the topics last night?
[Shepherd:] You're right, he does have very little foreign policy experience as a business executive, as a former pizza CEO. But he he seemed to he had a lot to prove last night. And it became clear that he read his briefing book and he made all the right made all the right points, he just appeared nervous at times, wading into territory that is beyond his catchy 9-9-9economic plan. Cain said that he supports the use of waterboarding as an intense enhanced interrogation technique and opposes military action to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons if other strategies failed. That's a position supported by Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, he survived this debate unscathed. He's yet to suffer a kind of campaign altering blunder that national televised debates like these tend to encourage. So he seems steadily on top of the pack and is showing promise in in early states like South Carolina but certainly a number of the other candidates are trying to make their way to the top as well.
[Whitfield:] All right. Shawna Shepherd, thank you so much coming to us from Columbia, South Carolina. So while the Republican candidates take swipes at President Obama, the president is talking trade and jobs right now. He's at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Hawaii. And Mr. Obama is pushing for a new free trade agreement, the trans-Pacific partnership. It would include the U.S. and nine other countries and cover about one-third of the global economy. President Obama says it would create jobs in the U.S..
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] This is where the action is going to be. If we're going to not just double our exports but make sure that good jobs are created here in the United States, then we're going to have to continue to expand our trade opportunities and economic integration with the fastest growing region in the world. And that means, you know, in some cases some hard negotiations and some tough work as we went through in South Korea. I think that was a great model of prioritizing trade with a key partner. It wasn't easy. I said at the outset that I wanted I had no problem with seeing Hyundais and Kias here in the United States, but I wanted to see some Chevrolets and Fords in Seoul. And after a lot of work and some dedicated attention from President Lee, we were able to get a deal that for the first time was endorsed not just by the business community, but also was endorsed by the United Autoworkers and a number of labor unions. And that shows how we can build a bipartisan support for job creation in the United States and trade agreements that make sense.
[Whitfield:] China is an Asian powerhouse. It is the world's second biggest economy after the United States. And it was part of the focus of last night's Republican debate in South Carolina. GOP front-runner Mitt Romney accuses China of unfair trade practices, and that drew a response from rival Jon Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China. Here is what they said.
[Romney:] We need to make sure that we let them understand that in order for them to continue to have free and open access to the thing they want so badly, our markets, they have to play by the rules. They can't hack into our computer systems and steal from our government. They can't steal from corporations. They can't take patents and designs and intellectual property and duplicate them and counterfeit them and sell them around the world. And they also can't manipulate their currency in such a way to make their prices well below what they otherwise would be.
[Unidentified Male:] You talk about all the things that China should be doing. How do you affect that as commander in chief? How do you make China do these things?
[Romney:] Well, number one, day one, is acknowledging something which everyone knows. They're a currency manipulator. On that basis, we also go before the WTO and bring an action against them as a currency manipulator and that allows us to apply selectively tariffs where we believe they are stealing our intellectual property, hacking into our computers, or artificially lowering their prices and killing American jobs. We can't just sit back and let China run all over us. People say, "Well, you'll start a trade war." There is one going on right now, folks. They're stealing our jobs and we're going to stand up to China.
[Unidentified Male:] Governor Huntsman. Governor Romney just said we're in the middle of a war that we're not even declared or we're not even aware of and Governor Perry said China will end up on the ash heap of history. You've been in China. You were the ambassador for our nation there under President Obama. What is your reaction?
[Huntsman:] Well, he reality is a little different, as it usually is when you're on the ground. And I tried to figure this out for 30 years of my career. First of all, I don't think, Mitt, you can take China to the WTO on currency related issues. Second, I don't know that this country needs a trade war with China. Who does it hurt? Our small businesses in South Carolina, our exporters, our agriculture producers. We don't need that at a time when China is about to embark on a generational transition. What should we be doing? We should be reaching out to our allies and constituencies within China. They're called the young people, they're called the internet generation. There are 500 million internet users in China.
[Unidentified Male:] We're going to have to
[Huntsman:] Eighty million bloggers and they're bringing about change, the likes of which is going to take China down.
[Unidentified Male:] We're going to have to leave it there, governor.
[Huntsman:] We have an opportunity to go up and win back our economic manufacturing muscle. That's all I want to do as president.
[Unidentified Male:] I thank you very much.
[Whitfield:] All right. CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein with us now from New York and he's also the "National Journal's" editor and director. Ron, most of the Republican candidates bashing President Obama over his China policies, particularly on trade. You heard that exchange taking place too. Is this going to be an effective fight?
[Ron Brownstein, Cnn Senior Political Analyst:] Well it a fascinating argument that you both of those clips to hear and a kind of a sweep of history here. One thing that is consistent in presidential campaigns, the outs always accuse the in president of being insufficiently tough on China. I remember Bill Clinton making similar arguments in 1992 and ultimately achieving a permanent most favored nations status with China. So that is on the one sense a very common line of argument that we're not doing enough to stand up to China. When you get in, you usually find that the relationship has so many irons in the fire, it is hard to take any one aspect of it like trade and make it a breaking point. But in a broader sense, Fredricka, look at what you saw. Barack Obama who in 2008 as a candidate was talking about renegotiating NAFTA. Now not only is finished free trade agreements in South Korea, Panama, and Colombia but is talking about a vast expansion of free trade across the Atlantic while you have a Republican nominee basically saying he's willing to nominate a candidate willing to risk a trade war with China to declare them a currency manipulator. It's a sign at the center of gravity each party is shifting. We used to think of the Democrats as the party most skeptical of free trade because of the influence of organized labor, but now there are a lot of blue collar voters in the Republican Party and you see the pull of that, the skepticism about trade reflected in Romney who is probably talking a tougher line on China than really any Republican serious candidate that I can remember.
[Whitfield:] Well, I wonder, because there seems to be kind of a contagion on certain points of view. I wonder if that will end up being the contagion for the Republican candidates making China out to be the bad guy.
[Brownstein:] Well, you know, in fact, China is a powerful symbol of something much larger. I mean there is a broad concern if you look at polling in the public, not surprisingly given the economy we're living through, that the U.S. is facing kind of a structural decline economically and that we're being passed by rising powers like China. That is very clear in polling, much as it was the concerns about Japan in the 1980s. So in argument that China is not playing fair with its currency and there are many serious economists who believe it is not, there is a big push in the Senate to have them declare a currency manipulator that has bipartisan support. So I mean there is an audience for that argument. And of course, the administration, which is in power and as I said is dealing with all the totality of his very complex and difficult challenging relationship has not taken the step that Romney says he would on day one. It's not clear that if Mitt Romney was elected, that those same considerations might not still his hand a little more than he's suggesting right now as well.
[Whitfield:] So Ron, there is a trend in polling that concerns trade protectionism and party affiliation. And what is unusual here.?
[Brownstein:] Yes, right. Well, like you said, I mean I think historically we think of the democratic party as the party that is more skeptical of free trade because of the influence of organized labor. But when you look at polling in the last couple of years, there is a big portion of the Democratic Party now that is much more open and supportive of free trade. They're winning a lot more upper middle class suburban voters who tend to have an internationalist orientation. Whereas the Republican Party, the center of gravity is moving toward greater skepticism of free trade because they have been doing better among those blue collar working class voters who believe in many cases correctly that the loss of jobs overseas is a big part of the economic distress they face. So the center of gravity is shifting actually I think in some polling, there is more protectionist sentiment now among Republican core voters and among democratic core voters. That's a big change in our politics, part of an overall what I call a class inversion in the coalition that each party really brings to bear on elections now.
[Whitfield:] All right. Ron Brownstein, thanks so much. We'll check back with you a little bit later on in this hour, several times as a matter of fact. Thanks, Ron. A week of gaffes and laughs from Rick Perry. We'll see how he handled that debate and that brain freeze.