Analysts Debate Political Significance of Bin Laden Killing
HOLMES: About 18 minutes until the top of the hour. Thanks to some patchwork we had to put together here we have Maria Cardona with us now, Democratic strategist who always pairs up with our Lenny McAllister. We had a little technical issue. We had to get her on the phone there. That is how we're going to be able to hear her but I have known her long enough to know when she speaks, we can always hear Maria speak.</s>MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thank you,</s>T.J. HOLMES: I don't know if you were able to hear Lenny, but Lenny got a head start on you on a lot of stuff.</s>CARDONA: I saw his mouth moving, but I didn't hear anything he was saying.</s>HOLMES: That's typical. I'll start with you, Maria. Maria, I ask every week when I start with you guys, what was the political headline of the week for you, so, you tell me what yours was.</s>CARDONA: My political headline this week, T.J., was that we had a commander in chief who showed true grit, tough leadership and, frankly, went into a game-changing event that has changed the way that we look at his leadership, especially his critics.</s>HOLMES: Now, has anyone, in your opinion, Maria, did anyone this week, Republican or democrat, try to take any kind of political, political advantage of the situation with Osama bin Laden?</s>CARDONA: I don't think so, and I think that is, as it should be. And I will even say that Bush actually deserves credit here for laying the groundwork for making sure that this mission culminated in catching Osama bin Laden. I think that in President Obama inviting President Bush to come to him with him to ground zero, I think, showed that he does not see this as a political event. The White House doesn't see this as a political event. I hope that we're able to stay that way because we really experienced a show of unity after this happened and sort of went back to the notion that when we work together, we really can get things done and that's exactly what the president talked about on Sunday night.</s>HOLMES: Now, Lenny, let me bring you back in here because there was some debate. If anything got political, I guess it was this question of who deserves credit and who deserved how much credit for this? You just heard Maria say there that, yes, in fact, the Bush administration deserved a lot of credit. But, how did you see that, Lenny, play out this week of back and forth. Was that really a big part of the whole conversation?</s>MCALLISTER: No, not to me. I look at two images, the image of President Bush with the bull horn right after 9/11 and I look at the image of President Obama fixated, sitting there. And I said it on my radio show when you and I were talking yesterday. That's what you want in presidential focus. Those are the only two things that should have been focused on, the image of President Bush in 2001 and the image of president Obama in 2011, and that should have been what we fixated on when it came to presidential leadership front to back throughout this whole decade of terror.</s>HOLMES: And Maria, will this -- voters have short memories for the most part. We're still talking about an election that is a good year, year and a half away here. People will still talk about the economy. Do you think this situation with Osama bin Laden now, does that give the president a talking point to run on or does it just take away a talking point for Republicans to attack him on, national security?</s>CARDONA: I think more so it takes away a talking point from the Republicans. As you know, there were many critics who whined about how he was supposedly weak kneed and didn't have the spine to make the kind of decisions needed to win the war against terrorism. He clearly has put that to rest and has shut them up. I don't think the boost I don't think will continue to Election Day in terms of this specific event. What I do think will happen is the economy will continue to be the issue. But if we go through continued job creation the way that we saw on Friday, 224,000 jobs were created in April, the 14th consecutive month of private sector job creation, if that trend continues and companies continue to hire and the Republican GOP candidates look as weak as they do today, then I do think he has a good chance of being reelected.</s>HOLMES: Lenny, you come in on that point. Many people may not know, but there was a presidential debate potential candidates here, a debate of Republicans this week. How did your candidates, Lenny, look this week in your opinion?</s>MCALLISTER: They, they focused more on Osama bin Laden than they did on jobs. Yes, they added 244,000 jobs in April, but unemployment claims have gone up three out of the last four periods. It's at the highest weekly rate since August of 2010. The GDP has slowed down. Unemployment has gone up two-tenths of a percentage point. If they would have focused more on that, used the word "jobs," used the words economy, jobs, employment getting America back to work, if they used those catch phrases more often, they probably would have gotten more traction Thursday night. They did not and that's something that a Republican candidate coming through 2012 is going to have to fixate on. If we're talking about 244,000 jobs added, that will sound great. When the unemployment rate goes up 0.2 of a percentage point and the unemployment claims go up, you can't focus on the quarter of a million jobs added when you add that on the flip side.</s>HOLMES: Lenny, I'll let you wrap it up. But we were showing video of that debate, and a lot of the bigger name candidates were not there, or potential candidates were not at this particular debate. But, Lenny on the point that you were making that I will let Maria make here. Some people point to the fact that the unemployment rate went up as kind of a good sign that more people are feeling better about the economy and they are entering getting back into the game, back into the job market. Maria, is that still going to be a tough sell because people kind of gauge the economy on a couple of things. They hear the unemployment number and they hear it goes up. And they drive past the gas station and they see that price going up.</s>CARDONA: Well, what we also saw this week, T.J., hopefully it will trickle down to the gas prices, but the price of barrels of oil actually went down and in terms of the unemployment rate, you're absolutely right, it went up, because those had been frustrated they could not find the jobs now see hope in the numbers and the hundreds of thousands of people who did find jobs, the folks who could not find jobs earlier are now jumping into the job market because they see hope. And you saw that in the straight analysis of economists from all the left to right. They were saying that this is actually a good sign, the fact that the unemployment rate went up, because now more people see hope that they can find jobs. And you hear it also in corporations. They are now hiring. If that train continues and if we see nothing from the GOP presidential field, and Lenny said it, they did not, could not talk about jobs in their debate. The debate switched to terrorism and Osama bin Laden and to foreign policy. That's not a good place for them to be right now.</s>HOLMES: Well, guys, you two, it is always fun, always interesting, but this is probably one of the more interesting segments I have done with you two after Lenny sabotaged all of our technology so that Maria would be at a disadvantage.</s>CARDONA: Yes, Lenny. I got to look into that one.</s>MCALLISTER: That's just what we need is another conspiracy this week, right?</s>HOLMES: Yes, no more. You're right, Lenny. Lenny, Maria -- Maria, thank you for being willing to tolerate that and make this work the best way we could. We go MacGyver on this show if we have to.</s>CARDONA: You owe me one.</s>MCALLISTER: Happy mother's day, Maria.</s>CARDONA: Thank you, all.</s>HOLMES: They are chasing history at the Kentucky derby. One jockey could ride all the way to glory this weekend. You need to hear about this one in particular.