Fox's Chris Wallace Offers Advice to Romney in Speech

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace spoke at the ASIS International convention at the Pennsylvania Convention Center today offering his take on the upcoming presidential election. First, he discussed the subject that was really on everybody's mind. He reassured the mostly male audience that the female Fox News anchors and reporters are as beautiful in person as they look on television.

Then he offered up some humorous election one- liners including a barb at Bain Capital. He compared Clint Eastwood to today's weather -"82 and cloudy".

Wallace joked, "Bin Laden paid off his mortgage but he is still underwater. Romney is so rich that his illegal immigrants have illegal immigrants. Obama owns a 2005 Chrysler, which is registered in Kenya. He is just like the car. It runs well but does not have the power to pass anything. No matter how much they changed the lightning at the convention, Obama could not get out of Clinton's shadow."

Wallace confirmed that Fox News shows that Obama has a small, but real electoral lead, which he attributes to the Democratic convention.

"On August 27, Romney was leading 47% to 46%, said Wallace. "Now Obama is ahead 50% to 44% a difference of 7 points. There is a growing sense that the Democrats had a successful convention. Clinton, who presided over the largest peace time expansion in history, was effective."

Wallace affirmed that Obama has an even bigger lead in the Electoral College.

"My colleague Karl Rove displays maps that show Obama with 225 electoral votes to Romney 191," he said. "In the 9   swing states, Obama has a lead in 8 of them."

Romney's staffers have told Wallace that they believe the election will be a referendum on the economy. Wallace seems to have some doubts that this strategy is going to work.

Despite polls that show 1/3 of Americans believe the country is on the right track and 2/3 believe it is on the wrong track, Obama is still in the lead because they are not they will be better off with Romney," he said. "Obama blames Bush 4 years into his term. A lot of voters believe that."

The recent horrendous jobs report, which had zero effect on the polls, seems to back up his reasoning. Wallace attributes the non-reaction to the fact that the country has been living with bad job numbers for a long time, the public's greater disdain for the Republicans in Congress, and a lack of conviction that Romney cares about them.

After Romney made him pancakes for breakfast one morning, Wallace was convinced that Romney is full of empathy. He lamented that the convention speeches of two Mormons, who have been counseled by Romney in his role as bishop, were not seen by many Americans because they were not in prime time.

"One woman, whose daughter was dying of a fatal illness, told of Romney coming to comfort her and folding the laundry," said Wallace.

He feels that Romney has been "swiftboated" because they have taken his greatest strength-his business success- and turned into a liability. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's accusation that Romney has paid no taxes and the Obama campaign commercials featuring people who were put of of work by Bain Capital, particularly the former employee whose wife died of cancer, have painted Romney as Robin Hood in reverse.

While admitting that Romney has to do "something big" to win the election, Wallace is not ready to concede the election to Obama. Recalling the Carter-Reagan debate, he thinks that there is a chance that Romney could pull a Reagan and turn around the election.

"I moderated a debate during the Republican primary. Romney is pretty good going after one person. He went after Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry during the debates and won," he said.

The news anchor then took the unusual step of urging Romney to get specific on his tax reform proposals by detailing which loopholes he would end.

"Voters fear that he will cut taxes for rich people, but not close any of the loopholes," he said.

While he criticized Romney for speaking out too soon on the death of the American ambassador to Libya, he had no qualms about discussing the matter. He places the blame for the death of Chris Stevens squarely on a failure of security.

Wallace, an eight year veteran of Fox News, only halfheartedly defended the conservative bias of the network.

"People mistakenly believe that the liberal view on gun control, gay marriage, abortion is the conventional wisdom," argued Wallace.

In the final moments of his speech, he surprised the crowd by revealing the interview that made him the most nervous. No, it was not a president, a great religious leader, or a despotic tyrant, but basketball player Michael Jordan. He even practiced before the interview his jump shot. Wallace would have won but Jordan is so competitive that he extended their game of DOG to a game of HORSE in order to win.

Wallace, whose father was Jewish, revealed that Jesus and Hitler are the two people that he would most wanted to have interviewed.

SALT Conference: Rove and Gibbs Almost Come to Blows

Being a little hung over from last night's terrific Maroon 5 concert, you can forgive me for thinking that I walked into the Roman Coliseum instead of a discussion between Republican mastermind Karl Rove and long time Obama advisor Robert Gibbs at the SkyBridge Capital's SALT Conference. Rove kept hitting Gibbs over the head with the demand that President Obama make a public statement that attacks on Romney's Mormon religion are off limits. Obama has already made a similar statement about the families of candidates.

He said, "The president should tell his followers to stop talking about his weird beliefs and underwear."

Gibbs weakly insisted, "The President never talks about Romney religion."

As a seasoned political observer, the amount of time that Rove spent on the weird Mormonism theme tells me two things. Their polling indicates that Romney is losing lost of votes due to his religion. Even though everyone says the election is about the economy and the room was filled with financial experts, the Republicans really do not have an economic message, except the tired old one of tax cuts.

Rove also wanted to know why the President has not returned the $1 million check of Bill Maher, who has been accused of misogynistic comments.

Gibbs, trying to skirt the issue, answered, "The President condemns those comments." He further asserted that a candidate can not be responsible for all the comments of his supporters.

At the beginning of the session, the two political pros discussed Obama's decision this week to openly support gay marriage.

Gibbs said, "The President has been thinking about this for a long time."

Rove immediately shot down that theory. "The President came out earlier on this issue than he wanted because Biden screwed up, like he always does. He wanted to drag this out for another 18 months for political advantage. This could hurt him among the Catholics, whom are a large part of the swing vote. If he was going to come out, why did he come out the day after the North Carolina vote against gay marriage. The gay marriage advocates there must be asking where was he yesterday."

Both political strategists agree that it will be close election. 7-8% of the voters in 11 swing states will decide the election. Putting it other way,  hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on advertising to change the minds of a few voters.

Rove surprised me by asking why the American taxpayer should pay for the healthcare of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. If a Democratic had asked the same question, it would have been called class warfare. His comment indicates the Republicans might be open to having the rich pay their fair share, the four letter word of this campaign.

Gibbs also acknowledged that entitlements will have to be cut.

This round of the "Hunger Games" went to the feisty Karl Rove. The Democrats have to learn to fight with their elbows. Although he had been Obama's press secretary, Gibbs was not effective at delivering the president's message.