MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
Now, to our regular political commentators - E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times. Welcome back to you both.
DIONNE: Thank you.
DAVID BROOKS: Good to be with you.
BLOCK: And we're going to talk about the Democratic race in a few minutes. But first, let's talk about the Republicans. Do you think there's anything approaching a frontrunner on the Republican side. E.J.?
DIONNE: McCain is a modified, limited frontrunner right now - because of his victories, because of his lead in the national polls - but he faces a real challenge in the coming primaries. The two primaries he won in South Carolina and New Hampshire were places where he got a lot of his vote from moderates, from liberals, from independents, from pro-choice voters, even though John McCain has long been pro-life, anti abortion. And he now goes in the primaries - including Florida on January 29th where independents won't be able to cross over to help him. In South Carolina, he barely - he actually narrowly lost according to the exit polls, those who identified themselves as Republicans. It was independents who saved him.
So this is a really challenging period for him, and he's gong to have Giuliani, at least in principle, challenging him for some of those moderate votes. If he can get out of Florida, if he could win Florida, then we could declare him the frontrunner. But until then, I think it's a very limited role he's got.
BLOCK: And David Brooks, at the same time, it seems like knives are really being sharpened for John McCain. You had Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, telling Fox News, John McCain had done more to hurt the Republican Party than any elected official I know of.
BROOKS: That's the fight John McCain wants. It's true there are some people in the Republican establishment who are against McCain - and Tom DeLay and Rush Limbaugh are the two primary ones. But I think you're seeing a couple of things. First, you're seeing a lot of establishment Republicans figuring he's the least bad option. And second, I think one of the most fascinating things that's happened this year is that the Republican voters are not following the Republican establishment. And they have gone from McCain even though he's not popular in the Republican establishment.
McCain is, as E.J. said, is the national leader. He's got 71 percent favorability ratings. Among the Romney voters, Giuliani voters and the Huckabee voters, McCain is, by far, the best second choice. And so I think one of the lessons of this year, both with Huckabee doing well and McCain doing well, is the Republican voters are a lot more diverse, a lot more interested in changing the party than maybe some of the Republicans in Washington are.
BLOCK: Let's turn to the Democratic side and think about lessons we might pull from the Nevada caucuses this weekend where Hillary Clinton won with big support from women and also from Hispanics. She got about two-thirds of the Hispanic vote. E.J., do you think this spells trouble for Barack Obama in some of the primaries that are coming up?
DIONNE: I think it could. I think that the Hispanic vote, for example, is going to be very important in California. And Senator Clinton has a lot of support from important Hispanic politicians in California. What Obama has going for him is the capacity to compete in an awful lot of congressional districts, in particular, African-American districts. Given his gains in the African- American vote, he'll carry, I think, virtually all of those.
And he also does very well among upscale voters, and there are a lot of congressional districts that won't send a Democrat to Congress, but will be electing delegates to this convention. So that February 5th is a very different kind of contest; we really will care a lot about delegates. And so I think Obama can keep it relatively close on delegates. At this point, you'd have to give her an overall advantage on winning states. And I think how this is judged afterward will be on both grounds, who wins a lot of states will matter, but in the end, the delegates will matter.
BLOCK: I want to end by asking you both about Bill Clinton's role in this campaign. Today, we had Barack Obama talking on ABC News about President Clinton, saying he was mischaracterizing what Obama has said, making statements that are factually inaccurate. He hasn't quite yet said stop lying about my record, but you get the sense that maybe that's just still to come. E.J. Dionne?
DIONNE: Well, you know, I think that Clinton is, in a sense, using himself wrong in this campaign, because I think his main goal should not be as the attacker of Barack Obama. He can do two things - he can talk in a very powerful way about the merits of Senator Clinton, his wife. And he can also find a way to rekindle nostalgia about the 1990s without making this a campaign that's just going back to the 1990s because, as Audie said, this is a very tricky thing for Democrats. African-American voters are going to be very important to whichever candidate wins this nomination. The Clintons have had a very strong relationship with African-Americans. And I think the president does not want to gamble his or Mrs. Clinton's standing with them, and that I think he would make himself and her look better by focusing more on the positive as his central role in the campaign.
BLOCK: David Brooks?
BROOKS: And I guess I would say Bill Clinton has many skills, but self- effacement, and self-control are not among them. And that has affected the campaign. But to me, and the most problematic thing is, he would affect the administration. I suspect one year into a Clinton administration, you would have Hillary people in the White House and Bill people in the White House because I suspect from the evidence from the past few weeks suggest, there's no way he would control himself. He would get involved in every single policy matter, and you would begin to have a divided White House, which wouldn't necessarily doom the whole White House, but it would make things incredibly messy.
BLOCK: David Brooks and E.J. Dionne, thanks very much.
DIONNE: Thank you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
BLOCK: David Brooks of the New York Times and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Brookings Institution.