From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:
—On the Democratic Race for the Presidency—
BILL SAMMON: [I]f you look the top tier as being three people, I look at Hillary, Barack, and Edwards, now as the alternative. I think he’s always been in. He hasn’t made it official. I mean, it’s got to be killing him because this guy has been running for two years, and — you know, just trying to get a toehold in here, all of a sudden Barack Obama kind of casually decides to throws his hat in this ring, and he has catapulted up into the top tier, the second place position.
But I think those three are going to be the top three on the Democratic side. And if Barack decides not to run, or the scrutiny turns up, because right now all the coverage is so fawning and unquestioning, I think Edwards then would become the alternative to Hillary and it would become a two-person race on the Democratic side.
JUAN WILLIAMS: If Al Gore jumps in the race, the dynamic shifts tremendously, because Al Gore has the capacity to raise money, he’s got a track record. . . . The question now is does Obama have any hope of raising money? I don’t think he’ll raise it out of the New York people, I don’t think he’s going to raise it out the Hollywood people, so where’s the money going to come from for Barack Obama?
FRED BARNES: I think that Hillary is running a gamble in her campaign. It’s basically, she’s not going to allow anybody to get to her right. She’s running, basically, a general election campaign, believing that she’s powerful and she can defeat any of these other candidates.
She is, sort of. But she hasn’t repudiated her vote in favor of the war, she hasn’t withdrawn that. John Edwards has. John Kerry did and said it was wrong, but she hasn’t. And when you get her on health care issues, she’s now interested in some, you know, things with market forces, how they can work to expand and health care in the United States. She’s not going to let a Mark Warner get to her and Evan Bayh wasn’t going to get to her right. And that’s basically a campaign that she doesn’t want to do anything or say anything that would ruin her, as so many Democratic candidates have been ruined, in the general election.