Paul Begala

The argument the Democrats made, some of them before the war, was that invading Iraq would be a distraction from the real war against al Qaeda. There's increasing evidence that we were right.

I think Bob is right, by the way. I don't know how tough it is to be on TV and yap, but I'm worried that there's not enough spine in my Democrats on Capitol Hill.

If the Democrats just sort of say, please, Mr. President, work with me, he's going to crush them.

He's going to come right at the Democrats and roll right over them, and the only thing he's going to respect is strength.

It depends on where and how he prosecutes it. A whole lot of American, I think the majority, certainly in the exit polls, not very accurate exit polls but you get a sense that at least half the country, we were going in the wrong direction…

Will he put Rudy Giuliani in at the Justice Department? He was a top prosecutor under Ronald Reagan in the Justice Department.

I'd love nothing better than to see her put under oath before the Senate in hearings to defend the rank incompetence that she and the rest of that team showed.

Who knows? Only the president knows. But I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. No one has come forth with a really plausible military explanation as to why we have to wait until a few days after the election. If the imperative was…

If it's right to attack the enemy there, then we should do it sooner rather than later, rather than have more time to fortify themselves, more time to build up defenses, more time to entrench themselves. But it seems to me that the…

He lacks 60 votes in the Senate, though, and I think that may be what's animating this.

The Democrats need to focus on what it is that they are lacking, particularly in those red states with those middle class voters, and especially on culture and social issues.

He doesn't have -- actually need to, to begin with. I, it would be good for the country. But as a just raw political matter, he has the votes for much of his agenda.

That was part of the Bush campaign doing its job. They didn't want to come to you or to me or to the what they call the dominant media and talk about things like gay rights or stopping advancement of gay rights or abortion or things like…

I got to give ultimate congratulations to the president, but then also to his team, Karl Rove, Mark MacKinnon, Matthew Dowd, that whole staff...

So I think what's interesting to me is, how do you keep this going? Right, if you're the president, if you're Karl Rove?

Karl Rove, before he became this great guru, was a direct mail consultant. He knows how to find people, get to their homes, and motivate them.

Well, that was part of the Bush campaign doing its job.

I spent four years saying that he wasn't fully legitimate. He's fully legitimate now. And he's got a majority of the vote in a high-turnout election.

I mean, Kerry did his job. He got all the Democrats, he even won the independents. But what the president did was trump all that by finding, identifying, motivating, and then delivering to the polls millions of new Republican voters.

I've got to give ultimate congratulations to the president, but then also to his team, Karl Rove, Mark MacKinnon, Matthew Dowd, that whole staff...

I think turnout will break 60 percent for the first time since the 1960s. It will be a record turnout. The biggest one cycle increase in turnout that we've ever seen, at least in the last 50 years. And I think that benefits Kerry. I think…

He had to speak about what he thought was most important, where he was more credible, where his heart was. And he found that voice, as Tucker says, when he started critiquing the current operations in Iraq, and I think that's done him an…

The focus on Vietnam actually didn't work. He thought it would. Or at least I didn't think it worked. His staff thought it would. But the convention speech, where he focused strongly on Vietnam, really didn't move voters.

What Senator Kerry, while he probably would rather campaign on some of the domestic issues, I think there's a sense in the Kerry campaign that they don't want to let the president re-merge.

I think the turn back to domestic issues -- there have been two different theories.