Mark Steyn Interview

Audio Available:

January 10, 2008 - 12:28 ET

GLENN: A guy that I just found recently because of his book, America Alone which is, I mean, it's eye-opening. It is skin-peeling. You've got to read America Alone. When did that come out, Mark? When did you originally put that out?

STEYN: The paperback should be out, I think in a couple of months' time.

GLENN: Okay. It's fantastic stuff. But anyway, Mark Steyn is the writer. He is a columnist, a syndicated columnist in how many papers around the country I don't know. But he's very well read. Very smart. Very astute and you know what I really like, I've actually started to talk to Winston Churchill's grandson as well here recently and it's interesting to see people who come from England and their view of America because they can distill things sometimes a little faster. First of all because they see oh, my gosh, guys, wake up, you're making the mistakes we made 20 years ago.

America Alone by Mark Steyn Description: Provocative and often humorous book about the West’s unwillingness to confront Islamist extremists and why America could be the last country standing against this force. Glenn's Comments: Scary stuff, right on target, fits right in with Glenn’s take on the world dynamics at this time. More book reviews...

STEYN: Yeah.

GLENN: And then also because you have a different -- you just come at it differently than we do. I'd love to pick your brain here just a little bit on what you're seeing here in America, Mark, on politics.

STEYN: Well, you know, I nearly drove off the road the other day when I heard your McCain-Away hypnosis thing because, of course, that's exactly what my neighbors in New Hampshire did. You know, we're a state that we're not evangelical Christians or anything like that but we like low taxes and we believe in free speech, live free or die. So what do we do, we voted for a guy who voted for tax cuts and introduced McCain/Feingold. It seems to be that -- it's interesting, I think, what New Hampshire did because they voted for someone who has nothing going for him other than that he's totally the kind of president we would like. In other words, he's cranky, ornery, contemporary, you stick him in a plaid coat and he seems like a rather mean, bitter, twisted guy who might fit in in the Granite State. So I think it tells you something about what the Republican base would like their candidate to be totally.

GLENN: But you know what? But wait a minute. Hang on just a second. The exact opposite is true with Mike Huckabee.

STEYN: Yeah, I think that's true but I think Huckabee's thing is slightly overstated. I was amazed by the total of lack of balance in New Hampshire and in a sense he feels -- I hate to seem like I've got the political version of ADD but he seems very less thirsty to me, Mike Huckabee right now. To take another comparison, Mitt Romney, for example, his policies are much more congenial to conservatives but I just get all this mail, I'm sure you do, too, saying he's just this ridiculous plastic Ken doll and I think in part because of the comparison conservative thing of George W. Bush who's reviled as a cowboy even though he goes around saying he's looked into Vladimir Putin's soul and all the rest of it. I think a segment of the Republican base just wants someone who appears tough even if they then cave on a lot of these things.

GLENN: The plastic thing on Romney is incredible to me because I think where it comes from is he's a CEO. He is the guy, if you are running a company, he's the guy you want because you'll never tube your stock price by saying something stupid.

STEYN: No. This guy made $200 million out of caroling at the winter Olympics. That's a sport nobody likes, nobody down here likes in Canada they are crazy for it. You can have a 3,000-channel cable package down here and you can't get the caroling channel. You can get everything else. You can get the Dennis Kucinich channel, you'll get everything but you won't get the caroling channel. This guy Romney made $200 million out of caroling.

GLENN: So who do you think -- let's pit some people against each other. Let's go. Romney/Clinton, who wins?

STEYN: I think Romney's got a chance against Hillary Clinton. In a sense, you know, Hillary's thing is that she's got such high negatives that I think Romney's actually viable against someone like Hillary. So Hillary gets the nomination. There's no reason that she shouldn't. I think Romney could actually do a good job and win.

GLENN: This goes into my theory of he's everybody's number two.

STEYN: That's the problem after New Hampshire. He became a decent number 2 in Iowa. He came a decent number 2 in New Hampshire. That's beginning to look like a patent and it's easy to see him being everybody's second choice and winding up with a nomination and then being America's second choice in November.

GLENN: Right. But see, this is where I disagree. If you are up against, if you are up against Hillary Clinton who has such high negatives, there will be those people who will go, gosh you know what, I mean, he is not my favorite but I just, I don't trust her. You know what I mean? If he's everybody's number two, you can be number one. Does that make sense?

STEYN: I think that's right. In a sense he is running as the sort of, the elevator music candidate. He would be relatively easy to live with for the next four or eight years, right?

GLENN: Tell me what you think Huckabee/Obama, who wins?

STEYN: I think that's much more difficult. I think one of the interesting lessons in New Hampshire and Iowa is that in Iowa, in the caucus thing you have to vote in public and I think there clearly was some pressure to see how can you stand up and vote against the first viable African-American candidate for president. Well, in the privacy of the voting booth in New Hampshire, quite a lot of people felt differently not because they are racist but because Barack Obama, if you take away his sort of identity group exhaustism, he just talks in these kind of platitudes all the time. The hope, the change, the change you can believe in, the hope of change, the hope of a belief in change, you can believe in all this. That is actually something that is not going to go the distance. He is an exotic cipher but he is a cipher and that's where Hillary can actually open up quite devastatingly on him because if you can't define yourself, then your opponent gets to define you for you.

GLENN: I've got 20 seconds. Tell me who you think the candidates are going to be.

STEYN: I think it's always foolish to bet against the Clintons. You know, as my former senator Bob Smith said after the impeachment trial, Clintons won, he always wins, let's move on and it's easy to see that shaking out that way in November.

GLENN: 10 seconds who is going to be the Republican candidate?

STEYN: I have absolutely no idea. At this point we either need to get behind Alan Keyes or shoot ourselves.

GLENN: Mark Steyn, thank you very much. Talk to you again soon, my friend.

STEYN: Always a pleasure, Glenn.