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live televised debate here on fox news. it's thursday, 9:00 p.m. eastern time. iowa has been very good to the next guest in 2008. former alaska governor mike huckabee won the iowa caucuses. now he is playing a very different role in this year's iowa straw poll. that of entertainer, not candidate. he also, of course, hosts a weekend show on this network. governor huckabee joins us live from little rock. >> good to be with you, bret. i look forward to get back to iowa and i understand it's nice weather so we have a lot to look toward to and politics with the straw poll. >> bret: governor, it's great already. you can feel the excitement here. listen, you not running this year. but there is a new fox news poll out, just today. 3% of respondents to our fox news poll volunteered your name as their choice for president. more support than tim pawlenty, rick santorum and jon huntsman. the question is are you coming back to get back in? >> well, the question is what is wrong with the rest of 297% that did not name -- rest of the 97% that did not name nein the poll? that's what hurts my feeling. at 3% i'd hardly call it a stinging mandate to jump back in things. i am frankly looking forward to being part of the process, but this time from the sidelines. it will be an interesting perspective that i'll be able to have, having been there just four years ago in the midst of it. this time, being able to observe that really is a very unique piece of political theater in america. one that i think a lot of people don't fully comprehend. what this is going to show is not just who can organize people but who has the intensity of organization. that can actually get people to drive hundreds of miles and spend all day on the campus of the college voting for someone in an election that really doesn't matter at all. >> bret: governor, it is all about organization here. and you performed well in the straw poll. obviously, that propelled you to win the iowa caucuses. but for somebody like a tim pawlenty who is behind you in this poll, how important is this day, this week, this debate, this whole process here in ames? >> for candidate like tim pawlenty it could be a make-or-break moment. it's not about winning. it's about exceeding expectations. if he comes ahead of michele bachmann, that's a seminole event in his campaign and he has take an quantum leap forward. there is a perception that she is the likely winner. frankly, that is not something you wish to have. because if she does anything other than win, people will say she is not as fast on track as people thought. a lot of talk about ron paul, this time taking it more seriously and is organizing, not just getting people there to make noise, but to vote. he could be a spoiler. so, somebody is going to come away from this moving ahead and others, this may be their last campaign moment. they may not quit saturday night, but every four years when this happens there are people who really never recover from a less than stellar event at the strow poll. >> bret: governor, you clicked with iowanss. it propelled you to a win in caucuses. is it fair to say that iowanss like straight talkers and not talking points? as we get ready for the debate and there will be eight candidates on the stage. a lot to talk about. >> one thing about the people of iowa, they have seen every candidate not once, but dozens of times. most people have haded a candidate in their home. i mean it half facetiously. iowans are not star-struck because they're running for president. it's a benefit to everyone in the country whether they've ever been to iowa. when people run for president it's healthy if they have to sit down and talk to farmer struggling the crop prices or unemployed truck driver or someone laid off his job at whirlpool. it's a positive thing that the person who wants to be president isn't just having a few events the swells who can afford a $29,800 plate. it's nice to sit down in the diner and talk to people who couldn't even buy a second cup of coffee. and that's a plus that all americans benefit from. it's one of the strengths of why iowa does matter and the straw poll and caucuses are important part of the process. >> bret: governor, we look forward to having you here in ames. see you the rest of the week. thanks. >> thank you, bret. >> bret: we'll have more on the debate and the action here in ames with a special traveling edition of "special report" online. 7:00 eastern tonight. still coming to you. still to come, what journalists who cover iowa politics expect in thursday night's debate. up next, he won crucial victories in 2008. how will president obama do in 2012 here? @@ >> bret: we're skipping the grapevine tonight for more political news from here in iowa. site of tomorrow's candidate debate and saturday's straw poll. the hawkeye state was big for then senator obama three years ago. tonight, correspondent steve brown looks at what has changed for president since then. and what has not. >> iowa launched barack obama. he won the democratic caucuse caucuses, brbreezed to take the state in the general election. >> obama for america. >> looking ahead to 2012. >> at the end of the day, the field organization wins these things. it always is. it always has been. it always will be. >> the ace up the president's sleeve in iowa is organization. the huge crowds of three years ago were the result of a large and deep operation, much of which still exist. plus. >> we still got the 35,000 vote edge over the republicans. >> but that's down substantially from the 110,000 register voter edge democrats had in 2008. >> that is putting a chill down the side of david axelrod and the gang in chicago. iowa is competitive territory. >> on the marquee campaign issue of jobs, iowa unemployment is 6%, lower than the national average of 9.1%. the state lost over 21,000 manufacturerring job since the 2008 election. that economic unease was a factor in the 2010 gubernatorial race. >> i defeated incumbent governor, something that hasn't happened in iowa since 1962. >> how is it going, iowa? >> plus, it will be impossible to rep kate the obama -- replicate obama-thon put on for iowans in the first run. >> iowa was spoiled in 2007 leading up to the caucuses they basically had all obama, all the time. >> president obama will be back in iowa tuesday as part of the bus trip to talk rural economics. officially it is not campaign event. the re-election campaign has the luxury of time. >> the election is not today. is it unsettled? it is. but every re-election is unsettled. >> she also says that iowa today is a purple state, evenly divided between republicans and democrats. that's very different from the crows of how blue iowa was after the white house race of 2008. a lot has changed. bret? >> bret: steve brown, 00 yards away. steve, thank you. syrian troops reportedly killed at least 11 civilians today in an armed assault against the city of homes. they established control of another town after four days of intense fighting. back here at home, the u.s. has slapped sanctions on syria's largest commercial bank and cell phone operator. chief washington correspondent jim ankle reports something bigger is on the horizon. >> with the syrian government getting ever more brutal in the crackdown on protesters, officials say the obama administration is about to call on syrian president bashar assad to step down. they said as much at the white house today. >> the president believes that syria will be better off, would be better off without president assad. >> saudi arabia's king adullah and or arab nations have unified use of force. saudis and other nations withdrew ambassadors this week. the treasury department announced new sanctions on syria bank close to the government which they say is implicated in illegal weapons trade with north korea. the u.s. imposed sanction on the largest cell phone company controlled by a key supporter of the assad got. >> the most important thing we can do now is ensure the actions back up our words. >> the u.n. security council last week condemned the syrian government for attacking civilians the u.s. was pushing for a legally binding resolution against syria blocked by five other nations. critics say as the carnage in syria gets worse, statements syria would be better off without assad fall on deaf ears. >> syria would have been better off without assad and his father for 40 years. and simply saying that at the white house unfortunately has no effect at all. >> especially when syrians look at libya's muammar gaddafi who faced down a nato bombing campaign and even more pressure and still remains in power in washington, jim angle, fox news. >> bret: we have two panels tonight. we'll talk about politics with iowa journalists in a few minutes. but first, fox all-stars discuss another downer on wall street. the economy, and what it means for president obama. the president will as he said, have very specific ideas about where he thinks, you know, the committee could come together in a balanced way, to significantly reduce the deficit. it will be designed to draw bipartisan support because the purpose here is not to say this is what we would do if we controlled everything. or we could simply mandate an outcome. it shouldn't be the approach that republicans take either. >> bret: white house president secretary today at the white house, as the dow, you see, took a major dive. 519 points today in the dow. s&p lost 51. the nasdaq lost 101. this is as new approval ratings are out. fox news poll for the president now stands at 42%. according to the job performance question in the newest fox news poll. we'll start there. then talk about the super committee and what it could do. let's bring in the panel. steve hayes, senior writer for the "weekly standard." carolina tumulte, "washington post." syndicated columnist, charles krauthammer. steve, start with you. today the white house seemed to be trying to get its footing here after a good day on wall street yesterday. and then just got wallloped by another horrible roller coaster at the end of the day. >> i'm not sure today, i think consensus is that today's performance on wall street had much more to do with things that were happening overseas with rumors about french banks and whatnot. still, not a good day for the white house, never a good day for the white house when the dow goes down anything like it was. i found most remarkable, jay carney press briefing they are emphasizing a, quote/unquote, balanced approach, which everybody understands to be raising taxes. now the president himself has said in the past repeatedly, raising taxes in a recession is the last thing you want to do. you can't consider it. it would hurt the economy and suck demand out of the economy is the way he put it. here today, you have the president in what is an economic downturn, distressed economy. his smokesman again calling for raising taxes. it just doesn't make sense. if the white house wants to do something to settle the markets at this point i think the best thing they can do is stop talking about raising taxes. >> bret: karen, your colleague at the "washington post" richard cohen brote this. "when the stock market fell more than 500 points last week, and the image that night of the president whooping it up at his birthday party, the juxtaposition seemed appropriate. he does not seem to care." it seems like there are more and more of these comments in the media. and columnists, several of them writing about this sense about the presidency. >> i think it's not just columnists. i think what they are reflecting is an unease among a lot of the president's democratic allies. not so much because of those kind of visuals. i think, because they don't believe that the white house and the president have articulated a plan, strategy, strategy that is muscular enough to produce more jobs. steve talked about them talking about raising taxes. but nobody thinks that tax increases are going to happen anytime in the near future. not in this political climate. i do think that hearing from, i heard from a lot of the president's allies. what they want is some sort of sense of what the president stands for. and what his bottom line really will be on creating jo jobs. >> bret: charles? >> well, we were talking here about how detach and disengaged he appears and how disturbing it is particularly to obama's allies in the press. but the irony is, even if you were undetached and concerned and involved, the markets have shown that he is the anti-e.f. hutton. when he speaks, no one listens. the markets take no notice whatsoever of what he does. he has no idea. out of bullets, out of arrows, he doesn't have a clue. we heard the sound bite from jay carney where he said the president will have specific ideas on debt reduction. will have? this is after the got announced today that the deficit for this fiscal year were only ten months in, two months to go. already has exceeded a trillion dollars, after 2009 and 2010. you add to this year's deficit. here is a president who has run up $4 trillion in debt in less than three years. and he is still will later have ideas on reducing the debt. he is clueless and for now irrelevant. >> bret: the optimists in washington, steve, have the super committee getting this job done. the $1.5 trillion in additional cuts. today republicans announced their picks on the senate side. senators kyl, toomey and portman. on the house side, congressman hensarling, camp and upton. these are the republican picks. we told you yesterday about the democratic picks. senators baucus, kerry and murray in the house from pelosi still not known, not named at this point. what is the outlook for the super committee at who is picked so far? >> i would not count myself as an optimist in washington about the work of this committee. i think it's basically set up to deadlock. i think the kind of people that were picked for this while many of them thoughtful are the kind of panel that is likely to produce something that looks deadlocked. i think that is the most likely outcome. i think it's baked in early when this committee was first con sievered of. not -- conceived of. i'm not optimistic they'll do something. it's one reason we were concerned about the defense cut that was triggered that the committee doesn't do what it was assigned to do. >> bret: karen, what do you see of republican picks? people talk about max baucus on the democratic side, being a guy two could negotiated pointing to andy murray saying she is the head of the dscc, the democratic senatorial campaign committee. on republican side what do you see with the picks? >> there is brain power and experience and rising stars in the party. it's interesting, i believe that all but one of them, senator toomey actually voted for this recent debt ceiling agreement, which does suggest that these are people who are going to be very, very focused on kind of keeping the country away from the brink again. i am maybe more optimistic than steve is. >> bret: last thing, charles, put up one more poll, fox news poll up today about congress. the approval of congress. our new poll shows 10 president of them approve of the job that congress is doing. 81% disapprove. they are not optimistic about the super committee. >> no, they are hovering in gaddafi range right now. look, this is lower than it's ever been. i acknowledge that. but generally people have a higher opinion of the person who represents them and their district than congress in general. this will pass. they will still going to be a high re-election rate next year in congress. i think what it says is watching the sausage made on debt ceiling made people upset. perhaps even angry. but i don't think it's going to have a real effect next year. >> bret: charles, karen, steve, thank you very much. next up, how iowans feel about the 2012 race. in june, i met with three undecided iowa voters. asked them about their concerns heading to the election. you can watch that story on our home page at foxnews.com/specialreport. tomorrow, i'll have an update on their stories and tell you where they are. we may do quite well on saturday, i no idea. i don't make predictions, but it's significant. it's significant for me personally. it's significant for our campaign. it's significant for the cause of liberty. >> i think the people of iowa are far less concerned with the process of politics and far more concerned about the future of america. >> what we need in this late hour at a time when our country is sinking, when our country is drowning is strong leaders who are going to roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders back and their head down and drive this thing to conclusion. >> some of the candidates here in iowa, ahead of the big debates. there is a new poll out, fox news poll. you see romney, this is a national poll obviously. governor perry at 13%. sarah palin who is obviously not in yet. 8%. there you see a write-in for mike huckabee at 3%. and tim pawlenty at 2%. and how the polls stack up there. let's get some thoughts from some people who cover iowa every day. and what they think about this week's events. and what is happening here. joining me now here in ames, kathy, the political columnist for "des moines register." dave price, political reporter for who tv in des moines. kay henderson, news director for radio iowa. thank you for being here. you know, as you see the candidates out and about, let's start with you. do you think -- give us a sense of what the feeling is ahead of the debate, how important is it for the candidates, and who stands to gain the most. >> it's really important for candidates and not just because the straw poll follows it. there are two dynamics. one, you have a national debate with a national field of candidates and then a mini debate going on with the candidates who need to do well in the straw poll. so, you know, i think that people are going to be using this debate to try to advance different campaign purposes. it will be interesting to see how the dynamic plays out. >> bret: dave, with all the turmoil in the markets, the focus on the economy, you know, how does that play here? how important is all of that? obviously, important across the country, but here in iowa. >> that is what they are talking about now. it doesn't matter who you go see, bachmann, santorum, paul, pawlenty, anybody, they talk about the economy from the start to the finish so they know that is the biggest thing out there. >> bret: kay, social issues seem to play high in iowa. if you were to stack the importance, can you do it? >> i think the economy has eclipsed the social issues right now to the extent you have outside groups from washington, d.c. who have bussed in the state to go around and encourage iowans to sort of rev up the talk about social issues. frankly, people who care most about social issues already know where the candidates stand on the issues. >> bret: organizationmly, kay, do you see a campaign standing out in your mind here in iowa? >> well, of course, governor pawlenty has amass the most talented campaign crew on the grounds here. the bachmann folks started in june. and they have gone out of the get a very hard. they are campaigning hard here. i would point to ron paul, the man who is running ron paul's campaign managed the campaign of pat robertson in 1987, who won this straw poll not far from where we are sitting today. >> bret: people at home, dave, don't have a pull appreciation of a straw poll number one. and what it means here in iowa, number two. i mean for somebody sitting on the couch, maybe doesn't follow politics all the time, what do you say to them? >> there is, to put it in perspective, there are 3 million people in this state. only probably somewhere between 10 and 15,000 people will be here saturday and actually vote. so you can see how much attention the 10,000 to 15,000 people get. it's a huge deal. but you are talking about a microcosm of the population that will have a big say in who survives past saturday. >> bret: kathy, that is kind of what the caucuses are as well, a microcosm. it's not the whole state that comes out in the caucuses, but more than the straw poll. it's very organizationmly based. >> exactly. we consider this to be a dry run for the caucuses. the caucus test campaign ability to get people out in the middle of the winter to spend two hours at community meeting. the straw poll is an even bigger lift than that, people have to come from all over the state. $30 admission charge to vote in the straw poll. that is why you get attention at this stage after the game. >> bret: do agree with kay? >> i do. bachmann, pawlenty and paul, those would be in my top three picks to finish in straw poll. >> bret: and for folks here, when they get through this week, and you start heading toward the caucuses, are they cocky about how much attention they get from presidential candidates? >> i don't know about cocky, but i think that they do expect it. i mean they have come to expect it. when they don't get it, they get kind of miffed. >> bret: dave? >> i think it's -- i don't think people would be cocky about it either. but there is that expectation. when you talk to people that go to an event, they expect the chance to reach out and shake the candidate's hand first, but secondly to actually talk. and ask them a question. they'll go away mad if they didn't get the chance. >> bret: which is unique. iowa, new hampshire, that's it. >> right. >> i think the unique thing about this is that while people focus on how iowans view this process, this is a process that really is a crucible test for the candidates. it helps them hone the message. when you are giving the same speech eight, ten times a day, it really makes you a better messenger of your own campaign if you have to do it on a regular basis. >> bret: that's right. kay, dave, kathy, thank you so much. we'll keep them around for "special report" online and ask them questions so log in. that is it for this panel. stay tuned for final thoughts from iowa. >> announcer: attention, those on medicare with diabetes. you may be eligible for an upgraded meter. >> if you're tired of stabbing your fingertips to test your blood glucose, we have news that could change your life. if you're on medicare with diabetes, then you need to know there's an alternative method for checking your blood glucose every day. you don't need to stab your fingertips anymore. the embrace meter from diabetes care club is easier to use and nearly painless. and the best news is that diabetes care club would love to send you one of these meters. this method hurts less and because you can see and hear your results, it may be easier to understand. >> female voice: your blood glucose reading is 89. >> call now to find out why nearly a quarter of a million patients have joined diabetes care club. membership is free. so is the call. >> announcer: call diabetes care club at the number on your screen. >> talk to diabetes care club. you'll be glad you did. >> bret: welcome back to ames, iowa. this place is packed for football games here at iowa state. we hope we were able to get you a sense for the taste people have for politics in this part of the country. this state will be here again for "special report" at 6:00 p.m. eastern. 9:00 p.m. eastern the republican presidential candidates debate. this will somebody a good one. we will have it for you live. participate in the straw poll. a special two hour