young men now need medical rehab prosthetics because they have been injured in war. the cost of rebuilding the country has gone exponentially high. if the united states had gotten engaged earlier and agroively what happened last week would have happened months ago and cost a lot less money and a lot less uncertainty. here is what else happened thousands of shoulder fired rockets have gone missing. now they are cable capable of shuttle down an airplane. libyans didn t want that. shepard: you would have done harder. earlier. if the rebels had had a no spin zone when they asked for it this thing would have been over. you wanted action quicker but not necessarily any more military presence? not on the ground. nato has limited capabilities. the british and the french work very hard and they did a very good job. they don t have the weaponry we have. if they had stayed in that effort a little bit longer this thing would have ended sooner as well. bill: you were watching the republ
sort of seems to constantly step on his own message whether it was highlighting immigration, which alienated a lot of conservatives or then over the last week when he was launching this flat tax pro-growth economic proposal, which he should have been touting, he sort of made a comment about the birther movement and so on. he just seemed to not be able to get out of his own way. like juan said i think both herman cain and rick perry s tax plans took some heat. bold and changes to the status quo. they will take a lot of heat. the difference was that herman cain stayed on message and kept talking about 999 and rick perry actually did step on himself. if is he a doer, not a talker, he needs to talk about the things he will do and the things he has done. there is a lot of compelling stuff to talk about. he does have a competent organization and some money on hand. and getting that message discipline back which i have seen them have in texas and they have been very impressive with it, that
our state budget. they say we can t do that in washington. well, they are wrong. and they need to go. joining us now from washington, fox news analyst mary katharine ham and juan williams. great to see both of you guys. thank you for being here. mary katharine let me start with you. he is trying to create a second impression with the american voters because after his shaky debate performances his poll numbers sliding. he had some shaky performances in the debates and now he is pulling up the rear. what he is trying to do is make a second impression on voters. he is out there in the ad no tie on. sort of casual rick perry. what do you make? is it possible to regroup, regain your sea legs and relaunch your campaign? if you look at the des moines register poll likely caucus goers from iowa his numbers are down pretty low. i think you are never in a great
because let s face it a lot of conservatives just don t trust mitt romney. and, yet, because he is sort of blown the debates, he has lost that position now to herman cain so can he? i you the same question i asked mary katharine can he relaunch campaign and gain momentum and position himself as alternative candidate. he has $15 million on hand and that s the second largest amount of any republic right now, monica, so he is going to have an opportunity but, remember, just last week he put out his tax reform plan as an alternative to herman cain s 999 plan. rick perry got no traction whatsoever for his tax reform effort. people were mocking and questioning enough revenue to get out of debt situation we are in. i think this ad really is a desperation move. a lot like a guy who can t get a date. let s say it s halloween or whatever and can t get a date you say to the girl you know
mitt romney 22%. ron paul 12% and the rest of the candidates are in single digits. joining us now from washington is fox news senior political analyst brit hume. great to see you, brit. thanks, monica. thanks for having me. you bet. you know what s interesting to me about this iowa poll is neither herman cain or mitt romney have spent a great deal of time of money in iowa, yet, they are leading the pack. how do you explain it. i would explain that by the fact that about all there has been to this campaign has been the debates. and that for all that you may accomplish eventually in a state like iowa or in new hampshire by retail campaigning that is going out and shaking hands and appearing at, you know, relatively small events, you can t beat the size of the audience given the intensity of interest that you get with the debates. that s really been the substance of the campaign so far. and both romney and cain, it seems to me have done reasonably well. romney hasn t done as well as