GOP candidate Rick Santorum has picked up momentum, says Wilbur Ross, WL Ross & Company, who thinks Santorum will win New Hampshire.
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corporate america keeping a close eye on the white house with the iowa caucuses in the books the new hampshire primarynext week wilbur ross is chairman and ceo of w.l. ross and joins us now. thanks for joining us today. i don’t believe you were one of the first in with governor romney but are you backing him now? i think everybody should be backing him at this point in time. i think that he did very well in iowa considering the function there of the religious right. and i think as he rolls into new hampshire, which should be anoverwhelming victory, his momentum will pick up. do you think that — we asked this question earlier. i think john harwood said that santorum does have some connections with some well-heeled guys. and you, i know, probably make some contributions. do people feel good about giving money to someone where they really think it’s a huge long shot? do you think santorum will be able to start raising money given his great showing in iowa? well, i think that’s the $64 question. he certainly picked up a lot of momentum. he certainly got himself some credibility. i think, frankly, more or less at the expense of ron paul. and of the others who were on the kind of religious right. it remains to be seen whether that can be quickly translated into new hampshire. the last poll i saw in newhampshire had governor romney almost four times the nextcandidate. we have newt gingrich on at 8:30, wilbur. i’m trying to figure out, what would you — if you had him in a room today, a closed room, what would you tell him? well, i think there’s adanger that he’ll go very negative in his own campaigning. he’s been trying to make it a campaign about issues and i respect him for that. but he really got smacked with a lot of negative ads from many different sides in iowa. so — i just hope he doesn’tdegenerate into the same thing. that’s what i mean. i wonder, do you feel like he thinks there is a need for retribution because he was wronged and is that a net negative for the republicanparty? well, i think the best retribution is to win an election.does he have a chance? can he do that? he in a position to do that? i certainly don’t think he is in a position to do that in newhampshire. if i were he i think i’d really be focusing on south carolina being more hospitable to him, particularly if governor perry drops out of the race as seemed a little bit likely from hispress conference. well then he could make the point that i am not just hitting back at governor romney because of what he did to me in iowa. i’m doing it to try to bring him down so i can win in south carolina. he can certainly make that case then. well, he can. i think the worst thing is if the republican field doesn’t start to thin out pretty quickly. when you think about it 3/4 of the vote went against the leader, against governor romney. that’s not a healthy thing. you need the party to be much more unified if there is going to be success come the general election. and what worries me is that this proportional voting may very well encourage relatively fringe candidates to hang in there because they’ll have at least some delegates, some votes goingforward. where do you think the american people are right now on 1%, 99%, wilbur? that we’re going to see if it is governor romney we’re going to see the bing capital the 1% raised again and again by president obama. where are the american people? are they ready to reward the president for that type ofpopulist approach do you think? i think the key issue for the99% is how do they get closer to the 1%? i don’t think there’s as much enthusiasm to just tearing down the 1% as there is for building up people in the lower — we are an aspirational society and that’s really been the vitality that’s made the country sogreat. i think that’s where the focus should be. and frankly, i think that that’s where the emphasis of the republicans should be is not so much defending the 1% as trying to show that there are good ways, good programs that they have to build employment and build upward mobility on the part of the 99%.wilbur, you’ve heard romney talk about what he calls theopportunities society but he contrasts that by this idea of what he calls the entitlement society. i guess my question is given the economic malaise we’re living in when you talk about theentitlement society and you think about so many people whoare out of work who frankly may think they need entitlements atthis point whether that’s a winning strategy. or whether really focusing more on the opportunity society is the way to go. the problem with the people who are out of work especially long-term unemployed people, is it’s very difficult to go from being long-term unemployed to being employed. but i think what’s creating the large portion of the problem is the failure of our educational system. high school graduates are no longer being equipped that work in factories. long since factory work involved physical labor. now it involves numerically controlled machine tools, computers, things of that sort. and the high school kids are not being trained enough in math to be able to operate the equipment. that’s that’s the bad thing going on and the president can talk about the technology of the future and the jobs that that will create and not turning out kids who arequalified to do the jobs. and that’s where the present system is failing. education is the way that people get from lower ranks up to the higher ranks. the second failure of education is that our colleges are not turning out enough scientists and engineers.we turn out each year 1/7 as many as china and indiacombined. that’s not enough. we can’t protect our leadershipand technological innovation if the odds are 7 to 1 against us.right, right. you try going back and taking some of those courses, wilbur. i mean, engineering. it’s hard. it’s hard work.you’re right. we got to fix that. well, it is hard work. but that’s not a reason not to do it. i know. i agree. it was always hard. thank you. thanks for coming on today. appreciate it. thanks. good to see you, joe. good to see you. all right. our coverage of the iowa caucus
