CARVILLE:   Welcome back. The road to the presidential nomination usually starts in Iowa, picks up momentum in New Hampshire, is fine-tuned on Super Tuesday, and over by the end of March. Will 2004 be any different? In the CROSSFIRE to do debate on presidential politics are Republican Congressman, in for a penny, not a pound, Mike Pence of Iowa -- in for a Pence and not a pound, I guess I should say from Indiana, one of those I-states. And Democratic Congressman Jim Moran of North Carolina -- I mean Virginia.    My congressman and Tucker's congressman, by the way. 
CARLSON:   That's right. My Congressman. Nice to see you, Mr. Congressman.    Howard Dean, not only is he the front-runner for the Democratic nomination... 
MORAN:   Yes, yes. 
CARLSON:   But he really is the only candidate with a claim, a legitimate claim, to grassroots support. He's almost as many donors as George W. Bush, 234,000 to 262,000. The average donation to Howard Dean is $73. These are small-money donations. It is really like a prairie fire of support for Howard Dean. Given that, why has the Democratic establishment spent most of its time for the past six months tearing this man down? 
MORAN:   Well, because he's the front-runner. And I think that they're all divided among their own favorite candidates. A lot of my colleagues, for example, went with Dick Gephardt, because he was our leader in the House of Representatives. But I think, once they see that Dean has viable chance of getting the nomination, you'll see them coalescing behind he or whoever comes out front.    Right now, it's -- I think you're exaggerating that, too. 
CARLSON:   The argument they're making, as thank , is that Dean is way too far to the left. He's kind of a crackpot. His ideas won't stand up in a general. But, in fact, he's the perfect representation of the views of most Democrats, isn't he, far to the left and crackpot? He's legitimate in that way. 
MORAN:   Howard Dean is opposed to gun control. He is certainly a fiscal conservative, if you look at his record in Vermont. I think he's a very viable candidate personally. And the fact that he's got now almost half a million people that have enlisted in his campaign -- and almost half of those are not consistent voters -- he's doing the kind of thing that every Democratic candidate needs, that we need to bring more people in and we need to energize our base and expand the base. And Howard Dean is doing that. So I give him credit. And I hope my colleagues and some of the Democratic leaders will start doing so as well. 
CARLSON:   Amen. 
CARVILLE:   Congressman Pence, let me show you something that Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican of Nebraska, a war hero, had to say about America's standing in the world: "The great reservoir of pro- American good that has existed in the world since World War II, that reservoir is now down very low."  Do you think it was a legitimate issue -- it will be a legitimate issue for Democrats to point out that, as a result of the policies of the administration, goodwill toward America around the world is at an all-time low and we need a change in administration to bring it about when America is not just feared, but respected all over the world? 
PENCE:   James, I think it's absolutely legitimate that, in the next presidential debate, that we debate America's standing in the world, that we go to the American people and ask them, do you appreciate the decisive leadership that President George W. Bush has brought to not only the war on terror, but to the entire initiative of freedom on the planet, taking on the tyranny Saddam Hussein, throwing aside the Taliban in Afghanistan? These are legitimate issues, James. I believe they're arguments that George W. Bush will win in 2004. 
CARVILLE:   Well, that's very interesting here. But why -- do you think it's a legitimate criticism of this president that America has never been more reviled and disliked around the world under any other president than him? And do you think it's a legitimate criticism that he has gotten us into a war that he lied to get us into, that he has no idea how to get us out of? It's just a simple fact. 
PENCE:   James, I don't think that is legitimate on either count. I think this president, as Tucker was reflecting at the beginning of the show during your gentle discussion, this president only articulated intelligence that was supported by the intelligence service of every nation in the Western world. We all came to certain conclusions about Saddam Hussein. I believe, at the end of the day, when David Kay is done, that we will find ample evidence of a WMD program that the president argued for. But I think these are legitimate issues. 
CARVILLE:   Do you think we'll find those nuclear bombs? 
PENCE:   I think, if Howard Dean ends up being the Democrat nominee...    ... a man who opposed the war, a man who, along with Senator John Kerry and others, would cut off our troops funding right now and pull us out of Iraq, I think the vision for America's role in the world and whether the American decide that or the U.N. or France decides that is absolutely fair game in the next presidential election. 
CARLSON:   Congressman Moran, let me just jump in here. 
MORAN:   Yes. 
CARLSON:   Really, the only Democratic candidate I've seen who has articulated a vision of postwar Iraq has been Dennis Kucinich, who has essentially said, let's pull our troops out and just give it back over to Saddam Hussein or his followers or whomever. But that's his vision. No other candidate really has. And it's gotten so bad that "The New York Times," not exactly a hotbed of hawkishness, has weighed in an editorial yesterday. Let me read part of it to you -- and I'm quoting now -- "Those who want to take over the making of foreign policy" -- that would your candidates -- "should spell out their own ideas for fixing what's wrong in Iraq and suggest how they would respond to similar crises." That's a very fair criticism, isn't it? 
MORAN:   I don't think it is. Now, Dennis Kucinich has been consistent throughout. He opposed the war. He opposed the Bosnia conflict. He's against a war. 
CARLSON:   Yes. 
MORAN:   So I don't blame Dennis for his position. I don't think that's the majority position. I do think that the Democratic candidates have articulated a vision. But they are not going to articulate unilateral vision. Part of their vision is working with the other nations of the world, the free nations of the world in -- so that they will own what happens to Iraq after we pull out. And I do think that -- I appreciate what Mike says about decisiveness, but many of the axis powers leaders were pretty decisive. But it's the decisions that you make that's the problem. And it was George Bush's father that I think did it the right way in the Persian Gulf War. He got the American taxpayer reimbursed for over 80 percent, almost 90 percent of the cost.    He got all of Iraq's neighbors involved. We didn't get any of Iraq's neighbors. We didn't get Europe involved. That was the problem. 
PENCE:   But, Jim, we had 16 separate -- 16 separate resolutions of the U.N., though, Jim, including U.N. Resolution 1441 that authorized, James, serious consequences would flow... 
CARVILLE:   I understand, Congressman. 
PENCE:   At what point do we get to be called bilateral. 
CARVILLE:   I disagree with you. I don't think it's the role of the United States to unilaterally enforce U.N. resolutions. You do. You believe that the United States made a wise decision going into Iraq. 
PENCE:   Unilaterally with 32 other countries, James. 
CARVILLE:   I agree with Wesley Clark.    Well, 32 other -- they sent us nothing. 
CARLSON:   No, I'm serious. If we're going have an adult conversation about what to do next, to still be arguing about whether or not we should have gone in. The question now is, do we see it through to success or not? And there is no Democratic vision. 
MORAN:   You know, Tucker, I think there's far more involved than Iraq here. We have to look at the precedent. 
CARLSON:   Well, let's start with Iraq, shall we? 
MORAN:   No, I think we have to look at the process, so that we don't repeat this. We've got to learn from our mistakes. I do think that going into Iraq in the manner in which we went in was a mistake. I don't think going after Saddam Hussein and getting rid of him was a mistake. I do think the situation we have left ourselves in cries out that, yes, this was the wrong way to go about it. 
PENCE:   Jim, the answer is not to cut and run.    What Tucker is saying is, the answer is not to cut and run. We can't walk away. 
CARVILLE:   You know what a lot of people like me think is, we thought this was a colossally stupid thing to do -- said we're unpatriotic.    So then we go in there and we get stuck on a pack of lies. And we say, you know what? We ought to think long and hard before we send $87 billion. "Well, you can't say that. You're not for America." So what do we do? We get into a war that everything was exaggerated. We don't come clean with the American people about the oil revenues, the difficulty of the occupation. We bring it up and we're not patriotic. 
CARLSON:   We're almost out of time. Will you respond to that ludicrousness, very quickly? 
PENCE:   Yes, James, I'm the first to say that the Congress has fulfilled its role in questioning the $87 billion. As you know, I authored the Pence amendment, which would convert in the House of Representatives 50 percent of the reconstruction dollars as a loan. Congress is going to work its will on that. It's going to be a little different from the White House. That's the process. But we have to support the troops, James. 
CARVILLE:   I would have supported them by not sending them there. 
CARLSON:   We've got to go to a commercial break. We'll be back soon. And when our guests return in "Rapid Fire," we'll find out if they agree with former first lady Barbara Bush's assessment of the Democratic Party's presidential candidates. But after the break, Wolf Blitzer has the latest on efforts by Florida politicians to save the life of a brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube has been removed. We'll be right back.
