Veteran political analyst and best-selling author Dick Morris tells Newsmax that the Republican electoral victory in November could be so huge that Americans will see the “obliteration of an entire generation of Democratic congressmen.”
Morris also declares that the planned mosque near New York’s ground zero will be a “center for training terrorists” — and forecasts primary victories for Bill McCollum in Florida and John McCain in Arizona.
In the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Florida, McCollum has erased a significant deficit to Rick Scott and is now ahead of Scott in the polls leading up to the Aug. 24 primary.
Story continues below.
Morris believes McCollum has surged because of revelations about Scott’s questionable business dealings — including his role as CEO of the Columbia/HCA hospital chain that pleaded guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government and paid a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.
“He left the company with a golden parachute of $300 million of stock. Now he’s using $50 million of it to convince us how honest he is,” says Morris, whose latest book is “2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan,” co-authored by Eileen McGann.
“In the beginning McCollum couldn’t compete with him financially and Scott had a lead. But then the facts began to come out.
“And then it turns out that Scott is currently running another medical enterprise and there are doctors who sued him saying he used their names to collect phony reimbursement. There are depositions in a lawsuit that Scott won’t release. So I think that people are really getting the point and he’s now 12 points behind McCollum.”
McCollum currently trails Democratic candidate Alex Sink in the polls, but Morris opines: “McCollum will open up with a lead against Sink once the primaries are over.
“I think you’re just looking at the offshoot of the bitterness of the primary. This is absolutely one of the most bitter of all primaries because Scott is such an outrageous candidate. I think that you’re looking at the failure to abide by the 11th commandment [formulated by] Ronald Reagan — thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican — and I think McCollum is going to defeat Sink.”
Turning to Arizona and the Aug. 24 GOP primary pitting Sen. John McCain against challenger J.D. Hayworth, Morris notes that McCain “is over 50 [points in the polls] and with an incumbent that is the key.
“He’s ahead of Hayworth by something like 54 to 20 something. He’s not going to win by that much because most of the undecided goes against the incumbent, but it looks like he’s coasting to a 7 or 8 point win.”
Morris was asked about the race in Nevada, where Republican Sharon Angle will seek to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November.
“On primary day, Angle was about 9 points ahead when she got the nomination. Then Reid dumped $1 million on negative media, taking a quote from her where she said I want to phase out Social Security and Medicare and saying, see, she wants to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. With that ad, she fell behind.
“You know what Churchill said — a lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on in the morning.
“After Reid had done that, I went out and was very active in raising money for an independent expenditure for Angle. We raised $400,000 and we put out the facts — the full quote, which is, I want to phase out Social Security and Medicare’s method of financing so the Democrats can’t raid the money and use it for their budget deficit.
“So when people saw the truth of what Angle had said, they turned against Reid and now Angle is ahead.”
Morris agrees with generic polls showing that Republicans are in good shape for November. He believes the economy and the debt and deficit situations are not likely to change before then and adds that “Obama is cooked in this election.
“I think the Republicans will at least capture control of both houses, and could make such significant gains in the House races that you are looking at the obliteration of an entire generation of Democratic congressmen. You could have 60 to 80 incumbents losing their seats — an historic record.”
Morris is highly critical of plans to construct a mosque and community center two blocks from ground zero and President Obama’s defense of Muslims’ right to build it.
“We have to understand the nature of the Islamic religion and its relationship to Shariah law,” he tells Newsmax.
“Shariah law is violent. It condemns women into no role at all. It allows child marriages. It allows a woman to be married without her being present — literally without her consent.
“But above all Shariah law mandates jihad — religious warfare — with suicide bombings attached and terrorism attached. It’s built into Shariah law.
“So the center that Feisal Abdul Rauf wants to establish right near ground zero is a center for the study of Shariah law, and those become recruitment and training centers, indoctrination centers for terrorists. Look at how the 9/11 terrorists were sheltered by mosques.”
Morris says he doesn’t think anybody would have an objection to a peaceful mosque wherever it might be built, “but this Shariah mosque is horrific. They’ll say we knocked down the World Trade Center and put up a 13-story monument to Shariah, to the triumph of Islam.
“It will be a center for training terrorists. It will be the Harvard of terrorist training, and it’s outrageous that this could be located near ground zero — and doubly and triply outrageous that the president of the United States would endorse that.”
Morris was asked about former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nation John Bolton’s warning that Israel has only days to launch an attack on a nuclear reactor in Iran that uses fuel supplied by Russia, or it will be too late because of the danger of scattering radiation throughout the region.
Morris is not sure whether an attack is that imminent, but states: “The one thing I can say is that I know [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu well — he’s a former client — and I know that he will not permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
“The crucial question for the United States is, if Israel does attack, will we resupply them? They could lose up to a third of their air force in that attack. It won’t be just one raid, it will be repeat raids over days.”
Those losses could make Israel “very vulnerable to a Syrian attack, Syria being Iran’s ally,” Morris adds.
“Will the United States resupply Israel with aircraft to replace its losses? Nobody knows the answer to that.”