Transcript for June 11

MR. MOULITSAS: Oh, there’s a lot of love for Al Gore. I mean if he were to enter the race, I think it would turn everything upside down. I just did a straw poll that showed about 68 percent of my readers, you know, and I have several hundred thousand, about 68 percent of my readers would support Al Gore if he were to enter the fray. Whether he’s going to or not, you know, obviously, it’s a different story, but if he did get in, he’d have a great deal of support.

MR. RUSSERT: Jonathan Alter, your wrote in Newsweek magazine the following:

“Will 2008 bring the first Internet president? Last time, Howard Dean and later John Kerry showed that the whole idea of ‘early money’ is now obsolete in presidential politics. The Internet lets candidates who catch fire raise millions in small donations practically overnight. That’s why all the talk of Hillary Clinton’s ‘war chest’ making her the front-runner for 2008 is the most hackneyed punditry around. Money from wealthy donors remains the essential ingredient in most state and local campaigns, but ‘free media’ shapes the outcome of presidential races, and the Internet is the freest media of all.”

So your sense is that while Mrs. Clinton may be the front-runner in the polls, when you look at the energy that’s being observed this weekend in Las Vegas with the blogosphere, that there’s something that she’s missing.

MR. JONATHAN ALTER: Well, the polls just reflect name recognition, Tim, and that doesn’t mean very much when it comes time to actually selecting a nominee. So I think it’s time that we retire the idea that she is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party or even a prohibitive favorite. It’s just not so when you go out and talk to Democrats. And her—as I indicated, her, her early money that she’ll be able to raise and the endorsements really do not mean very much in presidential politics. Both Dean and Kerry raised huge sums on the Internet in very short order and another candidate coming along can do the same thing. So I think we want to be careful moving forward about saying that money and endorsements are such an advantage. They may even be a disadvantage because Democrats like insurgents. They tend to like the underdog more than the Republicans do.

MR. RUSSERT: Amy, there’s an interesting poll this morning in the Des Moines Register. Iowa being the first caucus in just 18 short months for political junkies all over.

MS. AMY WALTER: Can’t wait.

MR. RUSSERT: And look at these numbers: John Edwards, who ran as vice president for John Kerry in 2004, 30 percent; Hillary Clinton, 26; John Kerry, 12; and Tom Vilsack, the governor of Iowa, 10; Russ Feingold, Tom Daschle, Mark Warner all had 3. Name recognition, certainly.

MS. WALTER: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: And John Edwards has been in Iowa five times this year alone.

What’s your look at 2008?

MS. WALTER: Well, boy, it’s—you’re right, we still are very early, and I agree with the point that Jonathan’s making, too, that these ideas that we have, these presumptive front-runners that we can just kind of anoint now and say this is what 2008 is going to look like, it—is, is certainly somewhat dangerous at this point.

But look, I think that the money piece, the organization piece, all of that becomes more and more important as these campaigns get more and more expensive. And the issue with the Internet, I think, in terms of its ability to raise money, there’s no doubt that whether it’s Howard Dean or even congressional candidates have found when the bloggers and the folks on the Internet get excited, they can raise a tremendous amount of money in a very short time. The problem, however, is we don’t know how many candidates they can support. One candidate, where they circle around the wagons and pour tons of resources in, that’s absolutely critical. But in order to, to find five or six candidates, is there actually enough money out there for all of them? I kind of doubt that.

MR. RUSSERT: Byron York, you’re a conservative writer, but a—an interesting, objective observer of American politics. Be counterintuitive here. Who do you think would be the strongest Democrat to run against the Republicans in 2008?

MR. YORK: Well, we haven’t had a campaign yet, but actually I do think that despite the misgivings about Mrs. Clinton, I think there’s a real possibility that, that she actually can go ahead and win the nomination.

But, you know, as far as the, the strength of the so-called net roots, a writer a while back called Markos Moulitsas a king-maker, to which another blogger, Mickey Kaus, replied, “Yeah? Name the king.” The fact is, is that they—Markos and the Daily Kos has lent its support to more than a dozen candidates in the past couple of years and none of them have won. I will say that the races that they, they seem most excited about right now are the race against Conrad Burns, Senator Burns in Montana, where they’re very happy with the victory of a candidate named Jon Tester, and also in Connecticut where they’re, they’re supporting Ned Lamont against Senator Joseph Lieberman. And if you were out here at the convention, you almost got the sense that they would rather defeat Lieberman in a primary than the Republican candidate in the fall. I mean, they’re very, very enthusiastic, and you have to remember, some of this net roots enthusiasm cuts both ways. It cuts against Democrats as well as for them.

MR. RUSSERT: In fact, let me show our viewers a commercial that Ned Lamont, who is challenging Joe Lieberman in the August 8^th Connecticut primary, let’s take a look at that commercial.

(Videotape):

MR. NED LAMONT: As a small business guy, I can tell you it’s also key to keeping good paying jobs here in this country. I understand that running for U.S. Senate can be tough on a family, but Annie and the kids agree that...

MR. MOULITSAS: Ned, we saw the commercial, we love it, and we’re all here to volunteer.

MR. LAMONT: I’m Ned Lamont, and I approve this message.

GROUP: (In unison) And so do we!

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Now, the man waving that T-shirt is one and only you, Markos. Why are you so in favor of Ned Lamont against Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s choice to be the vice presidential Democratic nominee in 2000?

MR. MOULITSAS: Well, we’re looking at a lot of races, and a lot of them are primaries. I mean, Byron York kind of makes fun of the fact that we’re going after Joe Lieberman, I guess, and not realizing that actually we played a fairly big role in Barak Obama’s primary victory in 2004 in Illinois. I mean, one of the things that we’re learning is that if we want the kind of Democrats that we think we need to have in Washington D.C., not left, not right, but the kind of Democrats that don’t undermine the party, that work up—the have—that, that maintain party unity and work for a stronger Democratic Party, that we’re going to have to use the primary process in order to start to help on that selection.

Connecticut is no different. We have Joe Lieberman, who has consistently undermined Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats’ efforts to remain unified on issue after issue. He is basically caught up in the fiction that things are still going fine in Iraq. And long-term, I mean, even on the issue of Social Security, Social—when Bush tried to privatize Social Security last year, Joe Lieberman was the last Democrat to fall in line. He consistently undermines the caucus, and we understand, just as the Republicans do, that a strong, unified party will be much better in opposition and much more likely to actually win and take over the Senate, and the House, for that matter, than having a party that has its members constantly undermining it.

MR. RUSSERT: But John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton all voted for the war in Iraq.

MR. MOULITSAS: Right. That means that this is not an issue about Iraq. People try to paint it as—well, Joe Lieberman, the reason we’re attacking him, the reason we’re, we’re helping generate excitement for Ned Lamont is because of the Iraq war. It’s one issue out of many. Hillary Clinton doesn’t undermine the Democratic Party. Nother—neither does John Kerry or Edwards or any of these people.

They do not undermine the Democratic Party. That’s the litmus test. It’s a very easy litmus test for most Democrats to, to follow, because if they had that D next to their name, usually they’re working for the benefit of the Democratic Party because they believe in the strong, progressive principles that drive Democrats like, like myself and Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

Joe Lieberman does not share those values, hence he’s suffering a primary challenge. And you know what’s interesting, too, is he’s angry. He feels as though—Joe Lieberman is angry. He feels as though he has the God-given right to this seat when this is what democracy is all about. He needs to make his case to the American—to the people of Connecticut, and they will decide, ultimately, whether he deserves another six years.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that, that bloggers like yourself would prefer to have a Republican senator from Connecticut rather than Joe Lieberman?

MR. MOULITSAS: Absolutely not. If Joe Lieberman wins the primary, we’re all going to get behind Joe Lieberman. Because at the end of the day, having a Democrat in—holding that seat is going to be far better than having the Republican alternative. Now in Connecticut, the Republican candidate’s fairly—pretty much a fringe candidate. This is a very, very blue state. I don’t think that if Ned Lamont wins the primary that we’re going to have any trouble holding onto that seat.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Oct. 5: Paul Begala, Mike Murphy, Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Peggy Noonan and David Yepsen Sept. 28: Fmr. President Bill Clinton, Steve Schmidt, David Axelrod, Rep. Mark Udall (D), Fmr. Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) Sept. 21: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, N.Y.C. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Steve Pearlstein, Steve Liesman, Erin Burnett Sept. 14: Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Bob Woodward, Chuck Todd Sept. 7: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Tom Friedman Aug. 31: Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), political roundtable Aug. 24: Caroline Kennedy, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), political roundtable Aug. 17: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), political roundtable Remembering Tim Russert   Images: The life of the political journalist Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: