MTP Transcript for Feb. 11, 2007

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): That is why, in the shadow of the old state Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Gwen Ifill, you are there in Springfield. The senator also talked about it being an improbable quest. What was it like? What is your reporting on this event?

MS. GWEN IFILL: Other than painfully cold, Tim? Actually, it was interesting, listening John Boehner, to discover that Abraham Lincoln is now everybody’s favorite president. That’s what we got a lot of yesterday in Springfield. And we also heard from Barack Obama—you know, the day of an announcement is a day for images, it’s a day for the enthusiastic crowds, it’s the day for the people who are willing to endure, you know, 10 degree weather in order to be uplifted. But you also heard of him talk about hope and about audacity. And by my count, and I think significantly, 13 times in his announcement speech he used the word generation or generational or generations. Because what he wants to do—it’s obvious that he’s an African-American, it’s obvious that he is—hasn’t been in the Senate that long. But what he’s trying to do, what it seemed to me he was trying to do is draw America’s attention to the notion that he represents something new because he is 45 years old. Hillary Clinton is 59 years old. It—that’s not exactly a generation gap between the two of them, but I think he understands that if he can appeal to people who, especially in the early stages of a campaign, are driven to the notion of hope and cause politics, that if he can emphasize the fact that he represents something new and fresh, then he can keep that momentum going.

MR. RUSSERT: David Broder, my ear heard something that I had not heard from Democratic candidates in some time. Up front, Senator Obama began his speech with references to his faith, and then came back to that same issue in the speech. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, Saturday)

SEN. OBAMA: Giving all praise and honor to God for bringing us together here today.

It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education that I ever had and where I learned the meaning of my Christian faith.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: What’s that about?

MR. DAVID BRODER: It’s about values and about linking to the strains that are so powerful in our country of religious belief. This is an arresting figure who now has center stage to try to fill out the portrait that he’s drawn of himself. The generational appeal, I’m old enough to remember when—how powerfully that worked for John Kennedy, and I think there’s a potential that it will work for him. But Kennedy also linked his message to a very clear economic message, that the country could do better than it had been doing under reasonably good conditions in the Eisenhower years. Obama has yet to deliver that kind of a message, and, at some point pretty soon, I think he’s going to have to put some policy meat on the bones.

MR. RUSSERT: It is so striking how quickly he has exploded on the national scene, and it’s an interesting evolution, even in the way he considered himself as a potential candidate for president. Back in November of ‘04, he had just been elected to the Senate, he was on MEET THE PRESS. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, November 7, 2004)

MR. RUSSERT: There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your full six year term as U.S. senator from Illinois?

SEN. OBAMA: Absolutely.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: And then in January of ‘06, as speculation continued to grow, he was back here, we had this exchange.

(Videotape, January 22, 2006)

SEN. OBAMA: I will serve out my full six year term.

MR. RUSSERT: So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?

SEN. OBAMA: I will not.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: That was January of ‘06. By October, nine months later, I asked Senator Obama about those statements here, and this is what he said.

(Videotape, October 22, 2006)

SEN. OBAMA: Well, the—that is how I was thinking at that time, and, and—you know, I, I don’t want to be coy about this—given the responses that I’ve been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility.

MR. RUSSERT: But it’s fair to say you’re thinking about running for president in 2008?

SEN. OBAMA: It’s fair, yes.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Howard Kurtz, no parsing, no denial, saying in his own words, not being coy, that’s somewhat unusual for many politicians when they clearly change their mind.

MR. HOWARD KURTZ: Clearly you just wore him down, Tim, he got tired of saying no to you. He figured he may as well run or he’ll just keep getting these questions. Look, I haven’t seen a politician get this kind of walk-on-water coverage since Colin Powell a dozen years ago flirted with making a run for the White House. I mean, it is amazing. You know, you, you could say the chord that he has touched in the country, but also in journalists, but, at the same time, a guy with all of two years experience in the United States Senate getting coverage that ranges from positive to glowing to even gushing. He hasn’t even taken a mild hit yet except for that what turned out to be a bogus story in the conservative magazine Insight about he—when he was six years old he attended a madrassa, a fundamentalist Muslim religious school, supposedly spread by Hillary Clinton’s camp. Turned out to be totally untrue on all fronts. The only storm cloud on the media horizon has been something that’s picked up speed in the last week or so, was mentioned on “NBC Nightly News” on Friday, and that is this notion of is he black enough to get support in the African-American community, and if he is—isn’t is that because he’s trying to either please white people. And so the novelty and the challenges of being a serious African-American candidate for president, the press is just starting to grapple with, I believe.

MR. RUSSERT: Roger Simon, to Howie’s point, Senator Obama dealt with the experience issue in his speech. He’s been in the state legislature Illinois for eight years, the U.S. Senate for two years. This is how he discussed his background.

(Videotape, Saturday)

SEN. OBAMA: I recognize that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Is that how he’s going to run, as the outsider?

MR. SIMON: Yes. He is not the candidate of Washington. Hillary Clinton is the candidate of Washington. That’s his message. He does not want to be the Washington insider. And in fact, he changed his mind about running when the analysis that he made and the polling he did showed that Hillary Clinton was beatable for the Democratic nomination. Also, I think, the, the real theme of this campaign is that it has become a litmus test for how much racial healing has taken place in this country. He says it’s audacious. He says it’s improbable. By implication, it is. If America actually nominates him and then votes for him for president and elects him, this will be a sign that we are a good and decent country that has healed its racial wounds. Now, Jesse Jackson had a same subtext, but Barack Obama is a much different politician than Jesse Jackson—much less threatening, much more appealing, and he actually has the ability to carry this off.

MR. RUSSERT: Gwen Ifill, is there now a second phase of the coverage of Barack Obama where reporters and voters will start demanding from him real specifics on the real challenges confronting our country and world?

MS. IFILL: Well, probably. But before I get to that, Tim, I really have to respond to the comment that Howie made about the black enough story. I—you know, I, I guess I could paraphrase Lloyd Benson and say, “I covered Jesse Jackson, I know Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama is no Jesse Jackson.” But what I mean when I say that is people seem to set up this really interesting test for Barack Obama of blackness, which I have found absent in any other dialogue involving people who clearly appear to and identify and work in the black community, and I—I’m not quite certain where it comes from. As you know, Tim, I’m, I’m the son of West Indian immigrants. I, I don’t know if because I’m not the son of African-Americans—the daughter, that is, of African-Americans who are born in this country that makes me less black. So I’m a little puzzled about this discussion. I don’t know quite what, what—where it’s coming from, other than maybe some folks who haven’t been invited to the party.

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