MTP Transcript for Feb. 25, 2007

MR. BYRON YORK: I think that’s a little bit too pro-Clinton. But it—Mrs. Clinton’s response was classic Clinton. The—this is—these are the lessons that she and her husband learned in 1992 about how you respond to any attacks. George Stephanopoulos, who was a top Clinton operative back then, wrote a memoir about that campaign, and he describes the campaign being frustrated not being able to respond to attacks well enough. And he writes about James Carville proposing a single strategic center for attacks and counterattacks. Hillary got it immediately. “‘What you’re describing is a war room,’ she said, giving us both a name and an attitude.” So she responded precisely in the way that has worked so well for the campaign since 1992.

MR. RUSSERT: In fact, Hillary Clinton in Iowa in January was asked about how she would deal with the campaign, and her answer was very succinct, very direct. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, January 27, 2007)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): (Des Moines, Iowa) When you are attacked, you have to deck your opponent.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: (Network difficulties)...Kearns Goodwin.

MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, it seems like what we’ve got now are not just two people running against each other, but these huge armies, you know, with donors and supporters and pollsters. And one of them sticks their head out into the trenches, and then they have to get shot down on the other side, and you don’t have control over them. I think each candidate has to become a commander in chief of his own army. But when you look at the past, this sniping’s nothing unusual. I mean, there’s LBJ claiming that Kennedy had a fatal disease before Kennedy wanted anyone to know he had Addison’s disease. He said, “I never thought Hitler was a Nazi,” speaking of the father, yet he becomes vice president. George Bush is constantly talking, George Bush one, about voodoo economics, and Reagan then lambasted him for that, makes him the vice president. The question is when does it go over the line that these guys can never get back together again? I think the McCain problem in 2000 with the idea that the Bush campaign had smeared him with the idea of an illegitimate black child being fathered made it impossible for that dream team of McCain and Bush to, to take place. So it depends on whether it gets really personal. This is pretty mild. I mean, poor Andrew Jackson was an adulterer, a murderer, a bigamist, and, in fact, it so hurt his wife that she died, he thought, because of it, between the election and the inauguration. Never forgave the opponent. So we’re still in pretty mild territory.

MR. RUSSERT: But if Mrs.—Senator Clinton is going to raise the Clinton administration as a point of reference, those eight years were great for our country, introduce Bill into the campaign, in effect, is it not fair for opposition to say, well, then let’s talk about all aspects of the Clinton presidency?

MS. GOODWIN: In fact, that’s what was argued about John Kerry, that he raised his Vietnam veteran service as such a big thing, that the swift boat then came after them. I think you can’t leave Bill Clinton out. She is the wife of Bill Clinton and she was the first lady, so you’re going to have to take the good with the bad.

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, you mentioned the strategy. The New York Post, in fact, reported yesterday that talking points were distributed to supporters in Iowa, and let me read those for you and come back and talk about them. “A ‘talking points’ memo distributed to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters gives them the carefully crafted campaign line on how to deal with a host of nettlesome questions. ...”

“Titled ‘Surrogate Q + A,’ it gives detailed answers that supporters should give to 15 questions, including ‘Will President Clinton be a drag on the campaign?’” Answer: “‘Of course not. ... Americans give President Clinton very high ratings, and he is one of the most respected and beloved leaders in the world.’ ...”

“Another question asks, ‘How do you combat Clinton fatigue, or those who say they don’t want the drama of the Clintons again?’” Suggested “answer: ‘A lot of Americans will gladly take the eight’” “‘years of economic prosperity and peace that the Clinton Administration delivered. ... We can do this again with experienced leaders like Hillary at the helm.’”

“Still another asks, ‘Isn’t she too polarizing to win?’” Suggested “answer:

‘Obviously not, since she’s already winning!  If you look at the polls from the past weekend, she’s ahead in both the primary and the general election races.’”

So the Clinton campaign fully anticipated all these questions being raised.

MS. DOWD: Exactly. So they acted as though these were the politics of personal destruction when they were their own acknowledged vulnerabilities. Some of that was word for word what David Geffen was saying. But the Clintons have been really good about mau-mauing everyone not to bring up their marriage or their history. But that’s like walking blindfold into the nomination. The reason it was so damaging to Hillary and the reason she panicked about Obama in Hollywood is because her whole strategy, according to that memo, is to create an aura of inevitability based on her fund-raising prowess. And if that fund-raising prowess is questioned, then the whole thing falls apart.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me talk about the question that Hillary Clinton’s being asked in Iowa and New Hampshire on the campaign trail—Dan Balz, Byron York, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Maureen Dowd—and that’s the war in Iraq. Every Democratic candidate who voted for the war has said, “I made a mistake,” save Hillary Clinton. And this is what she said in New Hampshire: “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that or said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.” Pretty straightforward.

MR. BALZ: It is pretty straightforward, but so far it has not put the question to rest. I mean, the interesting thing is, she is, right now, in the kind of a period in this campaign in which that question keeps coming back and coming back and coming back. It’s almost as if people are out there to try to torture her to force her to say, “I’m sorry,” and she is being resistant. She has moved, step by step, farther and farther away from that vote. But there seems to be a point beyond which she’s not willing to go, and the question is how long she can sustain that, will people give up on that question, is she correct in assuming that eventually people will say, “OK, she’s not going to say it, we’ll move on.”

MR. RUSSERT: Byron York, why do you think she’s dug in on that question?

MR. YORK: I don’t know. I was—I was talking to a Democratic strategist yesterday who said, “You know, 80 or 90 percent of the American public supported the war in the beginning, they thought it was a good idea, and they’ve changed their mind. So changing their mind is something they’re familiar with, so she could just do that without paying a large cost.” So her strategy now seems to be to suggest that, “If this bothers you, if I haven’t—it bothers you that I haven’t apologized, then maybe there’s something wrong with you,” which is kind of what she was saying. But she’s going to be under increasingly intense pressure with the people who vote in the Iowa caucuses and who take part in the Democratic primaries to, to repudiate this.

MR. RUSSERT: Doris, you have John Edwards, who was the first Democratic candidate who voted for the war and to write an op-ed piece saying “I was wrong.” Barack Obama was not in the Senate, but 2002, said he would not vote for the authorization, he was against the war. And Hillary Clinton is trying to carve out this ground. Her supporters say it shows strength, that in a general election, if she were to capitulate and say “I made a mistake,” it would show weakness, particularly for a woman candidate dealing with national security. What do you make of that?

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Remembering Tim Russert July 13: Carly Fiorina, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), politcal roundtable June 29: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D-WY), Gov. Bill Ritter (D-CO), Chuck Todd June 22: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), political roundtable June 15 transcript, video NBC's Tom Brokaw to moderate 'Meet the Press' through election   Images: The life of the political journalist   Slideshow: A look back at 60 years of 'Meet the Press' Find ‘Meet the Press’ in your area Sign up for our e-mail newsletter Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: