MTP Transcript for Feb. 25, 2007

MR. RUSSERT: I want to turn to the—Pew Research has done an interesting analysis of all the candidates, and they asked voters, give us a word, your impression of these candidates. And let’s run through these, because they’re fascinating. Here’s Hillary Clinton, and the words voters gave: good, president, “Bill,” husband, smart, strong, wife, don’t like, like, experienced, first lady. Here’s Barack Obama: inexperienced, good, young, new, president, intelligent, fresh, honest, charismatic, smart. John Edwards, they said: good, young, lawyer, like, vice president, honest, Democrat, don’t like, candidate, leader. Rudy Giuliani: New York, 9/11, good, mayor, leader, job, like, president, strong, great, Republican. Then we have John McCain: good, war, experienced, Vietnam, military, honest, old, Republican, hero, leader, conservative. And finally, Mitt Romney: good, conservative, Massachusetts, governor, Olympics, well, Republican, leader, Mormon.

Dan Balz, it’s interesting, the sketches being filled in by the voters.

MR. BALZ: The—you know, we think that people aren’t paying attention. We say, well, this race is starting early, but it’s only the activists. I think a lot of people are paying attention, and they’re already forming opinions. And they’re along the lines that the candidates in, in some ways, would like to have formed, but, in other ways, they’re focusing in on some of the weaknesses that you see in these candidates. And, you know, going forward, Senator Clinton is going to have to deal with all of the baggage, good and bad, from the 1990s. And the question is can she take the best of the 1990s and not have the worst of it. I mean, that’s been her challenge from the beginning. And there’s been this odd combination of pugnaciousness and defensiveness in her campaign from the get-go.

If you look at somebody like Senator Obama, it is this question of can he marry up this notion that he is, clearly, very charismatic—if you see the crowds that are attending his events, they’re extraordinary and they’re very hopeful that he can bring a new politics. And yet, in the back of all of their minds and right in the forefront of his campaign advisers’ minds is the issue of can he prove to people that he’s ready to do this job.

MR. RUSSERT: Byron York, it—it’s interesting, because we know the issues of Iraq and health care and budgets and taxes, but voters are looking at that, but also for judgment, for character, for some things that are almost indescribable. And those words seem to indicate they’re watching this.

MR. YORK: You know, I think the words, actually, for Rudy Giuliani looked quite good. I mean, they’re looking for an executive. They’re looking for the man or the woman who’s going to be in charge. And that’s why senators have had so much trouble over the years winning, and, and someone like Giuliani, if you look at those words, just strikes them as leader, guy in charge, executive.

MR. RUSSERT: Can Rudy Giuliani, who as Maureen Dowd pointed out, married three times, in favor of gay rights, in favor of abortion rights, in favor of gun control, can he go to conservative Republicans and say, “Yes, that’s who I am...”

MR. YORK: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: “...and that’s how I believe, but I’m also the man who helped lead a city and the country through the difficulties of September 11^th”?

MR. YORK: Well, more importantly, on that issue he’ll—he, he says, “Look, I can’t change who I am. Those are my positions, I’m not going to flip-flop. But you know, I think Antonin Scalia’s a really great guy, and Samuel Alito is a really great guy, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, those are the type of people I would appoint to the Supreme Court.” And that is his basic appeal to pro-life conservatives, that, regardless of his personal position, he would support strict constructionists for the Supreme Court.

MR. RUSSERT: But that’s suggesting that he doesn’t want Roe vs. Wade to be overturned, but he would appoint justices who would do that?

MR. YORK: Yes. It—you know, abortion is the issue that people have always, or many times, separated their personal beliefs from what they’re going to do in policy, and it happens on the Democratic side, and it’s, it’s happening on the Republican side.

MR. RUSSERT: How, how do you see the campaign of 2008, Doris, the issues, the personalities? What, what are you watching right now?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think the fact that it’s going to be so long, and the fact that it’s going to be so heated means that temperament is going to be the determinate. I mean, how these people respond on the campaign trail to the ups and downs really will tell us something about them. I’ve always thought we should be looking at that even more than we look at their past stands on issues 30 years prior, 20, 10 years prior. Have they acknowledged mistakes when they made them? Have they a staff around them that’s loyal, that when something gets screwed up on the staff, they take responsibility or do they push it onto somebody else? There’s going to be all sorts of ways we’re going to look at this as we go along. And I think have they got a staff around them that tells them bad news? We can see a microcosm, from this two years that we’re going to be going through, the kind of leader they’re going to be. And that’s, in some ways, as important as experience. It’s temperament, it’s character. And those questions, and the way those people answered it, suggest that they’re looking at those qualities of temperament. And that’s key in my judgment.

MR. RUSSERT: You just never know what problem is going to come under that door of the Oval Office.

MS. GOODWIN: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Who could have predicted September 11^th and how people would react to it? And, and you really have to find a way to make a judgement as to who this person is and how they would deal with something that they can’t anticipate at this moment.

MS. GOODWIN: The one thing that worries me is that I think campaigns in the old days, the candidates could learn from the people more. I mean, when Harry Truman’s roaming around on a train, he’s listening to what people are saying. Nowadays, there’s so much back and forth between them, they’re meeting with the media, they’re meeting with these huge people, I don’t know that they’re absorbing the people the same way they used to be. So it’s more themselves projecting themselves onto the people.

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, you understand the nexus between Washington and Hollywood—whatever that means—better than anybody. I note in Wednesday’s column you added this. “Who can pay attention to the Oscar battle between ‘The Queen’ and ‘Dreamgirls’ when you’ve got a political battle between a Queen and a Dreamboy?” Is that what people are really focusing on tonight, the Academy Awards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?

MS. DOWD: Exactly, and I think this is why Geffen’s interview, you know, hit a nerve, because he said that the Bushes and the Clintons do not have the right to be these royal families that run the country for 30 years, and, if we want a queen, maybe we want Helen Mirren, not Hillary Clinton.

MR. RUSSERT: Will Al Gore win the Oscar tonight, Maureen Dowd?

MS. DOWD: Maybe so, and then that will bring another interesting element into this amazing race.

MR. RUSSERT: Stay tuned. Maureen Dowd...

MS. DOWD: That could...(unintelligible)...yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...there you go. Maureen Dowd, Dan Balz, Byron York, Doris Kearns Goodwin, thank you for a really interesting roundtable. We’ll be right back.

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