MTP Transcript for Mar. 25, 2007

FMR. SEN. BILL BRADLEY (D-NJ): Well, Tim, “The New American Story” says that we can solve our problems—whether it’s health care, education, there’s reforming democracy—if we put country ahead of party and we tell people the truth, and that a—if, if, if you have bold solutions, you can solve our problems. And a leader who’s bold enough to tell the people the truth will find an audience ready for bold solutions.

And at the core of it is something I call the ethic of connectedness. And I guess you can sense that when you see the picture of the earth from space. It’s pretty easy when you see that picture to realize that we’re all connected because we have one ecology. But if you talk about tax policy, health, education, in America today, you have conflicting ethics. The ethic of responsibility, which is individual action, associated with Republicans; the ethic of caring, collective action, associated with Democrats. The reality is the ethic of connection says we need both individual action and collective action, both universal health insurance and we need individuals who take care of themselves to solve our problems.

MR. RUSSERT: You write candidly as a Democrat about the eight Democratic curses, the perceptions of the Democratic Party that have arisen in our politics. Here’s the first four. You write of the fear of thinking big, soft on defense, waste people’s hard-earned tax dollars, closed-minded devotion to the secular.

Defense. You, yourself, call for cutting defense by $50 billion. Wouldn’t the Republicans say, “Bradley, soft on defense”?

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: No. I think back to Harry Truman, who was a very strong president on defense, but also, as a senator, made sure that every dollar was spent, of the American people’s taxpayer dollars, was spent wisely. For example, we just finished the F-22 aircraft fighter. It was about 42 percent above budget and 20 months late, and the companies that did that got $849 million bonus. Democrats should say, “No performance, no bonus.” I don’t think that that’s soft, I think that’s hard. I think that’s looking at things realistically, and I think that the military deserves a, a party and a government that’s going to be candid with them, understand what the problems are, and challenge them.

MR. RUSSERT: How about tax dollars? Bill Bradley says consider raising the gasoline tax a dollar. Imagine what the Republicans would do with that.

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: Well, if you take that isolated, but let me draw the whole picture, all right? The whole picture. We now import a lot of oil, and if we had mileage for our cars, the same mileage as Europeans have, which is about 44 miles a gallon, we would import no oil—repeat, no oil from OPEC. If we gave people a subsidy to buy fuel-efficient cars and paid for that with a fee on fuels that were inefficient, that would make the transition clearer and faster. If we then put a dollar gasoline tax on, the tax wouldn’t be used for spending, you’d take a dollar gasoline tax, you’d take every dollar and reduce taxes on work, Social Security, unemployment and Medicare. It seems to me we want to tax things we don’t like, like pollution or oil or whatever, and we want to cut taxes on things that we do like, such as work. And it seems to me that those, as a total package, would essentially give us the assurance we wouldn’t be fighting yet another war, as we have fought two in the last 15 years, in part because of oil.

MR. RUSSERT: Iraq in part because of oil?

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: You talk about closed-minded devotion to the secular. Do you think the Democrats have been reluctant to talk about faith?

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: I think that the Democrats—some people in the Democratic Party have been reluctant to talk about faith, and not so much just in a religious sense, but in terms of how it informs our public life. I mean, I don’t think the Democrats should shy away from the morality of our views, that everybody in America have a right to health care, that you shouldn’t lie to the American people, that war should be a last resort, that stewardship of the land and water of our country is good policy and it’s consistent with a sense of morality. I think that those are the kind of things that we need to get across to the American people.

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s look at the remaining curses of the Democrats, in terms of wealth bashing, special friends, ceased to take a strong stand on principle, hypnotized by charisma.

Wealth bashing meaning class warfare?

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: Well, yeah, it means essentially saying that people who’ve succeeded in America are a problem. I don’t think that’s the case. That doesn’t mean the wealthy shouldn’t pay more as their patriotic duty, but it means that, when you say to someone, you—it’s the language that’s the problem here. When you attack people because they’ve succeeded, what you’re saying is, to everyone out there who wants to be a major league player, wants to start a new company, wants to do whatever, that their aspirations are in question. The Democratic Party should be the party of aspirations, and that means not only encouraging people to work and encouraging people to succeed and rewarding them when they succeed, but it also means making sure that everybody has health insurance, making people—making sure people have secure pensions, and making sure the education system in America is delivering on its promise.

MR. RUSSERT: Hypnotized by charisma. What does that mean?

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: That means that the party has, has tended to look for a knight on a shining—on a white horse to solve all our problems. Republican Party, over 30 years, has invested in structure. At the top of that structure, meaning first you have the—you have the money, the money goes into ideas, think tanks, and then that bubbles up to political operatives, who find the language, that boils up to the media, some elements of the media, they’re repeated over and over. At the top of that is the presidential candidate. Democrats invert the pyramid. Every Democratic candidate for president has to invent that whole pyramid. And I’m saying that we’re looking for people who have charisma. I think, just take a look at the example of Bill Clinton. Clearly a fine person, great talent, had a lot of charisma. But the reality is, after eight years of Democratic presidency, we had fewer Democratic senators, fewer Democratic congressmen, fewer Democratic governors, fewer Democratic state legislators and a party in debt. That’s not to criticize President Clinton; it’s simply to say that charisma did not translate into structure. And if you’re going to be there for the long term, you need to build structure. That means structure of local parties, that means structure of ideas, that means structures of service. So that when people think of a party, they can feel that they can do all of those things. And I guess the main point I’m trying to make here, Tim, is that we can do all these things, that we can control our destiny as, as a country, and that it only takes a few people who are dedicated to making real change to actually make it happen. The people just have to believe that it’s possible. I believe it’s possible. I believe we can have a rebirth of idealism in this country.

MR. RUSSERT: Looking at the field of the Democratic Party in the 2008 election, does anyone stand out to you?

FMR. SEN. BRADLEY: Not right now. I think it’s still early. I think John Edwards has been very specific on health care plan, and I think that’s the most significant thing in terms of substance that’s happened in the presidential campaign so far. I think, ultimately, people are going to want to know, “Well, what are you going to do for me?” I mean, if you look at—I mean, all this talk about red and blue, I mean, I think it’s really exaggerated. I mean, when you’re next to—at your kid’s little league baseball game, you don’t look at the parent next to you and say, “Is that person red or blue?” But that seems to be the way the politics is. But people are—all Americans want to have a good life for their family. All Americans want to be proud of their country, and see that it lives up to its ideals. All Americans want to have a good job at good pay, want to have health care for their family, want to have a good education for their kids and want a secure pension and retirement. Those are the things that politics should focus on in America. Not a lot of other peripheral issues, but those issues, because that’s what 70 percent of the American people care about and are interested in. And I believe it’s the obligation of the political process to address those issues that are most fundamental to giving a good life for people.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think Barack Obama is someone who has tapped into idealism in our country?

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