MTP Transcript for April 8, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  The race for the White House 2008 heating up.  More of our roundtable right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we’re back.  The results of the first primary, the money primary, are in.  Republican side, Mitt Romney raised 21 million; Rudy Giuliani, 15 million; John McCain, 12 ½ million.  Romney, a new bounce to his step, saying, “Here I am, a serious candidate.” And yet, Kate O’Beirne, confronted again with the notion of flip-flopping on abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, now on hunting and guns.  The governor was in New Hampshire on Tuesday and said this:

(Videotape, Tuesday)

GOV. MITT ROMNEY:  (Keene, New Hampshire) So I’ve been hunting pretty much all my life.  Last time I went hunting was in Georgia.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  His staff then said, “Well, he’d actually been hunting twice in his life, once as a young boy and once in Georgia.” The next day, he said, “No, I’ve been hunting more than that.  I hunted rabbit quite a few times as a young boy.” Then he said, “I have a gun of my own.” In fact, he does not have a gun of his own.  He’s never had a gun license in any of the states he’s lived.  He joined the NRA just last summer when he was contemplating a run for the presidency.  All that led to this column today in the Boston Globe by Joan Vennochi.  She wrote:  “Leave it to Mitt Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.” Where does this leave us?

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Well, as you—as you rightly pointed out, he had a really good week with having been top in the field with respect to fund-raising, and he’s seeing welcome poll results in those early states, where, of course, it really matters, where he’s been spending so much time, if not yet in the national polls.  So naturally he was going to, unfortunately, do something that changes the topic by the end of the week.  I think he’s now explained that he doesn’t pretend to have been a Teddy Roosevelt.  He says, “I’m—I was more like a Jed Clampett.” He even talked, quaintly, about shooting...

MR. RUSSERT:  From “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

MS. O’BEIRNE:  ...about shooting varmint.  Now there’s an expression for you that goes back to “The Beverly Hillbillies.” So he’s working himself out of this...

MR. GREGORY:  But it really, I mean...

MS. O’BEIRNE:  ...gun problem.

MR. GREGORY:  ...during the week, when his advisers were talking about some new polling out of New Hampshire, where they did the—they looked inside the numbers and found that conservatives really starting to break his way, that’s what he’s looking for, to be the conservative candidate.  To feed a narrative, and obviously John Kerry went through this in 2004 on the other side, including his own hunting issue, that he is constantly evolving and trying to become a conservative.  If that really starts to take hold, that’s what he has to worry about, and he’s already got some of these issues on affirmative action and abortion.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me throw John McCain into this mix.  As you know, last Sunday he went to Baghdad.  These are the photos released by the military of John McCain walking through a marketplace, surrounded there by security, wearing a bulletproof vest.  Senator McCain at a news conference then said this:

(Videotape)

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (Republican, Arizona/Baghdad):  Things are better and there are encouraging signs.  I have been here many years—many times over the years.  Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today.  The American people are not getting the full picture of what’s happening here.

MR. RUSSERT:  Fair commentary, Judy?

MS. WOODRUFF:  Well, he—he’s gotten himself into a box, Tim.  He ended up having later to say that he misspoke.  Where—he’s been interviewed for “60 Minutes” tonight where he explores that a little bit.  He has an op/ed piece in The Washington Post today where he basically is sticking to his guns on the—on the war in Iraq.  But, Tim, even people who are close to John McCain are questioning now.  They’re saying this man has built his strength of his candidacy around his authenticity.  And for him now to be having to put the—his Iraq position and, and deliberately make it the centerpiece of the campaign, which is what we’re told he’s going to do in this speech this week at VMI, takes away some of the aura.  He was—he had been perceived just a very short time ago, Tim, as the front-runner.  He’s not necessarily—we don’t know who the front-runner is on the Republican side any more.  And the money for him, as you just said, he raised half of what Mitt Romney raised.  This is—these are tough days.  They’re retooling, they say.

MR. RUSSERT:  We asked people, The New York Times/CBS did, about “are you satisfied with the choice in the Republican field” and this is what we found. Forty percent said satisfied, 57 percent say desire more choices.  The New York Observer weighed in this way about Fred Thompson, “So why Fred Thompson, and why now” part—“and why now?” A “part of it, certainly, is cosmetic:  Mr. Thompson’s craggy visage, comforting demeanor and, of course, considerable camera presence have inspired comparisons to Ronald Reagan from even the most level-headed GOP operatives.  But the reason given more often by Republican activists and elected officials is simply that they are dissatisfied with the current crop.”

David Keene says that “his success will be largely dependent on whether the current front-runners” can some—“front-runners can somehow broaden their appeal and lock up the nomination.”

And then the Observer goes on to say, “no one stands to be more immediately affected by a Thompson candidacy than Rudy Giuliani, who has so far gotten a pass from Republicans on his liberal social positions and complicated personal background because of a sense that he is the most ‘electable’ candidate in the field.

“Fred Thompson’s prospective entry into the race resulted in an immediate double-digit drop for Mr.  Giuliani in the USA Today/Gallup Poll.”

Here’s that poll, by the way.  Now we have Giuliani standing at 31; McCain at 22; Fred Thompson, still unannounced at 12; Newt Gingrich at 8; Mitt Romney at 3.  Two weeks prior to that poll Giuliani had been at 44 and pretty much everyone else consistent.  Thompson not included.

Let me show a few other poll numbers while we have them up.  This is New Hampshire.  Two polls out of New Hampshire:  McCain, 25; Romney, 25; Giuliani, 19.  In the CNN Poll McCain 29; Romney 17; Giuliani 29.  And in an Iowa, Republican race, Giuliani, 25; McCain, 20; Thompson, 11; Romney ,8; Gingrich, 6.

Chuck, does that tell us anything at this stage of the race?

MR. TODD:  Well, look, Fred Thompson—the, the entire 2008 Republican primary feels like the 2004 Democratic primary in some ways.  You have—nobody’s happy with the field, nobody was happy with the field in ‘04.  They’re desperate to just find somebody who can win.  That seemed to be the desperation with the Democrats before.  And they sit there and flirt about.  You remember, in 2004, there was a candidate like Fred Thompson in here, this sort of unknown potential savior for the party.  It was Wesley Clark.  And he got in, he raised a bunch of money and fell flat.  Fred Thompson to me has that same feeling.  This is—the fact that Fred Thompson’s being considered the savior, he’s not been a sort of pillar of the Republican Party in years past and yet he could come in and raise $20 million immediately.  There’s $20 million that wasn’t raised by these three front-runners that’s sitting there of Bush money. And I have no idea what kind of candidate he’d be.  He has never run a really tough race, and conservatives better be careful.  They might buy into this quickly, and he could just fall flat on his face.

MR. RUSSERT:  Ironically, Kate O’Beirne, Fred Thompson was a strong McCain supporter in 2000 over George W.  Bush.  Strong supporter of McCain/Feingold, campaign finance laws.  And yet he’s the darling of many conservatives.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Look, I think—I think conservatives are looking for someone who can put together that coalition, all kinds of conservatives, that has helped win five out of the last seven presidential elections.  And so far the three top runners in this field have had trouble doing that.  Hollywood casting agents had it right.  Fred Thompson looks and sounds presidential, and he’s a talented politician, you know.  I mean, he has run—unlike Wes Clark—he’s run and won office.  He won the largest—by the largest margin ever in the history of Tennessee.  It’s a good state to be from, as you know. No, he’s a serious—he’s a serious candidate, I think.  I think he’s possibly serious about a run.  He has a conservative voting record from the Senate, and he is potentially a person, with that kind of record, who could put together the economic, national security and social conservatives.

MR. RUSSERT:  April 18^th, he’ll meet with about 50 Republican congressmen, and I think we’ll know a whole lot more then.

Let me turn to the Democrats.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in a war to see who could raise the most money.  Here’s how Time magazine described it, Judy Woodruff:  “The only thing more stunning than Hillary Clinton’s $26 million was Obama’s ability to match it.  She has eight years in the White House and two Senate campaigns’ worth of connections.  He has the stuff dreams are made of—and 100,000 donors, twice as many as Clinton.”

MS. WOODRUFF:  It is stunning, Tim.  I mean, here’s somebody who’s been in the race 11 weeks.  He raised $25 million, as you said, a million short of Hillary Clinton, who we know has been running for a long time, or suspected she was running.  He did it with 100,000 contributors.  I mean, this is just a mind-blowing number.  He raised $7 million on the Internet alone.

I talked to David Axelrod, who was his campaign manager, who said they are—they are using the so-called “net roots,” these small dollar contributors, and they think they can go back to them.  He says what we got from them is what he calls enthusiasm money.  They’re enthusiastic about his candidacy.  In some cases, they’re only giving 25, $50.  They’ll, they’ll give again.

MR. RUSSERT:  It’s a steady revenue stream; they can give up to $2300.

MR. GREGORY:  And they make the argument that they’re running a campaign based on enthusiasm.  They say Hillary Clinton is running a campaign based on past debts.  And the Clinton people have had a pretty heavy-handed way in some quarters, raising money.  Terry McAuliffe, who has been out there in Los Angeles, notably, saying that if you’re for more than one candidate, that’s ridiculous.  Actually saying you’re either with us or against us.  So they’ve seen some, some backlash from that.  And again, it’s two visions of whether they can really connect with voters, and the Obama people seem good.

MR. RUSSERT:  It is interesting, looking at this Democratic race, Chuck Todd. The national polls, here they are here, two of them.  The Cook Report has Clinton ahead with 41, Edwards at 19, Obama, 17.  Time has Clinton at 31; Edwards, 16; Obama, 24.  But then go to Iowa and New Hampshire.  Here’s first New Hampshire.  Look at this:  29, Clinton; 23, Edwards; 23, Obama.  CNN says 27, 21, 20.  And look at Iowa:  Edwards, 27, continuing lead there; Obama, 20; Hillary Clinton third at 19; Joe Biden, 4, Richardson, 4.  It’s a toss-up.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Sunday's Meet the Press guest list Nov. 22: Senate roundtable, Brinker, Snyderman Nov. 15: Clinton, Duncan, Gingrich, Sharpton Nov. 8: Casey, Barbour, Rendell, roundtable, Brokaw Nov. 1: Tim Geithner, David Plouffe, roundtable Oct. 25: Cornyn, Schumer, Burnett, Sorkin, roundtable Oct. 18: Jarrett, Dodd, Kyl, Shriver, Podesta Oct. 11: Levin, Graham, McCaffrey, Myers, roundtable Oct. 4: Ambassador Susan Rice, roundtable Sept. 27: Bill Clinton, Paterson, Kyl, Webb Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: