‘Meet the Press’ transcript for June 3, 2007

MR. SHRUM:  I think John Kerry was the best prepared person to be president, I think he was the person who had the best chance to beat George Bush, and although we always forget it and we administer a ritual beating to our defeated Democratic nominees, unlike the Republicans who kind of rehab candidates over and over again, John Kerry came very, very close to being the first person to defeat an incumbent president renominated by his own party in time of war.

MR. RUSSERT:  Why isn’t he running?

MR. SHRUM:  He’s not running because he told a joke he shouldn’t have told last November, and he got beaten up very, very badly about it.  I don’t know that he would’ve run, but that precluded him from running.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re going to take a quick break, come back and talk about the decision of 2008 and the Bush administration.  How will the Bush administration, the eight years of George W. Bush influence, affect this campaign?  We’ll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  The race for the decision 2008.  Top political strategists, Democrats and Republicans assess the Bush administration and its impact on this campaign.  We’ll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we are back.  George W. Bush.  Mary Matalin, The New Yorker, Jeff Goldberg wrote the following:  “Disillusionment with the administration has become widespread among the conservatives who once were Bush’s strongest supporters.  Mickey Edwards, former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, said recently, ‘The Republican Administration has shown itself to be completely incompetent to the point that, of Republicans in Iowa, 52 percent thought we should be out of Iraq in six months.  President Bush thinks he’s a monarch, and that’s scary as hell.’” You see real erosion amongst the conservative base towards George W. Bush?

MS. MATALIN:  The—seven out of 10 conservatives, or Republicans, support George W. Bush.  There is great affection for Bush amongst the people who are going to make the decision in this primary.  And further, for conservatives not to remember or to just blow past what George Bush brought to conservatism, including the longest-lasting impact which will be on the Supreme Court, Roberts and Alito, transforming the military, peace—I’m not going to go through this whole thing.  But I would refer people who are in this myopic mind-set, conservatives and independents alike, to read the new Beschloss book on presidential leadership.  Truman elected 22 percent; Washington was almost impeached.  If we looked at sort of contemporary public opinion we would be a slave-holding British colony today.  We wouldn’t—and we’d probably be speaking German and the rule would be totalitarian.  So, you cannot measure—we only have one template for a real measurement of a tenure of any presidency and that’s history.  And, and we...

MR. RUSSERT:  But in terms of the ‘08 election, and Newt Gingrich said that George Bush’s favorable rating is 28, 30 percent and the only way for a Republican to be elected is, in essence, nominate someone who will run against Bush.

MS. MATALIN:  Newt, who is capable of bursts of genius is also capable of just outbursts.  And I, I don’t know where that came from or why it’s so, and it’s certainly not strategically—it makes no strategic sense.  I will say again, the primary voters, if he’s running, he should remember are—seven out of 10--are favorable for Bush.  This is—you run against Bush, when we run against the president—we have seen this in how many cycles—you’re just—you, you divide yourselves and you’re going to hang separately.

MR. RUSSERT:  But take the issue of immigration.  Rush Limbaugh, other leading conservative spokespeople, Mike Murphy, have said, “Wait a minute. Mr. President, we’ve been with you through thick and thin on the war and a lot of other issues and now you’re chastising us on the issue of immigration?” And you could really upset the—and divide the conservative base.

MR. MURPHY:  No, it’s a huge crack-up issue right now, and I’m very proud of the president.  I think he’s completely right on it, and I’ve been a critic for a long time, in some ways, of, of the way they run their politics.  But he’s right.  It’s the future of the Republican Party at stake and it’s what America means.  We ought to have a big nasty fight on it in the primary to figure out who we are, and I give the president credit for that issue.

But the problem we’ve got is—I disagree with Newt.  You don’t run against the president, but it’s almost crueler than that.  Ultimately, you’re going to have to run beyond him.  The president’s going to be more irrelevant than presidents like to be a year from now unless there’s some global change in fortunes.  And the burden on the next Republican nominee will be how to paint a picture going beyond the president and the burden will come quick, because I think this compressed nomination will put somebody in mid-February as the nominee and the press will go berserk saying, “What are you going to do about Iraq now.” And at that moment, the torch is going to move and, and policy to this presumptive nominee and, at that point on, I think the president’s going to be less relevant than he would want to be.

MR. RUSSERT:  Is confidence...

MR. MURPHY:  But that’s the hard reality of it.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...is confidence going to be an issue in 2008?

MR. SHRUM:  Yes.

MR. MURPHY:  No.

MR. CARVILLE:  Of course it is.  I mean, but that fight over the attorney general, I mean, every time that he’s sitting there people are looking and saying, “Oh, come on.” And, and, and it’s, everybody acknowledges that.  Look, the approval about the president is this.  Tonight is the Democratic debate. See how many times the Democrats mention George Bush’s name.  It’ll be a lot. Tuesday night is the Republican debate.  See how many times the Republicans mention George Bush’s name.  It’ll be doggone few.  It’s like one a debate his name crops up.  So, and, of course, he—they know that he is a big problem. They know that the Democrats are going to run against eight years of Republican missteps and mishandling everything they can.  And it’s going to be something they’re going to have to deal with, and that’s why the, that’s why the party is at its lowest point in the history of the NBC/Journal—NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

MR. RUSSERT:  But is it enough for the Democrats simply to say, “We’re not George W. Bush, vote for us?”

MR. CARVILLE:  It’s a—it’s a start.

MR. MURPHY:  No.

MR. SHRUM:  No.

MR. CARVILLE:  No, but I’ll tell you what...

MS. MATALIN:  That’s the only part you’ll ever get.  You never get past.  How about ‘06 and ‘06 is now zero and ‘07.  You have no other unifying principle than “We’re not Bush, we hate Bush.”

MR. CARVILLE:  No, that’s...

MS. MATALIN:  You cannot get past that.

MR. CARVILLE:  Oh no, no, that’s not fair.  This Democratic field, all of them have very nuanced, very thought out proposals on health care, all of them have—going—have very, very nuanced, a lot of foreign policy speeches. You’re going to see more substance come from this field than any field of any party that’s ever run for president.

MR. RUSSERT:  Bob Shrum, you offer the Democrats some advice in “No Excuses.” “If Democrats are afraid to say what we are about, if the party doesn’t stand for something more than a set of poll-tested programs and a carefully engineered set of tactics to win office, we are likely to lose unless the Republicans hand us victory on a platter of indisputable failure or perceived economic crisis.”

MR. RUSSERT:  What should Democrats say, and is there a Democrat who’s saying anything that is unpopular right now, against the grain because they truly believe in it?

MR. SHRUM:  I think people are taking up some really tough issues, as James suggests, like health care, and I think you’re going to see more and more pressure to do that.  I think that health care’s going to be a central domestic issue this time.  And I think when we elect a president, we’re going to have to stay with the issue and stay with the issue and stay with the issue until we get it done.

You know, I write in the book that one of the secrets of the Republican Party is that it survived Goldwater, it survived Nixon, it reached the Reagan era because it continually kept talking about, with more and more confidence, its conservative beliefs.  I think Democrats have to talk about our beliefs, about economic and social justice.  You know, I was born, like you were, in a working class family.  I got to a great university.  I got a few lucky breaks, and I got to be at the center of American politics.  I know some people wish I hadn’t been, but I’m glad I was, and, and I hope I made some difference for good.  I want other people to have that chance, and I think we Democrats ought to talk about that, and I think we are doing that in this campaign.  That’s what James is talking about when he says Obama offers inspiration to people. That’s what Hillary Clinton is doing when she’s going out there and talking about education.  That’s what John Edwards is doing when he talks about poverty.

MS. MATALIN:  When...

MR. RUSSERT:  Mike Murphy, when a Democratic candidate says, “All right, we need to have health care for the 40 million people who don’t have it, we got to work on that aggressively, and it may mean rolling back the Bush tax cuts on the rich in order to pay for it”...

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