‘Meet the Press’ transcript for July 1, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  In this quarter.

MR. TODD:  In this quarter alone.

MR. RUSSERT:  As opposed to Hillary Clinton.

MR. TODD:  Hillary Clinton, they’re saying 27 million.  That’s total.  And, you know, we’re going to get through this primary general, all this stuff. Maybe it’s only 22 million in primary money.  It’s possible he, he might outraise her somewhere $10 million in primary money.  What’s fascinating is in this first half of the year, clearly, you talk to the Clinton folks, you talk to sort of unbiased observers, say—will say, “Mrs. Clinton won the first half politically of this election season.” But financially Obama’s won it.  He has caught up to her.  He has made up the $10 million transfer that she had from her Senate account.  It is—it is stunning.

MR. RUSSERT:  And 250,000 donors.

MR. TODD:  Two hundred and fifty thousand donors, which means, you know, which means that, you know, he can continue to sort of apparently be a little lackluster.  I mean, I’m always struck at these debates how cautious he is. He’s afraid to, he’s afraid to go for a knockout.  He’s afraid—he’s, he’s trying not to, he’s trying not to lose.  He’s not trying to win yet.

MR. SMILEY:  It may not be—I’m sorry.  It may not be his format.  As, as we all know, every one of us has strengths and weaknesses, abilities and limitations.  And it may very well be, in fairness to him, that this is not his format.  He does better, I think, long form than he does short form.  But, as we all know in the media, you got to get better at the short form.

MR. RUSSERT:  But the money alone will keep him viable through those early races.  We have a real race.

MR. TODD:  Absolutely.  I mean, the fall, I mean, the fall is—and I think that, that the Obama folks are- -they have their own pace.  Clinton folks are going 70 miles an hour.  The Obama folks seem to be going about 50.

MR. RUSSERT:  David, let me pick up on the point that Judy raised.  And here’s the latest poll with the two front-runners, Clinton vs. Giuliani.  The Cook Report has it 42-42.  Our—Newsweek has it 51-44.  But Mason-Dixon did this in a question, “Assuming Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee, would you consider voting for her,” 48 percent; “Would you not, would not vote for her under any circumstances,” 52 percent.  She’s the only candidate of any party who has a majority of people who say now they would not vote for her under any circumstances, and that’s 60 percent of independents say that, 88 percent of Republicans.

MR. BRODY:  I know.

MR. RUSSERT:  How big of an obstacle is that for Hillary Clinton in a general election?

MR. BRODY:  Well, it’s an obstacle, but if you look at her Web site and if you start to track her campaign daily, which is what I’m paid to do, they are really putting her in a different light.  I mean, look at her Web site and look at some of the commercials that she’s putting out, these ad commercials, her laughing, her smiling.  This idea that she’s pretty much trying to go outside of what her normal stereotype is.  They are making a concerted effort to do that, and it seems to be helping her, at least early on.  Whether or not...

MR. RUSSERT:  Softening her with “The Sopranos” takeoff and some of those things.

MR. BRODY:  No doubt about it.  The, the, this whole idea of picking the song for her campaign.  I mean, if you actually go in and look into the deep files of the Web site of where, where, where she’s at, I mean, they’re putting these major commercials on where she’s just laughing, rolling her eyes, being goofy. Hillary Clinton, goofy?

MR. RUSSERT:  All right.  But it is—and we did show in one poll her actually beating Rudy Giuliani.

MR. BRODY:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  So people may hold their nose, so to speak, at this stage.  Or she may be successful at transforming her image.

Chuck Todd, there is a Web site called www.HillaryIs44.com.  There it is on our screen right now.  Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal said, “There’s another side of the Clinton campaign”—and the campaign says they have nothing to do with the Web site.

MR. TODD:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  “It is a new Web site called HillaryIs44.com.” “Rather mysterious.  It does not divulge who’s running the site, who staffs it.  It’s not interactive; it has one informative voice, and its” largest “target audience seems to be journalists and free-lance oppo artists.  .... Encouraging readers to send in ‘confidential tips,’ its primary target” “obvious obsession is Barack Obama.  ‘Senator Barack Obama (D- Rezko)’”—a man who gave money to Obama and Obama has returned it—“‘is busy lately lying about President Bill Clinton’” and “’attacking entire communities.’ ...  The Obama campaign is ‘still posing as innocents incapable of doing anything unsavory even as evidence mounts unsavory is their favorite dish.’” So we have this anonymous Web site, pro-Hillary Clinton, anti-Obama.  What do we know about it?

MR. TODD:  Well, we’ve, we’ve done everything we legally can do to try to find something out about this, OK?  Anything else and...

MS. WOODRUFF:  (Unintelligible)

MR. TODD:  ...I was just saying—anything else and Secretary Chertoff would be at my house this morning.  And it is clearly—it’s somebody inside the Beltway.  We, we do know that.  We were able to track through IP addresses and stuff like that.  It’s somebody inside the Beltway.  It’s somebody with access to the hotline, an insider product which costs a lot of money because they post all the jokes every night, any joke that’s at the expense of, of Obama or Edwards.  So, clearly, they have—it’s some sort of insider access.  Look, we—we’ve not been able to find any connection to, to the Clinton campaign.  I think you’re going to see more of these sites.  I mean, this is, this is sort of the first of what many—everybody’s going to be looking for their own Drudge Report and that’s...

MR. RUSSERT:  Stealth, stealth, negative attacks.

MR. TODD:  What this is—that’s right.  This is, this is, right now, Hillary’s Drudge Report.

MR. SMILEY:  Can I just add, Tim, two seconds on this?  I think it would be unfair of us to have this conversation, though, and to not to say where Mrs. Clinton is concerned, this is clearly not an endorsement, that’s not what I do.  But you can’t talk about her just in terms of the political opposition to her, based upon her vote, based upon who she is, without mentioning that she does happen to be a woman who is attempting to do something historic.  And to the extent that we live in a society that is patriarchal, she’s going to have to deal with that.  To the extent that we live in a society that racism is still I think one of the most intractable issues, I think Mr. Obama will has to deal with that.  So I’m not trying to, you know, trying to throw—trying to douse the fire.  What I am suggesting though is that, when you talk about her and what those negative numbers mean, you have to read into those numbers that there are some people that are not prepared for any woman to be president...

MR. RUSSERT:  And...

MR. SMILEY:  ...and she’s got to—she’s got to deal with that.  She can’t do much about being a woman, obviously.

MR. RUSSERT:  And the converse of that, in the Democratic primary, with seven men as your opponents, it’s a real advantage...

MR. SMILEY:  Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...and the campaign is targeting women voters.

Judy Woodruff, Generation X.  You did an hour-long documentary...

MS. WOODRUFF:  Right.

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