‘Meet the Press’ transcript for July 29, 2007

MS. MITCHELL:  ...showing a bit of it on the Senate floor.  And this was used—seized upon by the Clinton campaign in an e-mail from her campaign...

MR. RUSSERT:  In a fund-raising letter.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...in a fund-raising letter by Ann Lewis saying that this is exactly what women have to put up with.  And if Hillary Clinton connect—can connect with women and say, “You see what we have to put up with?  This is the way they trivialize us,” it helps her on—in just about every level, both on fund-raising...

MR. RUSSERT:  I want to give Gene Robinson equal time for barber shops.

MR. ROBINSON:  Well, I’ll take equal time for barber shops.  I think Barack Obama needs to find some barber shops in New Hampshire to, to visit.  And, you know, he won’t have a lot of hair left if he get’s it cut that many, many times.  It’s pretty short right now.  I also—let me, let me jump in and, and offer a word in defense of Robin Givhan, the Washington Post columnist who wrote the cleavage column, as her former boss.

MR. ROBINSON:  You know, you either cover fashion or you don’t.  And, and I think it’s some—it’s legitimate to argue that, that you shouldn’t worry about fashion, but, you know, it’s the way we present ourselves to the, to the world, to others.  We make decisions every morning on what we, what we put on and how—what what sort of image we want to project.  And, unfortunately, in our society, women are scrutinized in a way that men aren’t.  I mean, what, what did John Edwards wear at the YouTube debate?  What did Barack Obama wear...

MS. MITCHELL:  She arguably—if you look at the Senate floor any day of the week, if you look at the floor of the House of Commons when a new Cabinet minister was speaking who had a far more low-cut neckline...

MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...this was so marginal.  This was like microscopic evidence of, of an—of...

MR. HARWOOD:  I’m going to defend that column, too.

MS. MITCHELL:  ...inappropriate attire.

MR. HARWOOD:  I’m going to defend that column, too.  When you look...

MR. ROBINSON:  It’s—I don’t think...

MR. HARWOOD:  ...at the calculation that goes into everything that Hillary Clinton does, for her to argue that she was not aware of what she was communicating by her dress is like Barry Bonds saying he thought he was rubbing down with flaxseed oil, OK?

MS. MITCHELL:  That...

MR. TODD:  It was 3:30--whoa, whoa, whoa.  It was 4:00...

MS. MITCHELL:  Sometimes a blouse is just a blouse, to paraphrase...

MR. RUSSERT:  OK.  I’m going to move on to South Carolina.

MR. TODD:  But, but...

MR. RUSSERT:  I’m going to move on to South Carolina.

MR. ROBINSON:  OK.

MR. RUSSERT:  OK, this is important.  Here’s the poll from South Carolina, and again we show Hillary Clinton ahead 43; Obama, 27; Edwards, 17.  Look at this.  A breakdown amongst black voters, African-American voters, half the voters in that primary 52, 33, 5.  Hillary Clinton considerably ahead of Barack Obama.  Is that a warning signal for Mr. Obama?

MR. BALZ:  Absolutely.  I mean, he has to do very, very well in the African-American community in South Carolina in order to win that primary.  I think they believe over time—and if you talk to David Alexrod about this, he’ll tell you that at the beginning of Obama’s Senate campaign he was not doing that well among African-Americans in Illinois, and, as the primary went along, he did better and better and better.

MR. RUSSERT:  As he gets better known.

MR. BALZ:  Right.  And they think the same will happen in this race and therefore will happen in South Carolina.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  It’s a subset of the larger point we were talking about before.  I mean, right now Hillary Clinton is running better with Democrats who want a candidate who will defend their interests.  Barack Obama is doing better with candidates who are looking for someone to affirm their values. And African-American voters tend to be interest-oriented voters, very tangible.They have education needs, health care needs, to a greater degree than a lot of the upscale white liberals who tend to look for kind of a statement kind of candidate.  And that is the same challenge.  Now, David Axelrod believes it’s largely a function of the fact that Hillary Clinton is better known.

MR. RUSSERT:  Senior...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Senior—the...

MR. RUSSERT:  Adviser.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  ...Obama camp believes it’s a function of name identification; over time it will solve itself.  I am not sure it solves itself.  Because, unlike her husband, Bill Clinton who chafed at being in that position and complained in 1992 that all of the smart people are voting for Paul Tsongas, she is very comfortable and very focused on who her constituency is.  Going to that hairstylist convention is a sign they know who their vote is and they’re comfortable with it, and they are trying to lock in on it.

MR. ROBINSON:  I—you know, I, I am surprised that Obama hasn’t gained more ground in South Carolina.  The times I’ve been there I have thought he was getting some traction among African-Americans.  He’s been going to the state, he’s been—you know, he’s—it’s not that he hasn’t been trying.  I agree that he needs to, he needs to make up some ground there and, and start doing it now, because I think that, potentially, would be fatal.  I mean, if he does that poorly in, in South Carolina among black voters.

MR. RUSSERT:  Trouble.

MR. ROBINSON:  Trouble.

MR. RUSSERT:  We have to take a quick break.  We’ll come back and show the Democrats matched against the Republicans, get inside the Republican primary race and talk about the attorney general of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  More with our MEET THE PRESS roundtable.  The Republicans and the attorney general after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we’re back.  Let’s look at some interesting polls.  The generic question, “Are you going to vote for a Democrat or a Republican for president of the United States?” And look at these margins in their question: 51 to 27 in The Hotline poll, Battleground poll, 49, 38.  And then when you match up specific front-runners, Giuliani, in both polls, beats Hillary Clinton.  You match Giuliani against Obama, Giuliani wins in one poll, 49, 45; Obama wins in another poll.  Then take Fred Thompson.  Thompson loses to Clinton in one, ties in another.  But Obama does much better against Thompson than Hillary Clinton does, winning handily in both those races.

What does that mean to you, Chuck Todd?

MR. TODD:  Well, I think that she’s having a problem of electability.  The Clinton folks will say that they, they believe their biggest challenge is proving electability, and it, and it really bugs them because they actually feel like, and the polls show that, you know, the fact that she’s competitive with Giuliani, they think that should be a good thing, you know.  I think there were some folks that thought she might be 10 points down to Giuliani at this point.

But when I look at those polls and you see the difference—and to me the Fred Thompson number’s more telling than the Giuliani number, because Thompson is generic Republican.  Nobody really knows who he is, so he’s generic R. There’s automatically a white independent men vote, and that’s who I’m pretty sure it is, that it’s white, independent men who will not vote for her right now.  Maybe they will at some point, but right now, they just automatically say, “I’m with the R.  I’m with the R.” And they are giving Obama a chance, which is what I think explains the difference between why Obama can do well—better in sort of a generic test than Clinton does.

MR. RUSSERT:  Dan Balz, Fred Thompson keeps saying he likes the temperature of the water, it’s feeling good.  Is he going to run?

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