‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Aug. 19, 2007

MR. GREGORY:  We are back.  Welcome all.

Ron Brownstein, the political legacy of Karl Rove, what do you think it is?

MR. RON BROWNSTEIN:  Well, I think they came into office with a very clear strategy that linked together both their legislative and their political vision, and on both fronts their focus was on unifying their own party.  And they accepted polarization of the country as the price for mobilizing their own side.  And in his first term, in Bush’s first term, this worked pretty well.  Republicans in Congress voted together at a rate not seen since the beginning of the 20^th century, and he was able to pass much more than seemed possible, given the size of his victory in 2000 and their majority in Congress.  And in 2002 and 2004, they generated an enormous turnout of the Republican base, and they were able to, as Karl Rove said, to gain seats and to win re-election, winning a majority for the first time since 1988.

But in the second term, I think the limits of this strategy have become increasingly apparent.  Even when he won re-election, at his high point, his margin of victory measured as a share of the popular vote, was the smallest ever in American history for a successfully re-elected president.  Left him very little margin for error, little, little cushion of good will when things started to go against him.  And you saw also, in the second term, that the price of focusing so much on mobilizing their base was at times—Terri Schiavo, Social Security—pull—putting forward an agenda that drove away—energized Democrats and drove away independents.  And it came together, I think, in 2006.  They suffered a severe erosion among independent voters in both the House races and the big Senate races.  They’ve become more of a regional party under Karl Rove.  They’re strong in the culturally conservative parts of the country, but in the Northeast and the West Coast there—they’ve lost a lot of ground.

So on balance, I think that he has been a brilliant tactician in the service of a fundamentally flawed strategy, and I don’t believe another president will try to govern in a manner that accepts so much division in the country as the price of exciting their own side.

MR. GREGORY:  Kate O’Beirne, is the Republican Party better off or worse off after the Bush years?

MS. KATE O’BEIRNE:  Unclear.  David, you could throw up the same kind of charts we looked at with Karl Rove when Bill Clinton left office, right?  I mean, within two years...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  And many people did.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Exactly.  Within two years.  Of course, they had lost after holding it for far longer.  He had lost the House.  And the Democratic Party, I think, was demonstrably weaker following eight years of the Clinton administration.  And yet, we have an unpopular war in Iraq, a Republican majority that seemed to run out of steam, and therefore, look at what these—the partisan advantage the Democrats now have.  Those same polls, of course, show that the public is not thrilled with the Democratic Congress either, of course.

I think Karl Rove’s—the legacy, of course, is premature and mixed, but it certainly has to be said that he is largely responsible for three enormously successful races in 2000, 2002 and 2004.  And even in 2006 the president did increase his margins across demographic groups, not just among conservatives.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  He lost ground among independents in 2000 and 2004, even while winning...

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Well, it was the...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  ...re-election.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  ...first president, of course, in a, in a midst of an unpopular war to win a majority of the vote.  That hadn’t, obviously, happened since ‘88.

MR. GREGORY:  Matt Cooper, let’s pick up on an aspect of the interview with, with Karl Rove having to do with the leak case, the CIA leak case, that you were part of as well.  And something’s that’s very interesting, he, he went out of his way to say, “I would not have been a confirming source on this kind of information” and taking issue with, with Novak’s testimony in his column that he knew who Valerie Plame was.  He said he would never confirm that information.  That’s different from your experience with him.

MR. MATT COOPER:  Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11^th, 2003.  I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week.  I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD.  I mean, to imply that he didn’t know about it or that this was all the leak...

MR. GREGORY:  Or that he had heard it from somebody else...

MR. COOPER:  ...by someone else, or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense.

MR. GREGORY:  But he makes no apologies to Valerie Plame.

MR. COOPER:  Karl Rove never apologizes.  That’s not what he does.

MR. GREGORY:  John Harwood, back to politics and Karl Rove leading the charge, in some cases, against Hillary Clinton.  That was a very well-thought political attack on Hillary Clinton’s views in some of her past votes.  What about the fact that he wouldn’t talk about Barack Obama?  And some are speculating that just like in 2004 when they were building up John Kerry that the Republicans were—that’s what they want to do here, to run against Hillary Clinton.

MR. JOHN HARWOOD:  Well, it’s hard to sort this stuff out.  In some respects he’s making a statement of obvious fact.  Hillary Clinton is the front-runner, she is the likely nominee of the Democratic Party, although we’ve got a long way to go in this race, and she is a flawed candidate.  But, of course, we have an entire field of flawed candidates in both parties.  So—and if you look at everybody running for president right now, her flaws are smaller than anybody’s else’s because she’s leading, she’s got a party that’s on the march in terms of public sentiment.  So was he not going after Obama to—because that’s who he really fears?  It, it’s hard to say.

I just want to point out a couple of things about Karl’s record.  I agree with my colleagues he is brilliant, he’s driven, he’s unusually involved and interested in history and policy, fundamentally different in that way from somebody like James Carville, who was essentially a political tactician and strategist for Bill Clinton.  But let’s don’t exaggerate what happened. Republicans won five out of eight presidential elections before George Bush won in 2000.  It wasn’t long ago that we were talking about a Republican lock on the presidency.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Lock.  Yeah.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. HARWOOD:  He did adapt modern conservatism to the post-Cold War era, compassionate conservatism was a useful function.  But he didn’t create the national Republican majority, and I think it also has to be said that he didn’t create the Iraq war, which fundamentally is the largest thing that is dragging down the president right now.

MR. GREGORY:  Let’s, let’s move on.  I want to put up some recent polling, look at the Republican field right now and look at some of the recent polling here.  Giuliani still on top, but his numbers down a little bit.  Look at Fred Thompson, who was out in Iowa for the first time this week.  His numbers down July to July.

Kate O’Beirne, a lot of questions about whether Fred Thompson has waited too long to get into the race.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Well, it’s obviously he has to play catch-up here.  He’s behind with respect to raising money, with respect to organization, not—people aren’t quite sure yet what that message is going to be, although he’s clearly going to be trying to attempt to appeal to conservatives.  You know, none of that would be the case had he gone in a year ago, but a year ago there was no rationale for a Fred Thompson candidacy, right?  McCain was the front-runner and when George Allen won his Virginia Senate seat, George Allen was going to be that conservative in the race.

So, exactly—exactly.  So he has catching up to do.  He’s a talented politician.  The Republican field’s far more fluid than the Democratic field, so there could well be a perch for Fred Thompson.  But the others have a real head start.

MR. GREGORY:  And it’s very interesting, Rudy Giuliani still atop the polls, and it was striking this week when he was asked about his family—there’s obviously been a lot written about this—and this was his reply.  We’ll put it on the screen for our viewers to see, as the Union Leader in New Hampshire reported it.  “Giuliani was taken aback by a morning town hall meeting in New Hampshire by a question about his family.  ‘I’m going to phrase it a lot more gentle than my nephew did, but he wanted to know how you could expect a loyal following of Americans when you are not getting it from your own family,’ a mother asked.  Giuliani responded, ‘I love my family very, very much and will do anything for them.  There are complexities in every family in America,’ Giuliani said quietly.  ‘The best thing I can say is kind of leave my family alone, just like I’ll leave your family alone.’” Ron Brownstein:

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Well, I think it was a very genuine answer.  Obviously the—there are other Republicans that think that family history is, is a vulnerability for, for Giuliani.  But, you know, I think we learned during the Clinton impeachment that Americans sort of intuitively understand that in everybody’s life there are things they don’t want to read about on the front page of The Washington Post or The New York Times or the LA Times, and I think we saw that very kind of mature understanding.  And, in the end, I think Giuliani will receive the same kind of verdict from the public.  They will judge him on other grounds.

MR. HARWOOD:  However, within the Republican primary, I think...

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