MR. SHRUM: And I saw Tom DeLay doing this, isn’t going to do the Republicans any good. Republicans—I agree with you on this, Mary—they need to move beyond this. And I think, actually, the ultimate result of this is the Craig’s list of social issues—bashing gays, going after a woman’s right to choose—is going to have a lot less power in the 2008 election. I just think...

MR. MURPHY: But there’s one...

MR. SHRUM: ...people are going to laugh if these wonderful family values candidates like Giuliani and Thompson get up there and start talking about these issues.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah, but there’s an ugliness in all this, too. I, I think Craig is an unsympathetic figure. But there has been this case of bloggers on the far left trying to expose closeted politicians if they don’t fall completely into lockstep with a certain liberal gay agenda. And I think that’s unfair. It’s a form of McCarthyism, really.

MR. SHRUM: Don’t you think the ugliness was voting against the hate crimes bill, as Craig did...

MR. MURPHY: No, no, no, but what Dems do is...

MR. SHRUM: ...and then going into a men’s bathroom...

MR. MURPHY: This is—no, it’s...

MR. SHRUM: ...and soliciting a police officer?

MR. MURPHY: Of course, that was ugly, but, but the point is, there is a tendency to apply an identity politics test now, which, which has a real chilling effect on politics, that somebody’s private life has—or their, their race or their gender or their orientation—has to dictate where they stand politically. If you’re a woman, you have to be a pro-choice Democrat. I mean, that calculation cheapens politics, and it’s unfair to people in public life who do have private lives.

MR. RUSSERT: Mitt Romney, a man that you worked for when he...

MR. MURPHY: Uh-huh.

MR. RUSSERT: ...ran for governor of Massachusetts, Mike Murphy, Larry Craig, endorsed him...

MR. MURPHY: Supporter, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...was a key component of his Idaho campaign, and Mitt Romney on Tuesday, the day this all broke, went to the cameras and said this about Larry Craig:

(Videotape)

FMR. GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R-MA): (From “Kudlow & Company”) Once again we’ve found people in Washington have not lived up to the, the level of, of respect and, and dignity that we would expect for somebody that gets elected to a position of high influence. Very disappointing. He’s no longer associated with my campaign, as you can imagine.

I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton. I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint.

And we’ve seen disappointment in the White House, we’ve seen it in the Senate, we’ve seen it in Congress, and, frankly, it’s disgusting.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: He just threw him overboard.

MR. MURPHY: Well, I, well, I think politically he had to get him out of the campaign. And I think it was disappointing, what he did. I think Mitt’s totally right to say that. There could’ve been a little more grace to the statement, just as somebody who’s been around politics a long time. You maybe would throw him half a sentence, you know, for his family or something like that, but I think the fundamental strategy of distancing himself was the only thing Mitt could have done, and I’m sure it’s how he felt.

MR. RUSSERT: How about linking, how about linking Larry Craig to Bill Clinton, James Carville?

MS. MATALIN: Yeah.

MR. CARVILLE: You know what? Just like Larry Craig and Mitt Romney, they can’t, they can’t, they can’t help themselves. But what, what, again, I was shocked by, was shocked by when Larry Craig was on this program, what he said, and shocked by, by Mitt Romney, there’s not an element of humanity in any of these guys.

MS. MATALIN: Mm.

MR. CARVILLE: I mean, Mitt Romney could’ve said, “He was my chairman, he obviously did something wrong, I know this is a difficult time for his, for his family, the man”—nothing! I mean, this was the coldest, most antiseptic thing that you could possibly hear from a politician. And it was just like Larry Craig, he couldn’t wait to get out there and pontificate and, and, and make a complete fool of himself. And, you know, the reason—one of the reasons that Democrats have been reluctant to put this out front because we are smart enough to know that our party also consists of human beings. And, you know, when you have human beings, you’re going to have this kind of behavior, be they Republican or Democrat. But what the Republicans do is they go and pontificate and all this great Americanism and how people need to lead their life and everything, and I think the American public would just love if they would shut up about that and lead the life themselves. That’s what’s going on here.

MS. MATALIN: You know, who, who’s saying that the Republicans are pontificating are Democrats who are completely obsessed with defining and demonizing Republicans. Of all the debates—and there’s some every three days, there’s a debate—these candidates have been talking about national security issues, economic issues, energy issues. This is the demonizing Democratic definition of Republicanism. And you know what? Normal people—that would be voters—are just sick of this. This is not a dispositive issue in this cycle, where national security and economic issues in a global economy are.

MR. SHRUM: Listen, Republicans demonized gay people for political purposes in 2004. Bush, when he was first asked about a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage seemed to indicate he had no interest in it, then somebody took him into a room...

MS. MATALIN: No, no.

MR. SHRUM: ...and said, “We can get something out of this.”

MS. MATALIN: Excuse me, Bob, you were not there.

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)

MR. SHRUM: Let me finish, Murphy. Murphy, let me finish because...

MS. MATALIN: You just make this stuff up. You’re wrong.

MR. SHRUM: I didn’t make it up.

MS. MATALIN: I was there when Bush...

MR. SHRUM: At first he indicated—he indicated at first he didn’t have much interest in it, then he went out and campaigned on it. But the point is, you demonized gay people. And I agree with you, by the way, we ought to get past identity politics.

MR. MURPHY: Well, but you’re in the middle of it right now, Bob.

MR. SHRUM: But not even you—not even you could have elected Larry Craig as an openly gay person in the state of Idaho because there’s a whole segment of the country that has decided that somehow the gay people are not legitimate. We need to include them in our society, we need to give them rights, we need to vote for hate crimes laws, not vote against them and then go into a bathroom stall.

MR. MURPHY: But, but the argument I would quibble with you on is when you say the president demeans gay people because he doesn’t support gay marriage, that’s what the Democrats do. They turn a policy debate into a personal attack on a whole sector of the population. And I think that is the Democratic...

MR. SHRUM: I’m not just talking about gays, I just said hate crimes.

MR. MURPHY: No, no, no. But you started out with gay marriage.

MR. SHRUM: And the president—why won’t the president support a hate crimes bill?

MR. MURPHY: The president’s against hate crimes. You guys just struck...

MR. SHRUM: Why won’t he support a bill to punish hate crimes?

MR. MURPHY: Oh, come on. Look’s...

MS. MATALIN: No, Bob, that’s not—you know what...

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)...discuss legislation and then you say we’re divisive because we won’t support your version of it.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me, let me, let me move on.

CONTINUED

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