‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Sept. 2, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  Murphy.

MR. MURPHY:  Luckily for the country, the real debate, and Clinton’s doing this, to her credit, is moving not to what people will vote for, Bob, but what’s right for the country.  It’s a cafeteria of bad choices.  Petraeus is going to show us some progress.  We ought to be adults about that.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re going to take a break.  We’re going to come back and talk about the Democrats.  We’ll be right back after this.

MR. MURPHY:  Wait, she’s trying to kill me!

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  The race for the White House through the eyes of Carville, Matalin, Murphy and Shrum right after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we are back.

Let’s go to the Democrats.  Hillary Clinton, comfortable lead in all the national polls.  Here’s the latest on Iowa from Time magazine.  Look at this: John Edwards, 29; Hillary Clinton, 24; Barack Obama, 22; Bill Richardson, 11; the rest of the field down at the bottom, less than that.  And here’s the analysis from the Time magazine pollster, grouped like this:  “One reason the race remains fluid is that Iowa caucusgoers see strengths and weaknesses in each candidate.  Among the top four candidates, likeability:  Edwards, 32;” “Obama, 30;” “‘most likeable,’” “Clinton” “at 12 percent, below Richardson” at 16.  “Leadership:  Clinton holds a commanding lead over second-ranked Edwards, 36 to 23,” “Obama at 20, Richardson, 9.” “Special interests,” taking them on: “Obama dominates the ‘change in Washington’ category,” “a 10-point lead over Edwards, 35-25,” Clinton’s third, 19; Richardson, 7.  “Handling of Iraq,” it’s “Clinton, 27,” over “Obama, 19; Edwards, 18”; “Richardson, 16.” Protecting against terrorism, Clinton leads the field by a wide margin, picked by 27 percent,” “Edwards at 19,” Obama, 15; Richardson, 14.

James Carville, what does your old boss Hillary Clinton think of that?

MR. CARVILLE:  Well, I mean, first of all, I, I, I think that my old boss has to feel pretty good about her campaign so far.  And, and, and I say that as, obviously, as someone who’s very sympathetic to her both politically and, and, and personally.  But she’s performed exceptionally well, make no mistakes. And if you look at that poll in Iowa, that’s actually, compared to where she was six months ago, that’s pretty improved performance for her.

Having said that, I know this about my old boss, she, she doesn’t suffer under any illusions.  She knows she’s in a very talented field.  She knows that Iowa’s a, a, a very tough state.  Terry McAuliffe told me a couple of weeks ago that Governor Vilsack was—saw the field better, and I think he’s got his, his ear to the ground.  But, but, look, this is going to be, this is going to be a tough battle.  Edwards has been there, he ran well in, in 2004 in Iowa. He’s been working hard.  Obama’s got an enormous amount of enthusiasm.  This thing could, could get, could get interesting before it is.

I did think one interesting thing in that poll, I might add.  If you would’ve told anybody in the Democratic Party at the beginning of this year that Hillary would have the best Iraq numbers in the Iowa caucusgoers, we would have never thought that.  That was a pretty amazing political feat on the part of her and her campaign.

MR. RUSSERT:  One issue in which she received a lot of criticism from her fellow Democrats was terrorism.  She has been very critical of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove for politicizing the war on terror, and yet these were her comments in New Hampshire about that issue.

(Videotape, August 23, 2007)

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-NY):  If certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it.

So I think I’m the best of the Democrats to deal with that.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  She playing the terrorism card?

MR. CARVILLE:  Well, I don’t—I mean, a, a—you, you cannot go to a Democratic event, or a—or any event where somebody doesn’t ask a question, what would happen to the politics if there were a terrorist attack in the country between now and Election Day?  That, that’s something that people ask about.  And I don’t know, my guess is, is that she might have even been addressing a question that she got when she was answering that question.  But I do think that she makes an important point, and, and I think all, all Democrats are aware of this, is that—and, and the polls now show that we’re even with the Republicans on protecting against terrorism, that she’s saying, “I’m not ceding that ground to any Republican.” And I—that’s probably her larger point, and I think it’s a very good one.

MR. RUSSERT:  But Chris Dodd and other Democrats said, “Wait a minute, Hillary, you’ve gone too far, suggesting that you’re better on the war on terrorism than we are, and you’re using it as a political wedge issue.”

MR. SHRUM:  Well, I think they’re just taking the opportunity to use it as a political wedge issue against her.  I think it’s one of the few missteps she’s made in what has been a very well-executed campaign.  It was an extemporaneous remark.

But look, we got to take the national polls and throw them out.  They don’t matter.  We got to take the Iowa poll and read it the right way.  What it says is that Iowa voters are shopping.  They’re going to move around, certainly among these top three candidates.  In the last three or four weeks before the caucuses, they’re going to make a decision and move in the direction of one candidate.  If Obama wins, for example, I think he could take off like a rocket.  I think John Edwards has been a real candidate in this race all along because of Iowa.  It’s a trap; he has to win it.  But if he does win it, he’s in strong shape.  And if Hillary wins it, she could conceivably close down the process.  But we have to think about this as a long game.  I think Obama is. I think Clinton is.  We can’t look at this today and say where this is going to go.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re four months away, but we’re closing in.

MR. CARVILLE:  Yeah.

MR. MURPHY:  She was telling the truth.  I give her credit for it.

Here’s what I’d be worried about if I were in the Clinton world, which, of course, a planet I’ll never land on.  But still, the Iowa caucus is likely now to be even closer to New Hampshire, which means the bounce from Iowa is going to be more powerful than ever.  You look at these Iowa numbers, you’ve got Hillary, who’s very well-known and a bit polarizing, running a good campaign, but with inherent candidate problems.  If one of the lesser candidates—Richardson, who’s bought his way of some clever advertising, with 12 or 13 points, starts to falter or John Edwards runs out of money—and that vote becomes loose, I’m not sure it breaks to Hillary Clinton if Obama really gets his act together and steps up his game a click or two.  Then you have a very bad situation for Hillary Clinton in Iowa with very little time to recover through a very bounce-heavy primary schedule.

MR. CARVILLE:  I think, also, if either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama wins, it’s going to be much more significant than if Senator Edwards does.

MR. MURPHY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. CARVILLE:  I mean, for, A, they’re much, much better funded.

MR. SHRUM:  Right.

MR. CARVILLE:  They can go on.  It, it, it can be much more of a knockout punch in that sense.  If, if, if Senator Edwards wins by two points and they all sort of bunch together, it’s probably going to be less meaningful.  If somebody, if either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is perceived to have come on strong at the end, then they’re going to go into—and as Mike points out, if you have that five, only a five-day lag time between Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s going to make an enormous amount of difference.

MR. RUSSERT:  One of the issues that Mary Matalin raised was financing the campaigns.  This is a picture that appeared all across the country this week. Norman Hsu and Hillary Clinton.  He’s a fund-raiser from California.  It turns out he was on the lam for a charge that he’s now turned himself in for.  The Clinton campaign originally said that there was no question about his integrity.  They’ve now changed their mind, have returned.  They’re giving the contributions to charity.

The Republicans have seized on this, Mary Matalin.  Here’s the—Hillary Clinton’s biography called “Living History.” And now the Republican Web site has renamed it “Re-Living History,” and they’re alluding to this man, Johnny Chung, a fund-raiser for the Clintons back in the first Clinton term who was infamous for this quote, “I see the White House is like a subway.  You have to put coins to open the gates.” Is this the kind of issue that is going to create difficulty for Hillary Clinton, or is it something that all politicians do?

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Oct. 5: Paul Begala, Mike Murphy, Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Peggy Noonan and David Yepsen Sept. 28: Fmr. President Bill Clinton, Steve Schmidt, David Axelrod, Rep. Mark Udall (D), Fmr. Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) Sept. 21: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, N.Y.C. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Steve Pearlstein, Steve Liesman, Erin Burnett Sept. 14: Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Bob Woodward, Chuck Todd Sept. 7: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Tom Friedman Aug. 31: Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), political roundtable Aug. 24: Caroline Kennedy, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), political roundtable Aug. 17: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), political roundtable Remembering Tim Russert   Images: The life of the political journalist Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: