SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): We need to ask those who voted for the war, how can you give the president a blank check and then act surprised when he decides to cash it?

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: And she tries to separate herself from the field.

(Videotape)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): Now, I’ve noticed that the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting a lot of attention from the men in this race.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The Republican presidential candidates parade their views in front of the Values Voters Summit and prepare for another debate tonight. The caucuses and primaries are just 10 weeks away, but we still don’t know the exact dates. Is this any way to elect a president? Insights and analysis from presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin; the National Review’s Kate O’Beirne; the author of “For Love of Politics: Bill and Hillary Clinton, the White House Years,” Sally Bedell Smith; and PBS’ Judy Woodruff.

Then, some much needed humor in our politics. Another candidate enters the race.

(Videotape)

MR. STEPHEN COLBERT: I shall seek the office of the president of the United States.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, right here, only on MEET THE PRESS.

Click for a book excerpt

'I Am America (And So Can You!)'

But first, the race for the White House heating up; the primaries and caucuses just 10 weeks away. Here to put it all in perspective, an extraordinary group of ladies.

Welcome, all.

MS. JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you.

MS. KATE O’BEIRNE: Thank you.

MS. SALLY BEDELL SMITH: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s go right to it. Barack Obama in Reno, Nevada. That caucus will be January 19^th.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, let’s watch what Senator Obama said about senators who voted for the war in Iraq, including Hillary Clinton. Here he is.

(Videotape)

SEN. OBAMA: They didn’t read the intelligence. They didn’t speak out or stand up to the president. The majority of Congress that voted to give the president the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day. So let’s be clear: Without that vote there would be no war.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Sharpening the difference, Barack Obama, Doris Kearns Goodwin. He says it’s a new season. Are we going to see more of this and will this resonate with primary voters?

MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think it has to, for his sake. I mean, I think it’s a complicated situation for him because on the one hand he’s presenting himself as a centrist who can bring people on either side of the party together, as he did in Illinois. But on the other hand, his supporters are saying, ‘We want you to be out there aggressive. We need something to define you and Hillary.’ And the biggest definition is this vote in Iraq. Because then he can argue that experience is not the only thing that matters. It’s judgment that matters.

But then she responds terrifically by saying, you know, all these men, they’re paying a lot of attention to me, and it’s great when you’re my age that they’re paying attention to me. And she laughs and can take a self-deprecating humor to it. So I think they’re both getting in some slogs at this point.

MR. RUSSERT: Is this the Obama we’re going to see in the last 10 weeks, trying to define those differences?

MS. WOODRUFF: Tim, he is walking a delicate line between, on the one hand, trying to be above the fray, the nongunslinger political candidate. On the other hand, as you just saw in that piece, he has got to begin to differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton. And it’s, it’s going to be a balancing act. The hope in his campaign right now is that he stays within striking distance; we know he’s running behind in the polls, but that he somehow pulls off an upset in, in Iowa. Then, maybe, at least is, is—does well enough--(clears throat) excuse me—in New Hampshire to stay in the game. (Clears throat) Excuse me. But then--(clears throat) excuse me—he is in a position to pull off a surprise. Because right now people are beginning to question—the people who’ve given his campaign money are beginning to question whether he is really in the game. And so he’s got to begin to make some of these differences.

MR. RUSSERT: That clearly is strategy. Win Iowa, go to New Hampshire, get those independent voters in his camp, go to South Carolina where half the Democrats are African-Americans who will then sense pride and the opportunity in having the first African-American president. But as Doris mentioned, Hillary Clinton is responding this way, talking about gender. Let’s watch.

(Videotape)

SEN. CLINTON: Now, I’ve noticed that the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting a lot of attention from the men in this race. And at first, you know, I didn’t know what to make of it. And then a good friend of mine said, “You know, when you get to be our age, having that much attention from all these men...”

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: This is the kind of headline this has generated, Kate O’Beirne. “Clinton shows femininity to court key constituency.

“Everywhere she goes, Hillary Clinton asks voters to help her make history as the first woman president.

“Yet Clinton is increasingly portraying herself more as motherly and traditional than as trailblazing and feminist, sometimes playing up the difference between men and women.

“Analysts also see a political calculation: She’s less popular among older, married women who are more likely to prefer a more traditional role for women. Clinton’s focus on women this week was a bid to consolidate her support among female voters, who account for much of her lead in many polls.

“On the campaign trail, voters see Clinton, who has long been a lightning rod in gender politics battles, trying to soften one persistent image of her as a strident career woman in a pantsuit. Through the years, she’s tried to overcome that persona, which dates in the national mind from Bill Clinton’s ‘92 run for the White House, when she derided the idea of staying home baking cookies.”

The gender card being played?

MS. O’BEIRNE: I think so, Tim. As you know, her campaign really believes that her candidacy will so enthuse women voters that she’ll be competitive places where another Democratic candidate might not be. Now, women voters don’t reliably vote for other women. Christie Todd Whitman’s races are instructive. Christie Todd Whitman, of course, won statewide in New Jersey twice as governor. The major of women in New Jersey never voted for Christie Todd Whitman. So it’s not a sure bet, so she has to, I think, soften her image to the benefit of an awful lot of women who don’t consider themselves feminists. And that self-deprecating humor, I think she demonstrably has a sort of softer appeal than certainly she had during the ‘90s, and I think she’s a more effective campaigner than she was during her Senate race in 2000. She now is talking about how inspirational her candidacy is. The women who over age 90 who come to her events, born before women were allowed to vote, so anxious to see a woman in the White House. But I can’t help thinking, for every 90-year-old woman welcoming her candidacy, her historic candidacy, there’s a 90-year-old man who just couldn’t stand Eleanor Roosevelt. So that’s the flip side of what she’s trying to do.

MR. RUSSERT: Sally Bedell Smith, your new book, “For Love of Politics: Bill and Hillary Clinton, the White House Years,” you write about her 2000 campaign in this way. And let me read it for you and our viewers.

“Hillary’s speech was heavy on issues and light on political ingratiation.

“Her approach reflected the campaign strategy devised by her cadre of consultants, led by Mark Penn. On the basis of focus-group research, they concluded that Hillary needed to emphasize competence and mastery of policy. For all the sympathy generated by her stoicism during the Lewinsky scandal, voters mistrusted her, and white suburban women were among her harshest critics. In videotaped discussions, they judged Hillary ‘threatening and unwomanly,’ ‘ruthless and greedy for power,’ ‘very controlling’ and ‘self-serving.’”

Very much the same strategy we’re seeing played out in 2008.

MS. SMITH: Well, I think that’s, I think that’s true. They’ve always thought that competence and fact—the fact-based aspect of it was the most important and that they would perhaps lose on personality because, really, when you—the—well, what I focused on in my book is this unique political bond that Bill and Hillary Clinton have. He is a natural when it comes to politics and she is not. And they constantly collaborate on her strategies and positions on issues and so forth. But, you know, she, she is, you know, she, she has, she has qualities that just are different from his.

MR. RUSSERT: Very much so. And Mark Penn, ironically, is still involved with Hillary Clinton. He has a new memo out this week called “Women Changing America,” to interested parties from make—Mark Penn, chief strategist. He says, “So perhaps the most important impact of women’s support for Hillary will be felt if” she’s “the party’s nominee. In our own polling, 94 percent of young women tell us they are more likely to turn out and vote if the first woman nominee appears on the ballot. Often, we have seen increased turnout for members of certain groups that make up a small part of the electorate. Women are 54 percent of the electorate, and even a 10 percent increase in turnout among women on top of the current polls would give Hillary a significant edge in a general election, opening up a wide number of states.”

Not surprisingly, Barack Obama’s pollster, Joel Benenson, said “Hold on, here’s my evidence to the contrary,” and this is what Obama said.

“Penn’s assertion is entirely baseless and refuted by a number of public polls. Moreover, these polls also indicate sizable defection among Democratic women should Senator Clinton be the nominee.

In a recent Cook/RT Strategies Poll, in a head-to-head match-up against Rudy Giuliani, Clinton won only 7 percent of Republican women voters.” Indeed, “indeed more Democratic women crossover to the Republican side to vote against Clinton--9 percent—than Republican women crossover to vote for her.”

The battle of the polls...

MS. WOODRUFF: Are we able to keep track of all this?

MR. RUSSERT: But it’s all about women in the primaries and, and in the general elections. Hillary Clinton needs a huge gender gap in order to win this White House.

MS. WOODRUFF: And, Tim, women are central to her strategy. They are a central part of her strategy. Her campaign believes that she is already doing very well with women in the Democratic primaries, women—especially women in the working class, middle class women, and, and projecting ahead to the general election, if she were the nominee. They think she has the—what they call the ability to be a transcendent factor to bring women out in somewhat larger numbers on the margins, not to sweep, I think, 24 percent of the Republican women’s vote, which I think is the figure that Mark Penn used, but to, but to bring even a marginal 2, 3, 4 percent, which in a close election, as you say, Tim, could be huge. Women are 54 percent—were in 2004, 54 percent of the electorate. And if, if the argument is made, as Kate said earlier, “You have the ability, when you go to the polls, to make history next Tuesday. You can wake up Wednesday morning and a woman will be president,” they believe there’s a small percentage of women out there who will buy into that.

MS. GOODWIN: I think that will take greater hold once the general election takes place.

MS. WOODRUFF: Yeah.

MS. GOODWIN: When it’s really clear that you might have a women president for the first time. The thing that I think that’s interesting between where Hillary is now and where she was when she ran for the Senate—from that first thing you put up—when she was running for the Senate, there was still that idea that she was the first lady, and there’s a gap in what we feel about what our first lady should be and what an independent candidate should be. There’s a sense in which the first lady should still be the first lady. So that sense that she was unwomanly and she was too powerful and he was wishy-washy connected to her, that’s less so today now that she’s running on her own. Even when Eleanor was first lady, women would come to the White House and say they got dust on their gloves because she wasn’t cleaning the White House. She shouldn’t be running around the country. But now she’s running in her own right. There’s an independence under her, and I think some of that anger about her has been softened because she’s her own person now, rather than the first lady.

MS. SMITH: She, she...

MS. O’BEIRNE: She’s better at what she does, though. Sally quotes her during her 2000 race, saying, “My god, Bill made this look so easy.” And, and I—that really made sense to me because, despite the partnership, he had always been the one out there. We all recognize his, his natural gifts. She has studied it, she has worked at it, and she’s just really better at it, I think, now though.

MS. SMITH: Well...

MR. RUSSERT: Sally Bedell Smith, there’s a wonderful quote in your book that she was unsentimental as Bill was mushy. She once wrote to a college friend, quote, “Unthinking emotion is pitiful to me.” And then a friend named Ann McCoy—a friend of hers from Arkansas—said, quote, “You get a hug from Bill and a solution from Hillary.”

MS. SMITH: Right, well that speaks to their vast differences in political styles. But when it comes to their approach to politics, their interest in policy, it, it is the glue that has held them together through many, many turbulent times. And, and it’s, and it’s, and it’s why I focused on this issue for my, for my book, because we are facing the unprecedented circumstance, and it hasn’t kind of come into view, that we could have two presidents in the White House who are married to each other. And the record of that is really in those eight years, that we, we need to look at the dynamic of that relationship and how it effected policies and politics and the whole conduct of the Clinton presidency. That is the—Hillary Clinton is running at least in part on her record as first lady, although they’re being rather vague about what that record is. And this is a book that offers the complete picture of how that played out and how it could play out with their roles reversed. They have deeply collaborative habits that go all the way back to Arkansas. I mean, this is a couple who are, who are—they’re so political, that when they celebrated their 25^th wedding anniversary they sat home. They didn’t go out for a romantic dinner. They sat home and they watched the presidential debate on, on television. They, they pick their vacation spots because swing voters like outdoorsy places. So this is, you know, this is something that’s absolutely...

MS. GOODWIN: Isn’t that what we all do? (Unintelligible)

MS. SMITH: Well.

MS. WOODRUFF: (Unintelligible)

MS. SMITH: (Unintelligible).

MS. O’BEIRNE: (Unintelligible)

MS. WOODRUFF: But we’re not normal.

MR. RUSSERT: Doesn’t everyone watch C-SPAN on a Saturday night?

MS. SMITH: Well, not really. But, but it has—but it, but it, seriously, when you think about the notion of two presidents, two extremely strong power centers in the White House, what are the implications? What if you’re contemplating being secretary of state, and you think of the notion of Bill Clinton being a goodwill ambassador around the world? Or what if you’re thinking of secretary of the treasury, and you understand perhaps the only difference that Bill and Hillary Clinton have is over free trade, and how do you get in the middle of that argument? That’s just not your ordinary marital spat.

MR. RUSSERT: You do focus on the relationship in your book, and you also invoke Eleanor Roosevelt. There’s a particular focus early on in your book about Eleanor, and you write this: “After Bill published his memoir in 2004, he came close to defining their marital dynamic in a discussion with public radio interviewer Terry Gross about the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who worked in tandem in the White House but led separate private lives after she learned about his affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. Musing about Roosevelt, Bill Clinton said...” And here’s his actual words with NPR.

(Audiotape from “Fresh Air,” June 24, 2004)

FMR. PRES. BILL CLINTON: He and his wife had a very complicated relationship. They loved each other very much. They had a bunch of kids, but they had big pockets of estrangement between them then and pain, and they, they rendered enormous service to this country because they stuck with what they had in common. I mean that’s fascinating to me.

(End audiotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Doris.

MS. GOODWIN: Wow. That’s one of the most interesting things I’ve heard Bill Clinton say. I mean, what it does is create the parallel, and I think rightly so, between Franklin and Eleanor and he and Hillary. Because Franklin and Eleanor, ever after she found out about Lucy Mercer, she could forget, but she couldn’t fully forgive. And when I was working on the book, I kept wanting to say to Eleanor, “Just forget about it. He loves you! I know he loves you.” I’d say to Franklin, “Franklin, stop it! I know you love her!” But they had this indissoluble bond. They had this connection to one another that was able to override the fact. They also had a similar dynamic in their relationship, just as Hillary’s more methodical, more disciplined, more focused, less spontaneous, so was Eleanor. He has the better political feel, as did FDR. But in the end they create a sort of a unit, just as you talk about in your book, that transcends these real hurts. But the fact that Bill Clinton is talking about those hurts so openly, I thought that was fabulously interesting.

MR. RUSSERT: Go ahead.

MS. SMITH: But, but at the same time, it, it strikes me that Eleanor Roosevelt was almost more independent of Franklin than Hillary is of Bill. They—there’s a—there’s kind of a codependency that, that continues. He—for example, he reads all the books and underlines them for her. I mean, she relies on him for so much. When they were in the—in the White House before, he was the one who said to the Time magazine editors before he took office, when they asked him “Who’s going to be in the room when you have to make a big decision?” He said, “Hillary.” He didn’t say the vice president. And I think that dynamic is now reversed. She’s very dependent on him. She—Mark Penn, in the, in the Senate race in 2000 used to use whole phrases from Bill Clinton’s speeches in her speeches. And, and so they, you know, they, they, they still have, whether they’re miles apart, they are still in constant contact. So she’s very, very dependent on him.

MS. GOODWIN: But, you know, Sally, once you become your own person running, as Eleanor after he died had to become her own person, she said she learned how to be a better political figure because she couldn’t depend on him. And I think, to a certain extent, she’s going to have to become more independent as this goes on, and I think she already is.

MR. RUSSERT: And Doris Kearns Goodwin, Peggy Noonan points out that Hillary’s been—Hillary Clinton’s been quoting Eleanor Roosevelt, saying “Women are like tea bags, you never know how strong they are until they get in hot water.”

CONTINUED

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Next >

Discuss Story On Newsvine
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh
Email
Instant Message
Print