‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Nov. 18, 2007

MS. IFILL:  And for every moment that you’re not talking—that you’re talking about immigration, you’re not talking about Iran, you’re not talking about Pakistan, you’re not talking about Iraq.

MR. TODD:  Is that a bad thing?

MS. IFILL:  And that is—that’s not a bad thing to the Republican Party, which is why—which is part of what’s going on.

MR. YORK:  Do you—do you know what’s amazing?  In town meeting with, with John McCain in Iowa, and, of course, somebody always brings up immigration. And he almost jumped down the guy’s throat.  He said, “I got the message.  I got the message.” And the message is we have to secure the borders first.  So even the man who was really associated with comprehensive immigration reform has backed off.

MR. DIONNE:  You know, when you hear Giuliani and Romney, in particular, on some of these issues, immigration notably, the words that come to mind are flip, flop, flip, flop.  And you’re seeing this on a lot of issues.  Very interesting difference between governors and presidential candidates.  In, in both these debates, you’ve seen governors like Huckabee and Bill Richardson take the practical approach.  Richardson said, “Yeah, I gave driver’s licenses.  It made sense.” Huckabee says, “Isn’t it better to educate these kids so that they can move on?” What you have with Giuliani and Romney is they’re trying to move away from the positions they took when they actually had to run a city or a state, and they’re trying to be ideological.  And I think YouTube is their biggest enemy right now, because everybody’s going to be able to see these changes in position over and over again if they want to.

MR. RUSSERT:  Mayor Giuliani ahead in the national polls.  Mitt Romney, as we showed you, ahead in Iowa, ahead in New Hampshire.  Giuliani’s ahead in national polls.  A couple interesting developments over the last few weeks for Rudy Giuliani.  Here’s how his home city Daily News in New York played the story:  “Lies & Cons on Rudy’s Watch.  Bernard Kerik lied, schemed and sold out the city—all under the nose of his mentor and pal, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

“That is the stark portrait painted in the 16-count indictment unsealed in White Plains Federal Court almost exactly one year before Election Day 2008.”

And then the mayor responded this way:  “Bernie Kerik worked for me while I was mayor of New York City.  There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik.  But what’s the ultimate result for the people of New York City?  The ultimate result was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, and a 60 percent reduction in crime.  Sure, there were issues, but if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape.” Does that settle it, Byron?

MR. YORK:  It, it does not settle it.  Although, I mean, he actually has a point.  I mean, he, he says, “look, I appointed thousands and thousands of people.” And his campaign aides said to me, you know, “If you’ve got someone you’ve appointed and he’s doing a bad job and he’s not showing up, he’s—then you worry about him.” They felt that Bernie Kerik did a great job.  But it’s, it’s not going to go away.

MS. IFILL:  Do they really think that’s going to work?

MR. YORK:  Well, it’s, it’s, it’s one guy.  I think obviously where he went too far was, was pushing him for homeland security.

MS. IFILL:  More than one guy.

MR. DIONNE:  He was one of the closest aides he had.  I mean, one of the funny things the Daily News reported is they named the prison after Bernie Kerik.  Of course, now he’s recently been indicated they’ve taken his name off the prison.

MR. RUSSERT:  (Unintelligible).

MR. DIONNE:  I think that you have to—I agree that people appoint a lot of people.  When it’s a guy who was this close to you, you have to ask a lot of questions, which is why Time magazine this week has an enormous story on this. I think this is the first time something out of Mayor Giuliani’s record has really gotten traction in the national discussion.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Yeah.  And the fact, I think, it is a reminder that if he is the nominee, we—time will begin again, the morning after.  We will begin to explore the New York record and debate it and discuss it in a way that we haven’t so far.

Can I make one other point about Giuliani?  Fascinating to me that—the contrast between the two races.  If you look at Gallup polling in mid-April, Rudy Giuliani was at 38 and Hillary Clinton was at 37 nationally.  Today she is at 48 nationally; he is at 28.  The Democratic race has consolidated around a single candidate and a single question, really.  Do you want Hillary Clinton as the nominee, I think, is the driving question.  The Republican race continues to fragment.  I mean, we really—it is extraordinary to be this late into the season and not have a single Republican candidate at 30 percent, not have a clear indication of whether the winner of Iowa will be able to—whether Romney or certainly if it’s Huckabee somehow—will be able to translate that into states down the road.  It really is a very fluid and almost unprecedentedly open situation on the Republican side.

MS. IFILL:  But you could argue that Republicans are also asking that same question—“Do you want Hillary Clinton to be president?”—and using it to their advantage.

MR. TODD:  Well, it’s interesting, you know, I think the Republican race, you know, you’re seeing now Giuliani’s made the decision to spend more resources now in Iowa, because Iowa’s, oddly, wide open as we’ve noted, you know...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Yeah.           

MR. TODD:  ...we’ve noted because there’s—I think it’s turned into two races:  the race for first between Romney and Huckabee and then the race for third.  Because the candidate that finishes fourth, which will be possibly Giuliani, possibly Fred Thompson, John McCain’s now apparently withdrawing, which I think’s actually going to be a big mistake for him in the long run. But you have that, too, so the candidate that finishes third, you know, Giuliani could pull a Michael Dukakis here.  If you remember, when Dukakis finished third in the Iowa caucuses, it was a victory.  “Hey, look, the Northeasterner came in here and, and was the top non-Midwesterner in the, in the field.” So Giuliani can say “I came in late and used”—and you could see how he could benefit, particularly if Huckabee won New Hampshire—excuse me—won Iowa and then Giuliani could use it to leapfrog...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Just one very quick qualification.  The history of Iowa influencing what comes next is much less consistent than the history of New Hampshire.  So that it’s just something to keep in mind.

MR. TODD:  Five days, though.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  It, it, it can...

MR. TODD:  Five days.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  It can—it can affect it, but is not—New Hampshire is a big deal always.  Iowa, it goes back and forth.

MR. DIONNE:  But how much of this race has already changed?  Think of what Chuck just said.  It’s a race between Romney and Huckabee.  Huckabee’s name wouldn’t have been mentioned on a panel like this two months ago.  That’s remarkable.

MR. TODD:  Right.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  But if Huckabee still comes in fifth in New Hampshire five days later, did the tree, did the tree really fall in the forest, or, you know, did we...

MR. TODD:  But how it affects first and second, though...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  I mean, we’ll see.  We’ll see.

MR. TODD:  ...and we know that it could—because there’s no way Romney could lose Iowa and win New Hampshire.  I say no way, I mean, I’m sure anything’s possible.  But that is what, what makes this Republican race so nuts.

MR. RUSSERT:  Byron, what’s your sense of the Republican race right now?

MR. YORK:  Well, in, in Iowa, Mitt Romney has aired commercials 5,000 times, and Rudy Giuliani has aired commercials zero times.  My sense is that it’s, it’s still quite fluid.  In the latest University of Iowa poll, 70 percent of the people who said they were for Mitt Romney said they might change their mind and support somebody else.  Sixty percent of the people who supported Giuliani did, 50 percent of Thompson, 53 percent of Huckabee.  Everybody says they might change their mind.  So my sense is right now is the polls even in Iowa just don’t matter.

MR. RUSSERT:  But if Romney did win Iowa and did win New Hampshire...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Mm.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...then what happens?

MR. YORK:  That’s, that’s very, very strong momentum.  You know, you talk to Giuliani and he has a strategy in which he kind of sort of counts backwards from February 5^th and the Florida primary, the big, big primaries, and now is moving into Iowa to try to do better than expected.  But if, if a single candidate wins Iowa and then New Hampshire—Romney has done very strongly in, in South Carolina in the last couple of weeks—that momentum is going to be very hard to stop.

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  Gerald Ford, the last Republican I believe to win, as a sitting president, to win both Iowa and New Hampshire.

MR. TODD:  And the calendar really—and you know, it’s weird.  The Democratic calendar’s actually a little spread out in January, where there’s a gap, a, I think, major gap, that’ll happen between New Hampshire and South Carolina with a big fight.  Not on the Republican side because of Michigan and because it’s so—boy, that momentum’s going to be stopped.  I think the Giuliani people know it, which is why you’re seeing them now coming to Iowa, and you’re seeing them...

MR. BROWNSTEIN:  It’s hard to wait.

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