‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Nov. 25, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  I think that’s how Obama’s trying to shape it.

MR. SHRUM:  I don’t...

MR. RUSSERT:  Hillary Clinton’s trying to shape it, “Hey, I’ve been there, I have experience.  This, this guy’s wet behind the ears.”

MR. SHRUM:  But, but the problem for her is that experience is not driving this race.  And if they decide—this primary race.  And if voters decide that he has enough experience, then they can move on and pick him for change.  Now, I’m not sure it was the smartest thing in the world to go out and say my most important foreign policy experience is that I lived four years overseas when I was in elementary school.  On the other hand, every time people here have thought he’s made a terrible mistake, like “I would talk to our enemies,” of “If I found Osama bin Laden in the mountains, I’d go kill him, even if the Pakistanis didn’t want to,” I think he’s won that argument with the voters. I’m not sure she wants to protract this argument.  I think she’s needs to get to a place where she’s giving Iowa voters a reason not to disqualify Obama but to be positively for her as some kind of agent of change.

MR. MURPHY:  Yeah.  The minute she goes on the attack grind, which is their natural instinct there—because it’s the typical political instinct you have when you’re in trouble, grind down the opponent—she puts herself in the position where Obama can attack her for the old-style politics which resonates to his big change message, which is the power pushing him forward.  She’s in a tough box on this.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me show you another exchange.  This was on the whole issue of the economy and who had more experience.  Here’s Hillary Clinton and then Barack Obama.

(Videotape)

SEN. CLINTON:  There is one job we can’t afford on the job training for, that is the job of our next president.  That could be the costliest job training in history.

SEN. OBAMA:  My understanding is that she wasn’t treasury secretary in the Clinton administration.

(End videotape)

MR. CARVILLE:  I...

MR. RUSSERT:  You’re laughing, Mary.

MS. MATALIN:  I love it.  You know, it’s just—I, I love this race.  The problem with the Democrats, and I don’t pretend to understand your psychological dynamics...

MR. SHRUM:  But we’ll get to yours in a few minutes.

MS. MATALIN:  ...they all have problems with foreign policy because they have no foreign policy.  Their entire foreign policy is to be out of Iraq.  They have—she’s the only one that’s said anything sort of forward looking and dynamic.  On Iran...

MR. SHRUM:  Don’t help her again.

MS. MATALIN:  I’m just saying there’s no foreign policy, there’s no economic policy.  We keep talking about this being a change race, and she says, “Well, change is just an empty word unless you have the experience to do something to get it done.” No.  Change is an empty word unless you can answer “Change to what?” They have had one and only one foreign policy—two, I take it back. They’re against Iraq, and they’re against anything that Bush is for.  So her problem is his problem.  It’s their whole party’s problem.

MR. CARVILLE:  OK, I’ve got to comment on this because—when, when President Clinton was in the White House, it was always “Hillary Clinton’s got too much power over there.  She’s running the show.  Hillary Clinton has her hands in everything.” Now she’s running for president, you’d think that she had nothing to do with the administration.  The truth of the matter is, is, look, Roger Altman, Gene Sperling, these guys know something’s wrong with this economy. The, the people she’s surrounded with are very, very experienced at this kind of thing.  And she did have something—she did have a lot to do with decisions that were made in there.  She was an involved first lady.  I mean, you, you can’t have it both ways.  Attack her when she was in there for having too much power, then when she gets out, then you say, gee, she had none.  But the truth of the matter is, I think Senator Obama understands that there’s, there’s fundamental and deep problems with this economy, also.  But I think her argument is actually not a bad one, in this case.

MR. RUSSERT:  But the Obama strategy seems to be, Mike Murphy, well, what is the real experience?  Does first lady qualify you to be president?

MR. MURPHY:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  And secondly, in terms of these issues, what’s more important, experience or judgment?

MR. MURPHY:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  That’s what he’s trying to go after.

MR. MURPHY:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  And on the other hand, what she’s able to point out is “I have been on the political scene and have been on the—bearing the brunt of the Republican attack machine.  I’m the best suited to handle a general election.”

MR. MURPHY:  Right.  She’s—it’s a classic case of each side trying to frame the, the race their way.  And she wants to make it the traditional experience race.  The problem is, as Bob has said earlier, in a change election, that has less traction.  So Obama’s taking it to kind of the, the character of change—who’s new, who’s fresh, who’s different, who thinks differently.  And Obama’s strength is that his message, I believe anyway, is more in sync with kind of the greater forces that are at work in the primary, which—and, and the way—we all know—primaries move very, very late, which is why for a year we’ve heard nothing but “Hillary Clinton’s inevitable, it’s over.” Now that the voters are tuning in, as opposed to us insiders, and the real dynamic, the election, is kind of coming up through the floorboards, grabbing everything, we’ll see.  I think, you know, it’s close now, it could go either way, way in Iowa.  If she wins Iowa, she’ll put it away, but if she doesn’t...

MR. CARVILLE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. MURPHY:  And it won’t be her fault.  You know, for all the talk we like to do about campaigns, sometimes a candidate just doesn’t fit the times.  And that’ll be, I think, the obituary on Hillary Clinton if she doesn’t win the nomination, I think.

MR. RUSSERT:  Elizabeth Edwards, Bob Shrum, wife of John Edwards, probably his most effective surrogate...

MR. SHRUM:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...has been out campaigning very—rather vigorously.  This is—was her take on whether or not John Edwards should be criticizing Hillary Clinton and her position on the issues.  Here’s Elizabeth Edwards.

(Videotape)

MS. ELIZABETH EDWARDS:  (From “Morning Joe”) If you allow just gauzy answers and—to flow one into the other, and you don’t make those distinctions, what are the—what’s the American public supposed to do in terms of deciding whom they should support?

You can’t put a placard and become the change candidate.  You actually have to have policies and a perspective which indicates you’re going to change things, you’re going to shake things up, you’re going to make certain that the voices that have not been heard in this country finally get heard, that the policies reflect what America wants and needs.  That’s not what’s happening now.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  John Edwards has been very aggressive about Hillary Clinton’s positions on issues.

MR. SHRUM:  Yeah, the Clinton campaign is smart.  They’re trying to dismiss all of the attacks as, somehow or other, they’re out of the Republican playbook, therefore unworthy.  It’s a little like what happened in 1996 when every time Bob Dole would have a difference with Bill Clinton in one of the debates, the president would turn to him and say, ‘Let’s debate issues, not insults.’ So I think that’s smart.

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