‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Dec. 23, 2007

Let's turn to the Democrats.  Here's the latest national poll.  Shows Hillary Clinton comfortably ahead 45, 23, 13.  But when you go to the states it's a much different story.  Here's two polls.  One, Clinton is up 30, 28, 26; the other it's Obama, 33; Clinton, 29; Edwards is at 20.

Then in New Hampshire, Obama--poll out this morning, Boston Globe--now pulling ahead of Hillary Clinton, in New Hampshire, 30; Clinton, 28; Edwards, 14; Richardson, 7.  But the Gallup poll had it tied 32, 32, Edwards, 18.

South Carolina, this is the poll.  Obama, 35; Clinton, 35; Edwards, 13.  And look at the breakdown now.  Hillary Clinton comfortably ahead with whites, Obama's third.  Blacks, who make up half the South Carolina Democratic primary, vote he's now comfortably ahead.

What does that tell you, Chuck Todd?

MR. TODD:  Well, it's interesting.  The Obama folks, and the Clinton folks right now will tell you that the one candidate they're worried about is John Edwards in Iowa as far as this point.  And I think it's interesting that when you have both camps saying they're both worried about this same guy, it tells you something's going on.  And this is what's so wild about Iowa compared to the other two states.  The other two states are two-person races.  Iowa is not.  It's a true three-way.  If anything, you get the sense that actually Obama and Edwards are now suddenly fighting it out for first and second, and Clinton is almost standing back saying, "OK, I'm going to go on this, I'm going to go on this final tour of Iowa and say it's time to choose a president.  You know, play `I'm the adult here.  Let them fight it out.'" And either hope she gets a John Kerry-like, John Kerry-like bounce, or Edwards ends up pulling out Iowa and she can suddenly weaken Obama and the others.

MR. RUSSERT:  If Hillary can't win Iowa herself, she would prefer that Barack lose to John Edwards.

MR. TODD:  Absolutely.

MR. HARWOOD:  Completely.

MR. TODD:  And, and by the way, she also doesn't want to lose to Obama.  I mean, one of the things that--they don't mind second place, but they certainly--you know, it's sort of like option one is winning.  Option two is fin...

MR. RUSSERT:  If Edwards, if Edwards won Iowa, could he catapult into New Hampshire and South Carolina?  Does he have the resources?

MR. TODD:  I think--I don't know if he has the resources after South Carolina.  I think the fact is he's not--he's not as far back in New Hampshire as he was four years ago when he couldn't get the bounce.  I think he can do, do the bounce.  But the problem they've got is, if it's a three-way--what if it's 32-31-30?  OK?  And, and Clinton's a 30 and, and Edwards is a 32.  Is that a victory?  It's probably not a victory at that point, and then you sort of move on and that's where Edwards could get lost.  I think he--if he wins Iowa, he needs a little bit of pad between first and second.

MR. RUSSERT:  If Obama wins Iowa, John Harwood, what happens?

MR. HARWOOD:  Well, if Obama wins Iowa, he's got a rocket going in to New Hampshire, and we've seen from this Globe poll that he's in a very strong position.  He will be hard to stop if he wins the Iowa caucuses.  But it's so interesting the games that people are playing and the positioning. The--Hillary Clinton would much rather lose to Edwards than Obama.  John Edwards has got to beat Obama in Iowa to make himself viable.  So everybody's got an angle to play.

MR. RUSSERT:  Electability is such a big issue for the candidates, saying "I'm the one who can go into November and win this election for the Democratic Party." The national polls, interesting on some of those issues, and the Obama people have been touting them.  Here's positive/negative on Barack Obama:  46, 26.  Hillary Clinton, the same poll, her positives 42, her negatives 44.  When you go head-to-head, Clinton beats Giuliani 46, 43; Obama, he wins 49-to-40. In terms of Clinton/Huckabee, Clinton wins 46-44; Obama, he wins 48-to-36. They get the same Democratic vote, but Obama does better with Republicans and he wins independents.  Clinton loses Republicans over...(unintelligible)...and loses independents.  Do voters care about this?

MR. HARWOOD:  Sure they care about it.  And they're going to be making assessments of these candidates all through the year, and the electability argument is something that's got some juice for Obama.  Let me tell you a story.  I was with an old school friend recently.  Classic Reagan Democrat, works in the auto body business, had a copy of the Lou Dobbs book, "War on the Middle Class" on his kitchen table.  And he said, `You know, I've been voting Republican for years, but I've decided they're for the rich.  I'm sick of the Republicans.' And I said, `Oh, so you're prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton?' He said, `Never.' There are millions of people like that.  How they decide this could impact what's going to happen in the general election.

MR. RUSSERT:  The campaign between Clinton and Obama's gotten a bit testy. This was Jake Tapper, ABC broke this story:  "The campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton has registered the names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival," "Barack Obama.  It's the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a Web site with the express purpose of launching serious criticisms on a rival." And we saw this brochure put out in Iowa from AFSCME.  We'll put it on the screen here and share it.  That's the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.  "Barack Obama's healthcare plan is not up to the job.  John Edwards has said `as many as 15 million Americans would be without coverage'" "under Obama's plan." Quoting Edwards attacking Obama, paid for by a union that is supporting Hillary Clinton.

MR. TODD:  Even better, the head of that union is not for a healthcare mandate, Jerry McEntee.  So...

MR. RUSSERT:  Which is what Clinton's for.

MR. TODD:  Which is what Clinton's for.  So it really is sort of--you want to talk why Iowa is three-dimensional chess, it is the ultimate--I think it's more five-dimensional chess, if there's such a thing.  But it is--look, you want to have Edwards and Obama look like they're muddying each other up. Yesterday they had this big spat over third party groups.  Clinton, at this point, is now hoping to play what John--the role John Edwards was playing two weeks ago, which was, "Well, I'm standing on the sidelines just trying to talk about being president.  Let these two kids fight in the schoolyard." She's kind of hoping for the same thing.

Quick note, though, on these third party groups.  In the last--we're now 11 days?--pro-Edwards advertising is going to outspend now pro-Clinton and pro-Obama advertising in Iowa.  That is a stunning thing, because you have this new third party 527 funded by the SEIU, and it is now spending more on TV advertising, frankly, than even John Edwards.

MR. RUSSERT:  Is he denying that he knows anything about it?

MR. TODD:  He is denying that he knows anything about it.  They're campaign is officially saying please stop.  But of course, you know...

MR. RUSSERT:  How can a crusader against special interest money be helped by special interest money buying TV commercials that assist his candidacy?

GOV. ROMNEY:  Well, which is what Obama criticized him for yesterday.  And Edwards did feel on the defensive as the day went on.  Reporters beat him up over this, because he, in 2004, said that George Bush could have stood up to the swift boat guys and could have said, "Stop doing these ads." And by the end of the day...

MR. HARWOOD:  Tim, this is part of, this is part of our system in the post McCain-Feingold world.  It's baked into the cake for every candidate, both political parties.

MR. RUSSERT:  Here's Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton on Thursday, without ever mentioning her name.  Let's watch.

(Videotape)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL):  Now, I'm not going to mention names, but, I mean, the notion that I'm, I'm, you know, that a viability or electability argument is being made by somebody who starts off with almost half the country not being willing to vote for them doesn't make much sense.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  John Harwood, does that work?

MR. HARWOOD:  Well, he's going to try to make it work.  And you look at our poll numbers and there's some support for it.  But nobody can credibly argue that Hillary Clinton cannot win the election next year.  I think she trades in a narrower band than, than Obama; that her floor and ceiling are closer to one another.  Obama, depending on how he handles the experience argument in general election, could fall further and could rise further because of the potential unifying factor in his candidacy.  But look, Democrats go into this 2008 campaign with the upperhand, and that's going to benefit whoever's the nominee...

MR. RUSSERT:  Clinton...

MR. HARWOOD:  ...even if they have negatives.

MR. RUSSERT:  The Clinton campaign counters that by the time Obama became the nominee, his negatives would be almost as high as hers, so please don't...

MR. TODD:  It's a fair--look, eight years ago at this time Bill Bradley had a better rating than Al Gore in national polls, and John McCain had a better rating than George Bush in national polls.  And at the end of the day, neither one of those guys won their respective nominations.  So we should keep that in mind.

MR. RUSSERT:  Now, all these candidates have special Christmas TV commercials.  Did any of them work?

MR. TODD:  Look, I think the only one that worked is the one we all are still talking about, Mike Huckabee's ad.  He was the first one up, and it's the only one we seem to be talking about.

MR. RUSSERT:  It's a brilliant ad.  The other ones are clever, too.  Hillary Clinton's got an ad where she's looking for Christmas presents, and, "Oh, I forgot universal healthcare," or whatever it was.

MR. RUSSERT:  Ron Paul has his family singing, Barack Obama has his two young girls.

MR. HARWOOD:  He's got his kids saying Merry Christmas.

MR. RUSSERT:  John McCain, John Ed--everybody has one.

MR. TODD:  McCain's is strong, too, and he uses a cross.  The drawing of the cross in the, in the line, and talking about--he's at least in message.

MR. RUSSERT:  But...

MR. HARWOOD:  Edwards is a little pugnacious.  But look, everybody's got to navigate this unfamiliar calendar.  Nobody knows how voters are going to react to what goes on between Christmas and New Year's, and they're trying to be careful.

MR. RUSSERT:  Well, you know, MEET THE PRESS has not been spared in this Christmas season by the funny papers.  The cartoonist, "Bizarro," Don Piraro, decided this was funny.  "Santa Meets Timmy Russert:  Let me remind you" "on December 12th, 1957, you said, `I will get you that red bike.'"

MR. TODD:  So you didn't get a red bike?

MR. RUSSERT:  No, I never got the red bike.

MR. TODD:  You never got the red bike.

MR. RUSSERT:  But I put it up on the screen for fat boy to remind him.  He better show this year.

MR. HARWOOD:  What you got for Christmas is Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama next Sunday.  That's going to be a great show.

MR. TODD:  I--we've all got what we want for Christmas.  It's this race. Unbelievable.

MR. RUSSERT:  Two races, two parties, two nominations and nobody knows who's going to win.

MR. HARWOOD:  I sure don't.  Maybe Chuck does.

MR. TODD:  Six plausible presidents, six plausible presidents at this point.

MR. RUSSERT:  Chuck Todd...

MR. TODD:  It's unbelievable.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...John Harwood, thanks very much.  We'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  That's all for today.  Reminder, next week we'll be live in Iowa.  Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Just four days before the Iowa caucuses, and MEET THE PRESS will be there.  If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy holidays.

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