'Meet the Press' transcript for Jan. 20, 2008

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Senator John McCain wins the Republican South Carolina primary. In Nevada, it's Romney for the GOP and Clinton for the Democrats. What now? A look at the candidates, the issues, the strategies. With us: Tom Brokaw of NBC News, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, Peggy Noonan, columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Michele Norris, host of NPR's "All Things Considered."

But first, let's look at the results from last night's voting. First, the South Carolina Republicans. John McCain, 33 percent; Mike Huckabee, 30; Fred Thompson, 16; Mitt Romney, 15; Ron Paul, 4; Rudy Giuliani, 2. McCain wins 19 of 24 delegates.

In Nevada for the Republicans, Romney, 51; Ron Paul, 14; John McCain, 13; Mike Huckabee, 8; Thompson, 8; Giuliani, 4. Romney wins 17 of the 31 delegates.

And in Nevada for the Democrats, it was Clinton, 51; Obama, 45; Edwards, 4. According to the Associated Press, Obama wins 13 delegates, Clinton 12 because of the proportional way they are distributed. The Clinton campaign is contesting that. To be continued on the delegate count from Nevada.

Let's start with the Republicans. Tom Brokaw, John McCain wins South Carolina. A week from Tuesday he goes to Florida. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney at least all lying in wait.

MR. TOM BROKAW: You know, what it reminds me of now, Tim, is that in rural America, they have these quarter-mile dirt tracks and they have wreck-'em derbies, and they put all the cars on the track at the same time and they run into each other until there's just one car standing. I think we've got a wreck-'em derby going on in the Republican Party right now.

I've just gotten back from Florida. Rudy Giuliani's ads on the air don't mention terrorism. He's the man who reduced the corporate taxes in the city of New York, created new jobs, reduced crime and also took a lot of people off the welfare rolls. So this election on the Republican side now is changing, both in tone and in content, and it seems to me that John McCain, who I suspect everyone around this table shared my views six months ago, that he was down for the count...

MS. MICHELE NORRIS: Mm-hmm.

MR. BROKAW: ...has made an astonishing comeback, and people are looking for authenticity and it may be embodied by John McCain on the Republican side.

MR. RUSSERT: His own staff refers to him as Lazarus, the man who has risen from the dead.

Jon Meacham, here's your cover of Newsweek, an article by Michael Gerson.

MR. JON MEACHAM: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: "The Party's Over: A Dispirited GOP Struggles to Find Its Post-Bush Path." And Gerson's rather candid as to why he thinks there's a muddle now in the Republican primary fight. Let me read it for our panel here and for our viewers.

"The Republican Party, well into the primary process, lacks a unifying candidate.

"What caused the" Republicans' "unraveling? It began with the Bush administration itself. Through the intense experiences of" September 11, "Afghanistan and Iraq, the Republican Party became closely identified with President Bush - and President Bush became closely identified with Iraqi violence and chaos. The slow response to rising sectarian conflict in 2005 and '06 left an impression of stubbornness in a losing cause. Every element of the Republican coalition the president had offended during his political rise - budget hawks, anti-immigration activists, libertarian critics of compassionate conservatism - felt liberated and emboldened by Bush's weakness and reasserted their claim on the party's future. The president's embrace of the surge in Iraq has dramatically improved the situation - but the damage was done. The cracks in the Bush coalition began spreading."

Is that what we're watching?

MR. MEACHAM: I think so. I think that the Reagan coalition that became George W. Bush's in 2000 and 2004 has come to an end. It's an era of dominance that was--ran politics for 30 years in action and reaction. Ronald Reagan was the great figure, whether he was bringing Democrats closer to the center or inspiring Republicans to be his heir. You now have a situation where even the most establishment-looking candidate in the Republican primary is running against George Bush's Washington. Mitt Romney signs now say "Washington is broken." That does not sound as though it's someone who's running to succeed a president of his own party.

MS. NORRIS: Hm.

MR. RUSSERT: It is interesting, eight years ago when John McCain lost South Carolina to George W. Bush, he did not call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the state Capitol, and it haunted him. He went back to South Carolina after that primary in 2000 and gave this speech.

(Videotape, April 19, 2000):

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): I feared that if I answered honestly I could not win the South Carolina primary, so I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: This time he did not do that. Interestingly enough, it was Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, who sought to inject the issue of the Confederate flag in the primary. Here was Huckabee on Thursday.

(Videotape, Thursday):

MR. MIKE HUCKABEE: If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them where to put the pole. That's what we'd do.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: I never had a pastor talk like that, but that's a...

Peggy Noonan...

MS. PEGGY NOONAN: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...interesting how John McCain ran a different kind of race this time than he did in 2000.

MS. NOONAN: I'm not sure what you mean. In terms of his general approach in South Carolina to the folks down there? I think he was running this time as a grand old man of the party, a man you know, a man who backed Ronald Reagan, a man who has spoken for, in a way, Republican conservatism for a quarter century now. I think to some degree, to tell you the truth, he understood, and South Carolina itself understood, that they kind of owed him one, you know? They allowed him to be smeared, they'd given him a bad time in the year 2000, they decked him then, they knocked him out of the race. This time they picked him up and put him back in. So he was a different fellow, but it's a different age and he had different guys to be running against.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me throw one more issue on the table and get everyone involved here. The issue of evangelical Christians. They were 60 percent of the Republican voters yesterday--the way we've seen in Iowa, not quite as many in New Hampshire--but this time, Mike Huckabee did not win them overwhelmingly. He won a majority with 47 percent--43 percent, John McCain at 27 percent, Fred Thompson at 15 percent of them, indicating that Thompson could've been a spoiler to Huckabee and to help John McCain. But on Monday, Mike Huckabee gave a speech about the Constitution and religion, and this is what he said.

(Videotape, Monday):

MR. HUCKABEE: I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Michele, that speech received a lot of comment in the Republican Party in South Carolina.

MS. NORRIS: Yes, it did, and it spooked some of the--I just got back from South Carolina, by the way.

MR. RUSSERT: Yeah.

MS. NORRIS: And it spooked some of the evangelicals, the conservative Christians that we spoke to there. I mean, they're drawn to Mike Huckabee because the speaks their language, they like him personally, he's very, very charming. But people who were sort of on the fence, when he starts talking about amending the Constitution, they started to back away from him and that's where--that's one of his biggest dangers is that he's charming on the one hand, but he has almost a disinhibition when he gets on stage. He sort of says things that he later has to backtrack on. And if he does things like that where he alienates the Christian conservative base, it's bad news for him as he tries to go forward. If you listen to his concession speech last night, there are questions about where he might be able to win after South Carolina. He's not talking like a man who plans to step off the stage. He is having a lot of fun in this race, he is enjoying this moment. This is almost the wrong metaphor to use for a Baptist minister, bit's an almost eucharistic experience for him, and he's having too much fun to step off the stage.

So the question is, you know, we talk about the fractured--the fractured party at this point. Who among them is the person who can bring them all together? Is it Mike Huckabee? Is it John McCain, who still doesn't find that the conservative Christians embrace him? Is it Mike Huckabee who the country club conservatives look at him and say, "Ooh, I don't know if he's really the man for the White House." Is it Mitt Romney, who people still are perhaps not willing to embrace in part because he's flip-flopped on issues or in part because of his religious values. So it's really interesting going forward. It really--there's no clear choice for many people in the party.

MS. NOONAN: May I just throw in here that I think the Republicans have a tough time this year. The Democratic Party is trying to figure out of two candidates which one will take them to success, take them to the White House. The Republican Party is trying to refind its soul. And in looking at each state, at each of these guys, they're thinking "is this the guy who reflects what conservatism is--what modern conservatism is, what this party is, and the next day they think, "maybe it's this guy." It is a much tougher thing to find your soul than it is to find success. So I think the Republicans are really going to be struggling for a while.

I also think, Jon, I must say, I think what has happened with the conservative coalition is that it has been sundered. I think it was sundered by this administration from 2004 on through a series of decisions that were not just at odds with, but deeply defined of and rejecting of the feelings, thoughts and views of Republicans and conservatives. And to make it even worse, the Congress, when it was under Republican hands and now Democratic hands, was just as defiant, just as at odds with the feelings of so many people about what it is that is most reflective of conservatism in the Republican Party. So I think Republicans have taken a beating in a way and they--I mean, almost a psychic beating, and they are trying really hard to redefine and come back. It's going to be a tough job.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Nov. 8: Casey, Barbour, Rendell, roundtable, Brokaw Nov. 1: Tim Geithner, David Plouffe, roundtable Oct. 25: Cornyn, Schumer, Burnett, Sorkin, roundtable Oct. 18: Jarrett, Dodd, Kyl, Shriver, Podesta Oct. 11: Levin, Graham, McCaffrey, Myers, roundtable Oct. 4: Ambassador Susan Rice, roundtable Sept. 27: Bill Clinton, Paterson, Kyl, Webb Sept. 20: President Obama, Sen. Graham, Rep. Boehner, roundtable Sept. 13: Durbin, Cornyn, Dean, Gingrich, roundtable Sept. 6: Axelrod, roundtable Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: