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'Meet the Press' transcript for Jan. 20, 2008
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 Netcast Jan. 20: Live from New York, we devote the full hour to insights and analysis on the competitive race for the White House with presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, NBC's Tom Brokaw and NPR's Michele Norris. |
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MR. RUSSERT: Doris Kearns Goodwin, we have four Republicans in a sense still standing in a viable way, as Peggy pointed out, trying to grab onto the soul of the Republican Party and define it in their own persona. Let me read this summary of the candidacies and then have you--give you a chance to reflect on the Republican race.
"The House that Reagan built is in danger of collapsing. The coalition of fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, anti-tax activists and social conservatives that rallied behind Reagan in 1980 and has defined the Republican Party ever since is coming apart at the seams heading into the 2008 election.
All the men running for the party's presidential nomination ... offend at least one wing for the party enough that" they "find it difficult," "perhaps impossible, to pull the disparate elements of the old coalition together. ...
"John McCain of Arizona? ... He's criticized Bush tactics against suspected terrorists as torture, sided with the president in wanting to let illegal immigrants stay and earn citizenship and pushed a campaign-finance plan that curbed political speech. A lot of loyal Republicans think he's anything but Republican, and the party's influential echo chamber on talk radio hates him.
"Huckabee? ... He raised taxes as governor, wanted to let the children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas" "earn the same college aid as Arkansas-born children and called Bush's foreign policy `arrogant.' He turns off less-religious Republicans - he got 6 percent of the non-evangelical vote in New Hampshire's Republican primary. ... And talk radio big shots such as Rush Limbaugh think he's a liberal in preacher's clothes.
"Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney? ... Social conservatives are suspicious of his recent conversions on abortion and gay marriage. To some people, that leaves Romney with one foot in each camp, but grounded in neither.
"Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani? ... He supports abortion rights, gay marriage and gun control," "been married three times, and his private life falls short of Christian conservative ideals. Social conservatives such as James Dobson, the head of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, say they'd bolt from the party if Giuliani is nominated."
That's what the Republican Party is dealing with right now.
MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: But I think for the Republican Party, the prospect of victory eventually may solve some of these divisions. I mean, clearly, each one of these primary candidates represents a particular piece of the Reagan coalition. Nobody has it all. My sense is, however, when we get closer to having a Democrat--suppose Hillary wins February 5, and they know who that opponent is, that that desire to win may somehow heal, if not the soul, the desire to look like the soul is healed.
And I think to some extent that McCain's strong suit is that he can appeal to independents; but even more that what he's really running on are his leadership attributes that go beyond his stance on the issues. Even when he said last night, "Thank you, South Carolina," it took a long while, eight years, but he was able to put that willing--willingness to put that past hurt behind him. What you mentioned earlier about the flag, to acknowledge that he pandered and made a mistake and was ashamed about it. We just came back from Vietnam, and I saw that prison where he was kept. And when I think about what he had to go through in this campaign, when somebody put out a pamphlet claiming that maybe he was betraying his fellow prisoners, and yet he rose above that again. He's a man who's stood for unpopular positions, even immigration. It mattered to these South Carolinians, and yet he didn't lose all of those votes. So I think the hope for the Republican Party is if he can put leadership attributes, stand by what you say on popular positions, tell the truth and somehow mush the issues so that people don't feel that great.
MS. NOONAN: Oh.
MS. GOODWIN: You're not as hopeful as that, I can tell.
MS. NOONAN: I don't think...
MR. BROKAW: No. I think...
MS. NOONAN: ...the Republicans are in a mood to mush the issues. They're going to have to work them out, is my view.
MS. GOODWIN: Well, then they're going to lose.
MS. NOONAN: However...
MS. GOODWIN: They're going to lose.
MS. NOONAN: ...fear of loss can concentrate the mind.
MS. GOODWIN: Yeah.
MS. NOONAN: And I think that's what you're saying.
MR. BROKAW: Well, I think, I think if there's a big thematic issue here in this election, it's the end of dogma, which has dominated so much of our politics in the last--well, since 1980, really. And people are rejecting dogma. As I see it, there's this kind of nomadic herd of voters out there wandering the landscape, looking for solutions, looking for a water hole, if you will, in which they can kind of resupply themselves and find solutions to the issues that really trouble them. It's going on in the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party. I was listening to Rush Limbaugh for an hour yesterday, who is determined to not have this campaign, as he put it, redefine conservatism. And one of the ditto heads, one of his followers, called and...
MR. MEACHAM: Ditto heads.
MR. BROKAW: ...said, "Well, help me out here. What do I think now about Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich?" And it's one of the few times I've ever heard Newt--ever heard Rush Limbaugh kind of temporarily at a loss for words. And he ended up saying that they're not true conservatives. And that debate is not going to help the Republican Party, if they if they get bogged down in that. The country is hungry for solutions...
MS. GOODWIN: Yeah. This is the mess the Democrats have got themselves into.
MR. BROKAW: ...and hungry for authenticity, and hungry for tone.
MS. NOONAN: You know what, Tom, I would agree, except I would add this. The, the country is hungry for sense in its leaders that they have thought it through, that they have a philosophy, that they've considered the relationship of man and of the state, and considered the moment of history we're in, that philosophically, they are coherent. That matters, too.
MR. BROKAW: I--there--that's, that's underlying.
MS. NOONAN: But I understand what you're saying about dogma, which is mere ideology, which is merely uninteresting. Philosophy's interesting, though, and counts, I think evermore this year.
MS. NORRIS: I, I just talking--you know, when you talk about this nomadic herd, I get the sense, after talking to a lot of conservative voters in South Carolina and repeatedly asking this question, "How do you define conservatism in this moment?" That many of them see themselves almost as freelancers right now; that they're, you know, they're, they're in the tent, but they don't necessarily have to follow any particular script.
MS. NOONAN: Yes. Yeah.
MS. NORRIS: And they're looking for someone who sets a tone, but also, if you think about the times that we're living in right now: the subprime mortgage mess, we're a nation at war, people have been, you know, wrestling with fear for the past, for the past eight years. So they're looking for someone who speaks to issues that they really care about. And I think that that explains why Mike Huckabee has done so well and has surprised so many people, because he gets up and he talks about people who--single mothers who are struggling to raise children, you know, and people kind of initially dismissed him, you know. He's a guy who has sort of--you know, people called him, frankly, a country bumpkin. Mike Huckabee. Well, think about America. For most people in America, a Friday night, a sort of fancy Friday night, is going to a place called Applebee's.
MS. GOODWIN: Yeah.
MS. NORRIS: You know, and so it explains...
MR. RUSSERT: And his language is conversational and understandable.
MS. NORRIS: Yes.
MS. GOODWIN: Exactly.
MR. BROKAW: Mm-hmm.
MS. GOODWIN: And it's warm and humorous.
MS. NOONAN: He's almost eloquent. Yeah, warm, humorous.
MR. MEACHAM: But I think the--I think there are going to be two competing narratives, and we'll see what happens in November. One is, to go to Tom's point, Michael Dukakis was right, but it was only 20 years too early, that this is an election about competence, not ideology. That is a possibility. The other possibility is that, when you think about the numbers and the close elections we've had after two-term presidents or two--one-party, two-term control, '60, '68, '80--'92 and 2000, incredibly close elections, including people who won the election who didn't win the popular vote.
MS. NORRIS: Yeah.
MR. MEACHAM: So this is not going to be, I suspect, a tsunami either way. I think this is a closely argued, closely fought election on both sides. And the one person, which Mike Gerson makes this point for us this week, who could in fact unite the Republican Party, is Hillary Clinton. Mm-hmm.
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