'Meet the Press' transcript for Jan. 27, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  Maureen, you wrote on Wednesday, "It's odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line."

MS. DOWD:  I know.  We're seeing all these astonishing things in this race, and it worked in Nevada and New Hampshire for--I think Bill Clinton helped her there.  But, in this case, I just think it raised the deja vu of the Clintons will drag anyone down to their own level and trash anyone to make up for what is missing in them or what they have done wrong.  During impeachment, you know, they were trashing the founding fathers.  Bill Clinton's lawyers actually filed a brief saying, "Well, Alexander Hamilton had a tawdry affair, and he wasn't kicked out of office." So it's a very debilitating dynamic, you know, to drag everyone down to their level, especially when you have this alternative of optimism and hope.  And they were willing to put a dagger in the heart of hope.  I mean, Obama should just beat them over the head every day with the idea that Bill Clinton said he represented false hope.  Because the only way they can beat him is to beat down hope and inspiration and bringing young voters and expanding the party, and they want to kill all that. And that is not a good, you know, situation for them.

MR. RUSSERT:  Byron, looking at super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton, however, is very formidable, well financed, well organized on--throughout the country, does have some overwhelming support of women voters, does have very strong support from Latino voters, and that coalition can be extremely helpful in California, New York, New Jersey, her former home state of Arkansas.  She still is, in, in a big way, in this hunt.

MR. YORK:  Oh, absolutely.  That's worth thinking about.  When you look at the, the demographic makeup of South Carolina, there aren't that many states like that.  Georgia is close to that; Alabama is close to that.  But all the big states, the big prize states do not have nearly the black population that South Carolina does.  So the question is can Hillary Clinton suppress that, you know, white vote for Obama that he showed he got in significant numbers in Iowa and significant numbers in New Hampshire, which he lost, but he still did, you know, pretty well.  So that's the whole point of South Carolina, was to try to, to suggest that all these white voters earlier had looked at Obama and said, "This is a man who wants to be the president for everybody, but maybe he really wants to be the president for black America," and to try to drive white voters away from him.  And that is what is making the Democratic establishment so angry.

MS. DOWD:  Tim, one of the most striking images of South Carolina--Jeff Zeleny wrote about today--was the Confederate flag flying near the capital and Obama workers holding up Obama placards.  And it's, you know, an amazing historic image.

MR. RUSSERT:  Week from Tuesday is super Tuesday, but this Tuesday is the Florida primary for the Republicans right here.  We're in Tampa this morning. Rudy Giuliani--this was the state that he planted his flag in.  We're watching Mitt Romney and John McCain contend for the top spot.  Here's Rudy, Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers, NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.  In March of '07, his favorable rating was 58 percent; his unfavorable was 14.  Now his favorable is 29 percent; his unfavorable is 40.

The Mason-Dixon poll with MSNBC, now it's Romney, 30; McCain, 26; Giuliani, 18.  In November, it was Romney, 15; McCain, 10; Giuliani, 36.  He's lost half his support.  What happened?

MR. YORK:  I was at a Giuliani event in Orlando yesterday.  It was rather small, and then he got a rather tepid response at the Orange County Republican dinner last night.  It's, it's been amazing.  I think it's a result of simply bad strategy on his part.  If you look back, he was second at various times not all that long ago in Iowa and, and in New Hampshire.  He was tied for the lead as early as--as late as December in Michigan and in South Carolina.  And yet he chose not to compete with those.  And, and somebody who knows about this was saying, he--you know, he went into New Hampshire for a while.  He seemed to have some chance.  So he goes in, he spends a couple million dollars, the polls don't immediately change, and he pulls out.  And that's how he ends up in Florida with everybody thinking that this is his last stand. It's his first stand, and it's also his last stand.

MR. RUSSERT:  Maureen Dowd, the indictment of Bernard Kerik, his former police commissioner, who he proposed to be secretary of Homeland Security, stories about his New York City police detail being used to guard his then-girlfriend, now-wife Judith Nathan, did those issues just take a toll on Rudy Giuliani?

MS. DOWD:  Oh, of course, you know.  And, you know, he's got to stop talking about 9/11 and call 911 because he's in real trouble there.  And I was expecting more of a--from a man who loves opera, more of an operatic finale, one way or the other, to save himself or to self-immolate.  I mean, some Maria Callas death scene.  But he's so mundane.  And actually yesterday he switched his message to hope.  So that's not going to work for Rudy Giuliani.

MR. RUSSERT:  You know, when he was mayor of New York, he went into town hall meetings, he got sweaty, he fought back...

MS. DOWD:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...he had...

MS. DOWD:  And he was able to jump on the headlines of the day and say something provocative, and he just seems to be sleepwalking.

MR. RUSSERT:  Is he recognizing that he's not going to win and sort of protecting his next career?

MS. DOWD:  I think so, and saving, and saving, you know, protecting Giuliani Partners.

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