'Meet the Press' transcript for Feb. 10, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  And we are back.

Welcome all.  Do we have a race or not?  Here's what happened yesterday. First, in Louisiana, Barack Obama, 57; Hillary Clinton, 36.  In the state of Nebraska the numbers were 68-to-32.  Virgin Islands it's 90-to-8.  And Washington state, 68-to-31.  Look at this.  Adding up all the votes each of the candidates has gotten thus far, Obama 8,228,000, Clinton 8,028,000; 48.4-to 47.3.  Obama has won 18 states, Clinton has won 10 states.  One, New Mexico, still too close to call.  The current NBC political unit delegate estimate:  Obama 1,009, Clinton 944, a lead of 65.  That is just amongst elected delegates.  And then, of course, we have the superdelegates.  Obama says he has 174 of those, Clinton has 263 of those.  If you put everything together, including superdelegates, Clinton would be up 24 delegates.  If you just count the elected delegates, she's--Obama's up 65.

Chuck Todd, explain it.

MR. CHUCK TODD:  OK.  I've got all this blue right here.  Here you go.  It's, it's a remarkable fight.  I mean, everything--it, it is a delegate by delegate fight.  You know, yesterday the Clinton campaign knew they weren't going to win any of those three states.  Maybe they thought they could--but they were figuring out how to get a few extra delegates in Louisiana.  They threw in a few more people in Nebraska because, as one Clinton person said to me, "We don't want another Idaho situation." What does that mean?  Well, in Idaho they almost didn't make threshold.  They almost didn't get a single delegate out of Idaho and those caucuses.  So they are trying to improve their numbers in some of these caucuses.  I think they realize now, looking back, this Obama strategy of getting delegates everywhere he can--I mean, look, he got three delegates out of the Virgin Islands, you know, instead of two--one, you know, you see the 8 percent.  Well, if she could have just done up to seven, she could have snagged a delegate, you know, gotten to that 15 percent threshold.

MR. RUSSERT:  They asked Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he said, "That's where the money is."

MR. TODD:  Right.  And so why do you participate in caucuses?  Because that's where you can continue to win delegates.

But let me throw in one big monkey wrench in all this, about these caucuses. When--there are delegates that are allocated to Obama that he's winning.  All of these caucuses still have to go through state conventions and district conventions.  And that's where--for instance, in '84, that's where Walter Mondale cleaned up and stole delegates, basically, from Gary Hart.  Gary Hart would win in places, and they would go to the state conventions and somehow outmaneuver them.  The Clinton folks could still end up figuring out how to nab extra delegates in here.  So this caucus thing, it looks good right now in the totals, but that's--you want one of the monkey wrenches we could throw into this?  That's one of them.

MR. RUSSERT:  All right.  Before I go around the table, let me just show you two new Mason-Dixon polls.  Tuesday is the Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia.  Here's Maryland:  Obama, 53; Clinton, 35.  And in Virginia:  Obama, 53; Clinton, 37.  It shows the undecideds still 20, still high.  Only a snapshot, things could change.  But if Obama did sweep D.C., Virginia, Maryland, would he then be ahead in total delegates--elected delegates and superdelegates?

MR. TODD:  It's a--it would have to be an emphatic sweep.  He needs to win D.C. with that, you know, 70, 75 percent of the vote.  He would have to win in Virginia and Maryland getting close to 60 percent, because the way Virginia and Maryland are, there's some--some of Obama's vote is packed into certain congressional districts, the way the delegate split works.  But if he got--if he starts approaching 60 percent in both of those, Maryland and Virginia, approaching 75, he could net 25 delegates.  There is a path for him to net 25, in our estimate, that would bring him even.

MR. RUSSERT:  Dead even.

MR. TODD:  Dead even.

MR. RUSSERT:  Including elected and super.

All right, Ifill, Brody and Broder.  Here's what the Bloomberg News said the other day:  "Barack Obama's campaign is forecasting that the Democratic presidential race will remain deadlocked after the primaries end.  By the time the last primary is held June" 7th, "Obama's advisers project" he'll "have 1806 delegates to" 1789 "for New York Senator Hillary Clinton, according to a document outlining the scenario that was inadvertently attached to a release on delegate counts from Super Tuesday primaries."

Gwen Ifill, what do we have to look forward to?

MS. GWEN IFILL:  You hate when those things get inadvertently attached to, to memos, don't you?  What we have looking forward to is what Chuck has just laid out here, which is the fight over every little thing; fight over language, which I'm a big fan of following the kinds of language that people use--listening to Governor Huckabee, which we'll get to as, as part of it. It's a big fight over who your vote is, how deep, how broad it is.  It's--has the pattern established itself now that Obama does well in states where there are large black populations, among blacks, by big numbers, but also well in states where there are no--where there's virtually no black population?  Does Hillary Clinton always do well when there are women up, up for grabs, or does she lose among women in some states, like she did in Nebraska?  Do--how do they battle for that?  Is it to their advantage to keep those hard and fast lines in place?  Or do they find a way to start reaching into each other's territory and poaching delegates before they get to state conventions?  I don't know that either campaign has figured that piece out yet, because that's how close it is.

MR. RUSSERT:  Clinton campaign has a 50/50 strategy.  If you're a woman over 50 or you're a Democrat making less than 50,000, they believe you're a Clinton voter.

MS. IFILL:  And that's what worked for them in California.  They didn't--Obama, we were there in California last week.  He did--got this very glitzy, coastal reception.  But in the inland part of the state, where people over--people are struggling a little bit more, they came out and they voted for Hillary Clinton.  And in fact, Obama didn't really even make a play for them.  So that was a miscalculation.

MR. RUSSERT:  The two Davids, here's what the Daily News had to say:  "Given the neck-and-neck nature of the battle, one of Clinton's top aides predicted superdelegates will put the nominee over the top.  "`I don't see a scenario under which either candidate gets to 2,025 without superdelegates.  So, you know, I think'" we're "`in somewhat uncharted waters,' said Howard Wolfson, Clinton's top media strategist.

"Obama said superdelegates should follow the wishes of the voters.  `My strong belief is that if we end up with the most states'" "`the most pledged delegates from the most voters in the country, that it would be problematic for the political insiders to overturn the judgment of the voter.'"

"When it was noted that Senator Ted Kennedy is one of" those "superdelegate supporters, even though voters handed Massachusetts to Clinton on Super Tuesday, Obama said, `Well, I mean, we can make arguments back and forth on this.'"

Yeah.  The--here are those superdelegates, by the way.  They're former U.S. presidents, former U.S. vice presidents, governors, senators, members of Congress, distinguished party leaders, party activists.

David Broder, where are we?

MR. DAVID BRODER:  Well, this is a year where the scenarios have been invariably wrong.  And so if our current scenario is it's all going to come down to the superdelegates, that's probably going to be wrong.  There are still really important events before we get to that stage.  There are primaries in Ohio, in Texas, in Pennsylvania; critical states for the general election.  We don't know who's going to prevail in any of those three states. My guess is that we will be surprised once again, and that the voters will still have a big voice in this outcome.

MR. RUSSERT:  And we have Wisconsin, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont in that same time period.  There's a lot of voting still to be done.

MR. DAVID BRODY:  Yeah.  I, I would also say, on the superdelegates, within the Obama campaign, the, they believe at some point that the Donna Braziles and, and others that will cry and say "this is ridiculous, that we're going to have superdelegates decide this," that that will eventually trump in the end. And so then, therefore, what happens is you start to see a narrative start to be crafted here about whether or not it's "fair." You know, Americans look at things as, as just--your ordinary, regular guy says, "Is this fair or not?" And, and what will happen is, if Clinton or Obama are able to take advantage of the superdelegates in the end, some Americans might just say, "You know what?  That's just not fair." And the last thing a Clinton or Obama want going into a general election is to be seen as someone that didn't do it the "right way."

MS. IFILL:  So how long do you fight for these delegates like they are right now, hammer and tong, and then if you lose, say, "OK, that just wasn't fair"? I'm not sure that passes the smell test.

MR. BRODY:  Yeah, well...

MR. RUSSERT:  You know, the superdelegates are really in play.  Bill Clinton has called them regularly.

MS. IFILL:  He's far more useful behind the scenes than in front of the scenes.

MR. RUSSERT:  The--Chelsea Clinton's calling.  Tom Daschle and John Kerry, on behalf of the Obama campaign, calling these delegates, saying "Now is the time to pledge" because they'd like to get enough people pledged and made public so they can greet that--meet that magic number.

Ted Devine, who was the delegate counter for Walter Mondale way back in 1984, wrote in today's New York Times the following:

"In the 1984 Democratic primary the superdelegates did the work they were created to do:  They provided the margin of victory to the candidate who had won the most support from primary and caucus voters.

"The superdelegates were never intended to be part of the dash from Iowa to Super Tuesday and beyond.  They should resist the impulse and pressure to decide the nomination before the voters have had their say."

And, David, you mentioned Donna Brazile.  She said this.  She was campaign manager for Al Gore.

"Superdelegates, in my judgment, should not decide this election.  The last thing we need is politicians and insiders deciding this election.  We need to let the voters decide this election.  I think if 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I'll quit the Democratic Party.  I feel very strongly about this.  There's no reason why we should decide this election.  I feel very strongly." Gwen:

MS. IFILL:  She actually is--has, has edited herself to say she would quit her position on the Democratic National Committee, not the party.  But I do think that goes to the point that David was making, which is there's--there is a real fairness question.  There's a real anger question.  But it also goes to the fact that there is a real pressure now to resolve this some other way.  We heard Howard Dean say that we have to come to I think the word was agreement or accommodation.  I don't know that he's figured out what that is.  But it does mean that at some point between now...

MR. BRODER:  Howard, Howard Dean does not have the status to...

MS. IFILL:  To do it.

MR. BRODER:  ...to broker this, this deal.  And I think the other factor that will enter in for the, for the superdelegates is, these are people, many of them, who will be on the ballot themselves this November.

MS. IFILL:  Well...

MR. BRODER:  And they are going to make a very basic calculation.  "Who do we want at the top of that ticket against John McCain?" And that calculus will probably be as important as any single factor.

MR. BRODY:  Well, and that's why you're seeing Obama and Clinton kind of talk about this electoral map out there, you know, where Clinton won in Oklahoma and, and places on Super Tuesday where the--she can say, "You know, I can win in the South," where Obama--and that's why these caucuses help Obama so much, because he can say, "Listen, I've won in all different parts of the state--or all different parts of the country," and that plays into what you're saying, David.

MR. TODD:  Let me, let me also--there's going to be a weird role the Internet will play here.  They will get their hands on this list, on the superdelegate list.  And you watch, there will be people in the DNC that have never gotten e-mail campaigns before against them, and they will get deluged.  It will start--you will start seeing crazy campaigns being organized by supporters of both Clinton and Obama that will just bombard these DNC members.  And I think they're going to get overwhelmed, and a lot of them are going to be, like Donna Brazile, "Stop.  I don't want to be a part of this."

MR. RUSSERT:  Yeah.  You mentioned Howard Dean coming to an arrangement. Howard Dean, Gwen Ifill, also talked about Michigan and Florida.  Now, those are two states--in Michigan, Hillary Clinton's name was on the ballot, no other candidates.  In Florida, all the candidates names were on the ballot. But both states were disqualified, in effect, by the Democratic National Committee because they moved up the date of their primaries and were told that their delegates would not count towards the nomination.  This is what Dean said about Florida and Michigan:

"I dare say Michigan and Florida will ask for reinstatement, and the credentials committee, which will not be under my control, will make that decision at" that "time."

Now, Frank Rich in this morning's New York Times points out that, in the fall, Senator Clinton said that the Michigan delegates aren't going to count for anything anyhow.

MS. IFILL:  Well, you know, he was wrong about that, wasn't he?  I mean, here's the problem.  The only potential solution, at least between now and the convention, is for them to figure out a way to count these votes again, right? Try to schedule caucuses, try to do something else.

MR. RUSSERT:  Have a do-over.

MS. IFILL:  Have a do-over.

MR. RUSSERT:  That counts.

MS. IFILL:  Do-overs are expensive.  Do-overs are--require people who are not happy with one another to agree.  And can you imagine--take your whiteboard back to Florida and watch the do-over.  I just think that there's real potential for chaos.

MR. RUSSERT:  And according to many officials I've talked to, the state would not pay for the primaries, so the party would have caucuses in Florida and Michigan, which the Obama people wouldn't mind because they like caucuses, David.

MR. BRODER:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  The Clinton people don't like caucuses.

MR. BRODER:  No.  And they're going to probably have to find some way to get those two states into the convention.  I--It's hard to imagine the Democrats meeting in Denver without any representation from Florida or Michigan.

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