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

MR. RUSSERT:  But how do you let their votes count if, in fact, the elections, when they were held, were under the agreement that they wouldn't count?

MR. TODD:  Two scenarios I've heard.  One is that Michigan--if any of them are going to hold a revote, Michigan seems more likely than not because of labor--those guys are afraid of not getting their place--seats at the table. Florida is going to press this all the way to the credentials committee, and one scenario laid out to me was, well, they may--because the credentials committee's going to be controlled 50/50 by Clinton and Obama.  And the compromise might be "OK, we'll seat a Florida delegation, but it's going to be made up of whatever the popular vote is nationally, whatever that is." And we just showed it, basically 48-48.  And that that's what the Florida delegation will be able to say, 48 percent Obama, 48 percent Clinton.  So they'll be able to say, "OK, Florida, you get your seats," but they won't have an effect on the, on the...

MR. RUSSERT:  On the outcome.

MR. TODD:  ...outcome.  And who knows.

MR. RUSSERT:  Gwen, you mentioned William Jefferson Clinton, the former president.  He was in Maine, and our NBC affiliate caught up with him there, and this was what he had to say about his role in the campaign thus far.

(Videotape)

FMR. PRES. BILL CLINTON:  Well, everything I have said has been factually accurate.  But a lot of things that were said were factually inaccurate.  I did not ever criticize Senator Obama personally in South Carolina.  I never criticized him personally.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Now, the Obama campaign will say that saying it was "rolling the dice," "risky" or that his position on the war in Iraq was a "fairy tale" was personal criticism.  The president differs.

MS. IFILL:  You know, there's a real important lesson that's being learned here.  Bill Clinton--who you would think would have known the lesson already--figured it out first, which is that you have to be careful in an election like this in the language you use.  You have two firsts out here. And so if you make--there are huge groups of people who support each first, women for Hillary--that's roughly--and roughly blacks for Obama.

Here's a problem.  They hear things which mainstream voters might not hear. They hear offense; they hear insult.  Bill Clinton found that out.  He said something, whether you believe what--it was innocent or not, but he said something which struck a tone with a lot of African-American voters, and he's been trying to make it up ever since.

The same problem exists, however, for people who are supporters or just observers of the Clinton campaign, which is you make the slightest comment--there's a, there's a great--I get e-mails from them every day. There's a great groundswell sub rosa argument among women, who feel that this election is being unfairly taken from them; feminists who hear every insult, which is, you know, we heard what happened this week on NBC with the reporter who made the comment about Chelsea.  That sort of thing starts to--it just starts a little roll going among people who are feeling aggrieved anyway.  So if you make a comment and you say, "Barack Obama, he's a kid," or "Barack Obama, he's like Jesse Jackson," that rings a bell in the ears of a lot of African-American voters and other supporters of Barack Obama.  If you make a sexist or demeaning comment about a woman, that also strikes a bell among a lot of women voters.  And that's the problem in a tipping-point election, when any, any version of that kind of insult can affect the outcome probably more than the superdelegates.

MR. RUSSERT:  Yeah, and that MSNBC reporter has been suspended...

MS. IFILL:  Yes.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...indefinitely, and president of NBC News has apologized. Words do matter.

MS. IFILL:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me turn to--any comments about Bill Clinton, anybody else?

MR. BRODY:  Well, I would just say that it's--that, you know, this election seems to be--it's going to be won on the margins.  And, you know, if Bill Clinton ends up being a distraction, you know, that's, that's, that's a big problem.

MR. RUSSERT:  David, are--is there concern that if Hillary Clinton's the nominee that young voters, African-American voters will not be as enthusiastic for her candidacy as they would have been because of some of the friction that exists?

MR. BRODER:  There is that concern, but I think we will not know for a long time how deep or shallow these wounds are of--in the nomination process in either party.  I mean, the Republicans, obviously, still have wounds to heal as well.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me turn to the Republicans.  Here's our latest delegate count for them.  John McCain is at 721, Mike Huckabee 231.  John McCain the presumptive nominee.  Mike Huckabee would have to win 93 percent of the remaining delegates in order to overturn him, but he said, "Hey, something could happen."

MS. IFILL:  Miracles!

MR. RUSSERT:  There could--well, there could be a moment.  He called it the other day a macaca moment.  Perhaps someone will say something, and...

MS. IFILL:  I don't think he really wants that.

MR. RUSSERT:  Yeah, yeah.  I just quoting--I'm just quoting the man.  Now, you heard Tom DeLay say on "Hardball" that he wasn't sure that he would endorse or support John McCain.  Laura Ingraham said, "It's one thing to say you're a foot soldier for Ronald Reagan, but what have you done for conservatism lately?" And if you look at the vote count thus far in these primaries, here it is:  Republicans have gotten 12.9 million votes, Democrats have gotten 19.2 votes.

It shows a little more intensity and enthusiasm for one party over another, Chuck Todd.

MR. TODD:  It's a huge problem for the Republicans.  I mean, they look at these numbers, and they're very, very nervous.  But I'll say this for McCain. I feel like I've seen a weak nominee like this, you know, where you feel like that he has a weak support.  Bill Clinton at about this point in 1992, he had the nomination.

MS. IFILL:  True.

MR. TODD:  And he had this thorn in his side in Jerry Brown.  Well, John McCain has this thorn in his side in Mike Huckabee.  And Jerry Brown started winning a few primaries, and suddenly you heard some senior guys--I remember, Willie Brown was the one that stuck out, where he was thinking about, out of California then, he was the speaker, "Well, maybe we should hand the nomination over to Ross Perot." This was when, when Perot was rising up.  And you just wonder, I mean, this is the danger John McCain is in.  Yes, mathematically--I mean, literally he could--he could fall on--he could have a macaca moment and still probably get the 1191.  But he can't be losing primaries.  You know, he can do what happened yesterday.  But if he loses Virginia, Texas is not a great state for him.  We've seen that Huckabee does, does well in some of these Southern states.  Then suddenly those whispers.  It won't be just talk radio.  It, it will be some serious senior guys will sit there and say, "You know, do we have a problem here?" And that was, you know, it almost doomed Bill Clinton.  It almost cost him the nomination and the presidency.

MS. IFILL:  Well, look at how--well, look at Washington state yesterday.  Not only did he almost lose Washington state to Mike Huckabee, but Ron Paul got like 21 percent of the vote.  So he was unpolled--people who voted for someone other than McCain won the majority.

MR. TODD:  Right.

MR. BRODY:  Here's the other issue with Huckabee, is that, you know, I was talking to Ed Rollins in New Hampshire, and Ed Rollins looked me straight in the eye and said, "Listen, if we had one more week in New Hampshire, we would've won this thing." The point is is that the reason he did so well in Iowa, everybody talks about the evangelical Christian angle, sure, that's a big part of it.  But Huckabee, the voters got to know Huckabee, and he had time.  And as you go from where we are now into Texas, potentially--now, he needs to do well in Virginia, and, you know, it's kind of a single elimination in a way for Huckabee--but if he can get past Virginia, he's got some time for Texas.  And, and that's what the Huckabee camp is, is relying on.

MR. RUSSERT:  It's clear Huckabee wants to stay in until McCain mathematically reaches the 1191 he needs, which could be at least another month.

MR. BRODER:  Yes.

MR. TODD:  It actually could be two months.  Could be Pennsylvania.

MR. BRODER:  And Huckabee has a perfectly plausible reason to stay in. There's no reason for him to get out.  But I had an interesting conversation the other night with Frank Fahrenkopf, who was the Republican National Committee chairman when Ronald Reagan was president, and he was recalling that exactly the same people who were raising hell with John McCain now at CPAC and these other conservative conventions were doing the same thing with Ronald Reagan when Reagan was in the White House.  And he said, there is an element in that conservative wing of the Republican Party that are just "aginners." And these folks have a limited constituency.

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