'Meet the Press' transcript for March 2, 2008

MR. SHRUM:  It's...

MR. RUSSERT:  But is...

MR. CARVILLE:  And Obama's response is, is, is--and Obama had a good response to it.

MR. RUSSERT:  But is President Clinton right, that the candidate who appeals to hope beats the candidate who appears--appeals to fear?

MR. CARVILLE:  Well...

MR. SHRUM:  Well, I wish he'd been right in 2004.  But I think, I think in 2000, I think in 2008...

MR. CARVILLE:  Right.

MR. SHRUM:  ...it is probably the case that the candidate who appeals to hope beats the candidate who appeals to fear.  The reason James is right, that this should be about the economy, is because by making it about national security and foreign policy, it enabled the Obama people to pull Iraq right back into the middle of this debate.

MR. CARVILLE:  I...

MS. MATALIN:  This is a false choice, hope/fear, to use one of Clinton's other terms.  We are in a fearful age.  We are--we have economic insecurity around the world, we have a new terrorist threat, it's a new enemy.  It is--not an--you can't--they're not one or the other, hope or fear.  False choice.  And that is old-style politics for Obama, who's about to get into the real world of politics, OK?  What--he's pretty soon going to be on the old-style politics, and you can already see it, the way he's up there Bush bashing and McCain attacking.  "That's the party of yesterday, not the face of the future." So stop with the false dichotomies, which will be the only new style politics, to not make it about fear/hope.

MR. RUSSERT:  We're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about Iraq, NAFTA, some issues, and the differences between the Republicans and Democrats right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  More of our political roundtable.  What the voters say in one word describes the candidates after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we're back.

On the debate on Tuesday, I initiated a question to Senator Obama about, after he withdrew troops from Iraq, if, in fact, al-Qaeda reconstituted and posed a threat, what would he do.  His response triggered a response from John McCain and President Bush, and then a rebuttal from Obama himself.  Let's watch.

(Videotape, Tuesday)

SEN. OBAMA:  As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests.  And if al-Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.

(End videotape)

(Videotape, Wednesday)

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ):  I am told that Senator Obama made the statement that if al-Qaeda came back to Iraq after he withdraws, after the--after the American troops are withdrawn, then he would send military troops back if al-Qaeda established a base in Iraq.  I have some news.  Al-Qaeda is in Iraq. Al-Qaeda--it's called al-Qaeda in Iraq.

(End videotape)

(Videotape, Thursday)

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH:  It's an interesting comment.  "If al-Qaeda is securing a al-Qaeda base..." Yeah, well, that's exactly what they've been trying to do for the past four years.

(End videotape)

(Videotape, Wednesday)

SEN. OBAMA:  I do know that al-Qaeda is in Iraq, and that's why I've said we should continue to strike al-Qaeda targets.  But I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Is that what we're going to see in November?

MR. SHRUM:  I think we're going to see some of this debate.  I think a little bit of it's a mistake, and I'll let Murphy explain that in a minute.  Look, the center of al-Qaeda is Afghanistan.  Despite all of the Republican chest-thumping, 60 percent of the country still wants a gradual withdrawal from, from Iraq.  The much of what's going on in Iraq is Shiite factionalism, which is now so broken down that they can't even hold provincial elections. Until you say we're going to leave at a certain point, you're not going to get the kind of political settlement and military capability on the part of the Iraqis that can keep order in that country.  But I think it's a mistake for McCain to be attacking Obama at this point.

MR. MURPHY:  Well, I think McCain, being the foreign policy adult vs.  Obama, helps McCain.  But I do, I do think the McCain campaign has to be very careful because we're in an election with tremendous wrong track, tremendous desire to change Washington.  And if we break out the moldy old Republican playbook and run the single note liberal, liberal, liberal campaign, it's going to turn McCain into Bob Dole, and we lose.  McCain, we got the one different kind of Republican this year who can go to the center, and a lot of the Obama stuff that the energy behind his campaign, other than the war, is the same political reform stuff that John McCain built his reputation on and, frankly, showed a lot more courage in a lot of votes than Barack Obama ever has.  So I think McCain can co-opt that space in the center and then beat him on liberal economics and beat him on experience in a crisis.  To just go lumpy liberal on him, which is kind of the Republican reflex sometimes, I think is a big mistake.  And we ought to let McCain be McCain.

MR. SHRUM:  Well, even worse, what if Hillary does come back?  It seems to me him out there attacking Obama at this point actually drives potential voters, independent voters who like Obama and may be aggrieved if Hillary wins, away from him.  So I, I don't understand this strategy.

MR. MURPHY:  Look, the McCain campaign's got to, in my view, anyway, from the outside, understand that the primary's over.  They don't need to be campaigning with televangelists in San Antonio.  They need to pivot to the general election in a way, in a way, with all due respect to the good reverend, and I will say, as a Catholic boy who's spent a lot of time with John McCain, there's not an anti-Catholic atom in, in John McCain.  He loves my people.  But pivot to the general election and take the fact that McCain is a different kind of Repub and run with it in a very bad environment where we need that kind of guy to win, or Democrat City, it'll set the conservative movement back 50 years.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me show you another issue where there will be a big difference between John McCain and either Obama or Clinton, and that's NAFTA, Mary Matalin, North America Free Trade Agreement.  Bill Clinton, the centerpiece of his presidency in 1993.  What a difference 15 years makes. Here are both Democratic candidates coming out against NAFTA.  Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me button this up.  Absent the changes that you're suggesting, you are willing to opt out of NAFTA in six months?

SEN. CLINTON:  I'm confident that as president, when I saw we will opt out unless we renegotiate, we will be able to renegotiate.

MR. RUSSERT:  Senator Obama, simple question:  Will you, as president, say to Canada and Mexico, "This has not worked for us.  We are out"?

SEN. OBAMA:  I will make sure that we renegotiate in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about.  And I think, actually, Senator Clinton's answer on this one is right.  I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.

(End videotape)

MS. MATALIN:  Boy, so wrong on so many levels.  First of all, the--25 percent of our growth is dependent on exports right now.  NAFTA has worked. Thirty-five percent of our trading is through NAFTA partners.  He's wrong. Secondly, our best friends, Canada, is sitting on--they're sitting on our most secure source of foreign oil.  Those sands up there have as much oil as Saudi Arabia.  And Harper and the trade minister came out and said, "You want to opt out?  You want to threaten to opt out?  Guess what.  We'll open up the clause, and we'll renegotiate so you don't get favor--favorability relative to energy trade, and I--we'll sell our energy to China." It was so naive.  And he--and he opened himself up to a real volatility, because in '04 he said enormously beneficial on NAFTA.  So he's either lying in '04 or he's lying to Ohioans now.  And then he had that Canadian thing, where, "I'm saying this, but I mean that," which the Canandians are continuing to say...

MR. SHRUM:  He absolutely denied that, Mary, so let's at least be fair to him.

MS. MATALIN:  Well, the Canadians are...

MR. SHRUM:  And you've got...

MS. MATALIN:  ...absolutely confirming it.

MR. SHRUM:  ...you've got a right wing government in Canada that is trying to help the Republicans and is out there actively interfering in this campaign. I sure hope John McCain campaigns the length and breadth of Ohio and Pennsylvania for NAFTA throughout the fall.

MR. MURPHY:  Well, the one thing I'll say as, a Republican, I used to love about Bill Clinton, was he was brave enough to be for free trade.

MS. MATALIN:  Yeah.

MR. MURPHY:  So...

MR. CARVILLE:  I can--something I can attest to personally, and I, I have checked, she--in, in 1992, she was decidedly cool toward NAFTA.  Came up with--we came out for NAFTA during the campaign.  And I--the reason I remember it so well is it's one of the few times that I actually disagreed with, with Hillary Clinton on anything.  I made it my business to try to agree with her on, on most things.  Now, I don't know what happened in between 1992 and this campaign, but I do know that she was decidedly cool on, on the idea of us endorsing NAFTA during that campaign.

MR. MURPHY:  But she has a theory about what happened...

MR. RUSSERT:  But in 2004, she did say, "On balance, NAFTA has been good for New York and for America."

MR. MURPHY:  Right.

MR. CARVILLE:  I, I--again, I, I do know that--what it was in 1992.  I can't attest other...

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you think that--do you think if Obama or Clinton actually got elected they would try to do something with NAFTA?

MR. MURPHY:  Yeah.

MR. SHRUM:  I actually think you can...

MR. MURPHY:  Yes.  That's the question.

MR. SHRUM:  I actually think you can do something on the environment and labor standards with both Mexico and Canada.  I don't think you have to cause the whole thing to collapse.  I think you can have a renegotiation of certain items without basically blowing the treaty up.

MR. MURPHY:  I'm going to put my faith in what Count Bismarck said, which is "The greatest lies are told before the marriage, after the hunt, and during the election." And nothing like losing 11 in a row to turn Hillary Clinton into a protectionist in steel towns in Ohio.  I'm hoping this is a Clinton wiggle.

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