'Meet the Press' transcript for April 27, 2008

MR. TIM RUSSERT:  Our issues this Sunday:

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY):  I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL):  If we've won the most delegates from the voters, seems to me that it might be a good idea to make me the nominee.

MR. RUSSERT:  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, making their case for the Democratic nomination.  How much is their battle hurting the Democrats' chances in November?  Will their fight go all the way to the convention?  With us, an exclusive interview with the man in the middle of all this, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Dr. Howard Dean.

Then, next up, Indiana and North Carolina on May 6th.  Insights and analysis from David Broder of The Washington Post, John Dickerson of Slate.com, Gwen Ifill of PBS' "Washington Week" and "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and Richard Wolffe of Newsweek magazine.

But first, the primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is one for the history books.  How is it going to be resolved in the spirit of unity? Joining us, the man who must do just that, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean.

Dr. Dean, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

DR. HOWARD DEAN:  Thanks for having me on, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let's look at the latest number.  These are elected delegates. Barack Obama has 1491, Hillary Clinton has 1334.  You need 2,025.  Upcoming Democratic contests:  Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico; ending on June 3rd, Montana and South Dakota.  Four hundred eight delegates available with all those contests.  Lastly, the so-called superdelegates, Clinton has 263, Obama has 240, and 292 remain uncommitted.

When you look at all that, how and when is this nomination fight going to end?

DR. DEAN:  Well, I'm hoping it'll be over by the end of the month of June. We've made great progress in the last few weeks that I think about 50 or 60 unpledged delegates have said who they're going to be for.  And, you know, it'd be a lot of fun for you if we had a divided convention with 104 ballots; it'd break the record.  But the truth is we need to figure this out before the convention.  We need time to heal.  And actually, I'm not the most important person in terms of bringing the party together.  The most important person is the, is the person who doesn't win the nomination.  Because I can remember when, I can remember when I lost to John Kerry, I had to go out and convince my supporters--it took me about three months--that they needed to support Senator Kerry.  I endorsed him, I campaigned for him, I went all--to all the college campuses.  And that's what the person who doesn't win this, with 49 percent of the delegates, is going to have to do in order to keep the party together.

MR. RUSSERT:  There's been an interesting debate over the last couple weeks about elected delegates.  Obama has more elected delegates than Clinton.  And if you look at the remaining contests, Hillary Clinton would need to win 69 percent of the outstanding elected delegates in order to overtake his lead, which most people believe is just impossible to do with proportional allocation.  Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, former Democratic National Committee chairman...

DR. DEAN:  Yep.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...made this observation about elected delegates.  Let's listen.

(Audiotape)

GOV. ED RENDELL (D-PA):  The popular vote is, to me, a much fairer indicia than the pledged delegates because the pledged delegates are elected in a very undemocratic way.

(End audiotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you agree with that?

DR. DEAN:  Well, no, I don't.  First of all, I don't agree with it.  And secondly, look, we have a set of rules.  My job here is not to side with one candidate or the other and talk about pledged delegates or superdelegates or any of that stuff.  My job is to take the rules that everybody started with and enforce the rules without fear or favor of any candidate.  The--somebody's going to lose this with 49 percent of the delegates in Denver, and that person has to believe that they were treated fairly if--otherwise, we can't win. Look, John McCain is a weak candidate.  He's wrong on Iraq, as far as the American people are concerned.  We don't want to stay there for a hundred years.  He's wrong on the economy; it wasn't the mortgage holders that, that, whose fault this was.  He's wrong on healthcare.  We should have health insurance for all our kids.  He is not a strong candidate.

The only thing that's going to beat us is if we're not unified.  And my, in order to be unified, both the losing candidate and the winning candidate have to feel like the system was fair.  So Senator Rendell may say--I mean, Governor Rendell may not like the rules, but the rules are what we started with.  Most of them have been in place for the last 25 years.  That's what we've got to go by, whether you like the rules or you don't like the rules.

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