'Meet the Press' transcript for April 27, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  You had an interview with the Financial Times and said this: "There's a gestalt in politics when suddenly people see things in a synchronous way.  Politically, there will be some feeling at the end of this process that somebody is better than the other person in terms of taking on John McCain."

Gestalt, feeling, is that what's going to decide this race?

DR. DEAN:  That's what, that's how voters vote, and that's how delegates vote.  Delegates are just like voters.  They, really, they look like voters, they are voters, and that's what's going to happen.  What's going to happen is, based on the last--you know, this is essentially pretty close to a tie here, and what's going to happen these last nine primaries and, and cauc--I guess they're all primaries--is that we're going to--there's going to be some feeling at some point and the--in the--after these last few weeks that one of these candidates is more likely to win than the other, and I think that's who's going to get the nomination.  I can't tell you who that is.  I have no idea who it is.  But that's what's going to happen.

MR. RUSSERT:  The candidate with the most elected delegates is not guaranteed the nomination?

DR. DEAN:  The rules say that the candidate with the most delegates gets the nomination, and I support the rules.

MR. RUSSERT:  So that the superdelegates could, in effect, overrule the elected delegates?

DR. DEAN:  That, you know, you shouldn't think of it that way.  So-called "superdelegates" are, in fact, elected by exactly the same people who vote for the elected delegates.  This is just--this is like an--a representative democracy.  You elect a--80 percent of the delegates, and they have to do what you ask them to do.  The others, the 20 percent you elect, essentially do what's in their best judgment, just like the House and the Senate does. Sometimes you like it, and sometimes you don't.  But these folks are elected, all, all of them, almost all of them are elected.  A tiny minority are not elected; they're appointed.  But most of them are elected.  They're elected by the same people who went to the--who go to the conventions and go to the--vote in the primaries.  They're governors, senators.  A lot of them are, are, are DNC members.  There's 21-year-olds there, there's--50 percent are women and so on, and on, on it goes.  So this should not be looked at as some bunch of cigar-smoking folks in the back room slapping each other in the back and electing the next president.  It doesn't work that way.

MR. RUSSERT:  James Clyburn, the congressman from South Carolina, said he's been listening to people, however, and this is what Congressman Clyburn had to say:

(Videotape)

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC):  (From "Countdown with Keith Olbermann") Now they seem to be feeling that the graybeards are positioning themselves to overturn the will of the people.  These superdelegates--they don't quite understand what the superdelegates are.  They think that we're waiting in the closet somewhere to, to just snatch this nomination away.  And so that's the feeling that people have got.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe that the elected delegates represent the will of the people?

DR. DEAN:  Yes.

MR. RUSSERT:  So that if...

DR. DEAN:  But I also believe the so-called superdelegates represent the will of the people.  They are responsible to their constituencies:  governors, senators, people running for office, DNC members, all elected by the same people who are going to these caucuses and to these primaries.

MR. RUSSERT:  But the elected delegates were elected because they ran supporting the person that won the primary or the caucus.  What should be the criteria of a superdelegate when they make their judgment as to who to vote for?

DR. DEAN:  Well, I'm not going to say what their criteria should be because that's not what the rule--the rules don't give you a criteria.  They're supposed to vote their conscience.  My personal belief is they're going to vote for the person they think, think can beat John McCain, which is what I think a lot of these voters are voting for.  I think a lot of these folks are going to the polls and are going to go the week after next in Indiana and North Carolina are saying, "Which one of our folks, of our folks, Senator Obama or Senator Clinton, can best beat John McCain?"

MR. RUSSERT:  So your personal view is that even if someone has won more elected delegates, if you think the other person would be a stronger candidate against John McCain, you'd opt for the other person?

DR. DEAN:  Tim, that is not my personal view.  My personal view is, I am the chairman of this party, we have a set of rules that have been in place for a year and a half, and I am the person who's in charge of upholding the rules whether I like them or not.  Are there some rules I might change next time around?  Yeah, maybe so.  But right now we're focusing on the rules we have. Look, that's all we've got.  No--I feel like I'm the referee here at the NCAA finals.  You know, you make some calls, but if you stick to the rules and do the right thing according the rules, you're going to end up with a decent process.  And that's what we have to do.

MR. RUSSERT:  The rules are the superdelegates do not have to...

DR. DEAN:  That's correct.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...abide by the vote, vote of the electorate.

DR. DEAN:  Right.  And I might--that's correct--and I might add that never in my time as going to these conventions, which has been back to 1980, have I ever seen that not happen.  I've never seen a situation where the, where the unpledged delegates didn't essentially end up voting the same way the pledged delegates did.

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