'Meet the Press' transcript for April 27, 2008

MR. BRODER:  One of the real assets that Obama has had has been the fact that he is part of the post-boomer generation, the first presidential candidate who really is not culturally or intellectually tied to those disputes of the '60s. The Ayers issue, for the first time, tried to put him back into that category. I think it's weak enough of a link that he can get past this one.  But he's really had a tough time now in the last two weeks separating himself from all of those controversies that people are really weary of hearing about.

MR. RUSSERT:  Has Hillary Clinton successfully put a question mark over Barack Obama's head, "Who is this guy"?

MS. MITCHELL:  She has and he has in some of his statements.  And I do think--let me just say something from being on the ground in Pennsylvania and in Ohio--I think racism is a real factor here.  I don't think it's being polled correctly because I don't think it can be polled correctly.  I think it is what you see in some of his failure to connect with a particular sector of the electorate.  And I'm not sure how you get your arms around it, but I think it is a real issue that there is a resistance to him on some level in the electorate, and you hear these things from voters when you talk to them.  "Oh, I heard that he's not really a Christian." "Oh, well, he didn't, you know, put his hand over his heart." All this willingness to believe totally erroneous things about Barack Obama, which begins to congeal, and I think it's a problem.

MR. RUSSERT:  John, how's this going to end?

MR. DICKERSON:  Oh goodness.  I--how's it going to end?  Probably sometime in June you know, unless Andrea's right and, and Obama wins big in Indiana.  And, and, you know, he's getting the drip, drip, drip of, of superdelegates, you know, which is, which is one thing we're all paying close attention to.  And about the last four months the deficit with Hillary Clinton has gone from 100 down to about 23.  He's got the momentum with this group if they continue to pick up that pace.  If, in the beginning of June, barring some extraordinary event in these primaries, they all get together and jump for Obama then it ends in early June rather than at the end.  But, as David points out, it ends only as far as sort of our chatter about it.  Nothing officially ends until August, and so there's lots of chance for mischief between when it ends in June and when they get to the convention in August.

MS. IFILL:  (Unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT:  Gwen Ifill, based on your reporting and aware of the history of '68 and '72 and '80 when Democrats are divided, do you believe that this party can come--actually come together after this debate?

MS. IFILL:  Sure, why not?  I mean, I mean, the country has--I mean, we come together after things all the time.  This country right now seems to be riven by grievance, whether it's the grievance of people in New York who thinks Sean Bell's killer should have been, you know, convicted, or if it's a grievance of, you know, beer drinkers in Pennsylvania who don't think that Barack Obama listens to them.  Right now everyone's going to have a nice healthy argument about that.  That's fine.  But there's no reason--there's a lot of time between now and the fall, and, as John pointed out, John McCain is doing a lot of interesting things which will bear closer scrutiny when the time comes. And, you know, it's fun for us.  It's the full employment for act for journalists.

MR. RUSSERT:  Richard Wolffe.

MR. WOLFFE:  Well, I thought Howard Dean was very interesting on this.  He campaigned vigorously for John Kerry, and his supporters hated John Kerry.  Is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama going to, going to go out there and campaign vigorously for the other candidate, the ultimate nominee?  Is one of them going to raise their hand on the stage at the convention?  You know, we're going to be looking for those things and, and testing just how strong that commitment is.

MR. RUSSERT:  Neither has any choice.  Why?  There's 2012.  That's my last word, all right?  David Broder, Andrea, Mitchell, John Dickerson, Gwen Ifill, Richard Wolffe.  We'll be right back.

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MR. RUSSERT:  That's all for today.  We'll be back next week.  If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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