'Meet the Press' transcript for May 25, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  Maureen Dowd, raising the notion, specter of assassination, how has this played out within the Democratic Party, within the electorate?

MS. MAUREEN DOWD:  Well, I think her timing was excruciatingly bad.  I mean, right after the anniversary of King's death, right before the anniversary of Bobby's death, right when we learn the tragic news about Teddy Kennedy, and right when she and Bill seem engaged in kind of a hostile takeover of Obama's vice presidential mansion.  So, beyond that, I think it gave delegates and a lot of Democrats the creeps, because basically the only reason she is still is in the race is that something bad will happen.  Of course she doesn't wish him bodily harm, but she does want--she does wish him ill in the sense that they want a big horrible story that would debilitate him to break.

MR. RUSSERT:  Gwen Ifill.

MS. IFILL:  One of the things we should learn from the last couple of weeks, first with what President Bush talking about appeasement and then this week the assassination comment is never talk about Hitler in politics and never talk about assassination in politics.

MS. DOWD:  Exactly.

MS. IFILL:  Exactly.  Why would you even suggest it?  And the backdrop is what's important.  There's probably no one who's ever been in a room with Barack Obama at one of these huge rallies or even just seen a photograph of it where it hasn't crossed their mind, if you're of a certain age and survived and lived through these assassinations and assassination attempts.  So the question with, with the Clintons especially is we know that they are wordsmiths, that we know that they very carefully think about what it is they say.  She's said this several times before.  And so you have to think what do they think people would think?  We've heard her campaign spokesman say things like, you know, "Who knows what could happen?" Well, they could suspend their campaign and still come back if something happened.  That's not what she's arguing.  And so, you know, unfortunately, it poked a sore that, that keeps existing throughout this campaign, and it, and it never is going to go away. A lot of women feel that sores have been poked and a lot of African-Americans feel sores have been poked.  The future of party unity lies in them not continuing to reopen these scabs.

MR. RUSSERT:  Doris raised the second piece of Senator Clinton's comment about Bill Clinton still, in effect, contending for the nomination well into June.  And on April 8th, 1992, right after the New York primary, many political observers said the race was over.  Here's one on the "Today" show 16 years ago.

(Videotape from "Today")

MR. RUSSERT:  I think Bill Clinton's the nominee of the Democratic Party.

Mr. BRYANT GUMBEL:  Plain and simple.  Period.

MR. RUSSERT:  Absent major scandal.  He survives the minor ones pretty well. He only needs every other delegate from here on out.  Jerry Brown could win every delegate between now and the end of the primary season and he still would still mathematically not have enough delegates.  Clinton has a lock on this.

Mr. GUMBEL:  But have...

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Now, back then the Clinton campaign thought I was a mathematical genius.  I knew how to add.

Jon Meacham, the fact is that Bill Clinton, at that point, had three times as many delegates as anyone else.

MR. JON MEACHAM:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  He had locked down the nomination in April of 1992.

MR. MEACHAM:  Right.  It is a technicality that I think probably President Reagan didn't ultimately get the number you needed until June.  It's kind of irrelevant.  It depends on--to use another Clintonism--what's the meaning of June?  Because clearly things are moving in Obama's direction.  The Clinton campaign privately will, with great anguish in their voice, acknowledge that. The candidate may not.  But I think this is a great example of what our colleague Michael Kinsley called a gaff in Washington.  It's when someone tells the truth by accident, and I think this is exactly what Maureen and Gwen were saying.  It's not that she wishes him bodily harm, it is that she is counting on cataclysm.  And at this point, at this hour in, you know, Memorial Day, you do wonder whether this is ultimately good for a party that, by every mathematical and every atmospheric measure, should be burying John McCain in the polls.  I have something I keep trying to call the new misery index--it's not catching on as it, as it should.  So try for me.

MS. IFILL:  Here we go!

MR. MEACHAM:  Here we go--which is, if you add up the wrong track number with--the people who think the country's on the wrong track--with the number of people who disapprove of the president's performance, it's 152 percent. That's a pretty tough thing for a Republican.  It's hard to imagine a worse year for a Republican to run.  And yet he's running even with both Clinton and Obama.  I wonder if Senator Clinton may not go down in a way as President Reagan, Governor Reagan did in 1976 and Senator Kennedy did in 1980, as someone who ran a very strong primary challenge, but who ultimately did represent one of the reasons the party lost in November.

MR. RUSSERT:  Let's look at the latest delegate count.  These are both pledged delegates and superdelegates.  Obama, here's the total on the board, 1971.5; Clinton, 1784.5.  That's 187 lead for Barack Obama.  There are only 86 delegates available in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana.  If you assume they split those, 43 apiece or thereabouts, Obama would be within about 12 delegates, a dozen delegates, of securing the nomination.  If you introduce Florida and Michigan, say there's a settlement on seating those delegations, half of them--for conversation's sake--he'd need about 50 of the superdelegates out of a pool of 250.

David Brody, you've been covering this race.  Is it over?

MR. DAVID BRODY:  Well, it's very close.  I mean, she needs, with all apologies to Doris, you know, a Bill Buckner moment.  I mean, you know, in 1986, the ball needs to go through the legs.  Clearly, that's part of it, and we've talked about that here.  But let's also remember something else.  I mean, this is another sports analogy.  You know, at the end of the game where they keep calling time outs in basketball to let, let, let the other team shoot free throws and hopefully miss?  I mean, that's what it is about, it's elongating the game here a little bit.  And if she can do that--because, let's remember, it's not just the Clinton campaign trying to come up with something on Obama, it's also now the McCain camp as well.  There's two oppo-research teams here going.  So double the odds, potentially.  I mean, she's got to, she's got to look at something here.

MR. RUSSERT:  Ruth Marcus, question is, Hillary Clinton, how would this affect her chances if, in fact, she wants to be vice president.  Time magazine wrote this:

"What will Clinton's" term of surrender be--out--"terms of surrender turn out to be?  Her husband, for one, seems to have a pretty clear idea what he thinks she should get as a consolation prize.  In Bill Clinton's view, she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama's running mate, according to some who are close to the former president.  Bill `is pushing real hard for this to happen,' says a friend." Which triggered this headline in the New York Post: "Man and Vice:  Calls for an Obama-Hill union surge" on the wedding cake. What has her comments in South Dakota done to that discussion?

MS. MARCUS:  Not so good.  I think if that's the goal, this was a bad way to get there.  I would differ a little bit from some of the people around the table who thought this was intentional and raising a specter.  I don't see the political advantage for Senator Clinton in having said what she said.  The way I see it is, if you take exhaustion and you add a very heavy dose of self-pity, because she does believe that she's being elbowed out of the race, and even though the historical examples are, in fact, not true that June is the regular month for having races decided in the Democratic primary, if you add the exhaustion and the self-pity, you're going to get dumb remarks.  I think this was a dumb remark.

MS. IFILL:  That she said in March to Time magazine.

MS. MARCUS:  That she said in March to Time magazine.  I think there was elements of self-pity going on then.  I just don't see what she hoped to gain, and I think, to get back to Tim's question, she has a good deal to lose, both in the question of whether she and/or her husband would like to be the vice presidential candidate, and in terms of her future standing in the party. Because one of the things that's in, I believe, her mind, and certainly in the mind of her advisers is how this ends and how it ends in a way that leaves her looking good as she exits the stage for right now.

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