'Meet the Press' transcript for August 3, 2008

MR. BROKAW: But what are they going to do about all those women who voted for Hillary Clinton that they don't want to lose in the fall? Not that they have a lot of other places to go, obviously, but they don't want to anger them or make them sit at home.

MR. TODD: I think they think that this is--the idea that they have a problem is a creation on the Upper East side of New York, that if you look at some polling, it's actually not there. That, you know, I think there was a Pew study that said 78 percent of, of Clinton supporters, excuse me, it's a Lifetime poll, 78 percent of Clinton supporters are already in the Obama camp. So what does that say? It's one, one out of 10. Well, and then you suddenly look and you realize, "Oh, 10 percent of Democrats always vote across the aisle." So I think suddenly you realize he's, he's not losing any additional things.

But on the vice presidential, a couple things. First of all, this week, expect that we'll see some face-to-faces between Obama and some of these prospective candidates. Joe Biden and Evan Bayh apparently will have some face time at some point this week. Of course, we have our...

MR. BROKAW: Senator Obama's going out to Indiana.

MR. TODD: He'll be out in Indiana, and so we're trying to figure out where Joe Biden is going to be meeting him. But that's why we have all of our fine folks on the ground to keep, keep spying on these, on these individuals. But I think another thing we overlook here and why he may end up going with somebody without too much experience is, remember '88? I mean, sort of '88 was a--showed how to mess up two vice presidential picks. Dukakis picked somebody too qualified and made him look like he was underqualified to be president. Lloyd Bentsen looked like he was for the part. Then George Bush picked somebody way underqualified for the job. So you don't want to--those are the two extremes, and I think both campaigns are looking at those extremes of '88 and saying, "OK, how do we not pull that extreme off?" That's why the, the Tim Pawlenty thing for, for McCain seems odd or Eric Cantor out of Virginia. And that's why I think, at the end of the day, maybe Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton doesn't work as well for Obama. Because you don't want to pick somebody who seems to have more qualifications.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah, that's part of it.

MS. MITCHELL: And, in fact, one thing about that is that Joe Biden was very willing to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, and...

MR. BROKAW: And he wasn't invited.

MS. MITCHELL: ...he was not invited. He was pointedly not invited because it was feared by the Obama people that he would overshadow Obama on foreign policy.

MR. MURPHY: Yes.

MR. BROKAW: In the final analysis, Judy, how much difference does it make? You and I were in Omaha when Dan Quayle went up against Lloyd Bentsen, lost the debate in a dramatic and famous moment in which Lloyd Bentsen said, "I knew Jack Kennedy. He was a friend of mine. You're no Jack Kennedy." And it didn't make any difference in the fall.

MS. WOODRUFF: It didn't make any difference. I mean, Lloyd Bentsen cleaned Dan Quayle's clock, and it had no effect in November. But, you know, look even farther back. Richard Nixon picked Spiro Agnew. He still won. I think a lot of these arguments that people talk about, you know, the, the "first do no harm," you can do a little harm and still cross the finish line. The other one is the--is you know, pick up a state here, red state, blue state. But, you know, OK, for all those who argue that, that, you know, picking Evan Bayh is going to help you in Ohio as well as Indiana, picking Mitt Romney is going to help you in Michigan, the last time somebody on, on the--as a running mate pushed somebody across the--helped somebody win his own state was Texas.

MS. MITCHELL: LBJ.

MS. WOODRUFF: Lyndon Johnson helped John Kennedy, and that was almost a half a century ago.

MR. MURPHY: Yes.

MR. TODD: I think Al Gore would argue that he did help carry Tennessee.

MR. MURPHY: Well, the vice president, hugely over-rated politically, but it's a fixture of the process. So, therefore, what it really becomes is a way that you can talk about your own candidacy. Which is where all the peril is, because, if you're Obama and you pick somebody superexperienced, the next thing you're going to hear is, "He's trying to offset his own inexperience." That's the problem. You can't have the asymmetrical thing where you pick somebody too young, well, "the ticket's too young." You pick somebody too old, well, "you're too young." So you got to be very careful. As weak as the state argument is, ultimately, in my view anyway, it still boils up to a pretty good argument. If they--if Tim Kaine can carry Virginia and help him do well in North Carolina, that's a heart attack problem for the Republicans. If a Tom Ridge can help in Pennsylvania or a Mitt Romney in the industrial Midwest, that's tremendous. So they may not be able to deliver the state, but they can help make an argument there, there is some advantage.

MR. BROKAW: Let's talk about issues for a moment. Where's the fault line in this campaign? Is it national security or the economy?

MR. MURPHY: It's the economy. Though I think it's in McCain's interest to make national security bigger. Two ways to win a campaign. Either litigate the issues that are number one, or take the issues you win and make them number one, either way. And that's one last vice presidential point of view. One strategy the McCain guys could do is pick somebody who's all about national security to try to move the campaign more there. Go pick a Bob Gates, I mean, somebody totally out of the politics world to say, "We are the competent adults on national security," and try to make the election more about that to play to McCain's strengths, which, because of the surge, are getting stronger and stronger. Not what the Democrats would've thought a year ago on Iraq.

MS. WOODRUFF: But, Tom, it's about the economy, but now more and more it's about energy as well. And, and so telling in Obama's changing his position in the last few days. You just talked to Senator Kerry and Senator Lieberman about it--Lieberman about it. It's striking. I mean, he's saying, "OK, I'll only go along with environmentally sensitive drilling under certain conditions and only if we can tax the oil companies." But this is a, a striking change for him.

MS. MITCHELL: And he's also...

MR. MURPHY: He's the candidate of change, no doubt about it. He's been moving to the center with rocket speed.

MS. MITCHELL: He's saying it's not a change.

MR. TODD: One warning on energy. How many times, how many summers of a president--of a, of a an election year do we say, "oh, energy" because the gas price thing pops up, "energy." You know, what happens when--gas prices are going to continue to drop. We've seen--we know the price of oil has finally fallen a little bit. Gas prices are going to go down, too. And we see--to 3.40, 3.50 a gallon. And we've seen, the American public always seems to absorb it. They absorbed--we thought $3 was going to be...

MS. MITCHELL: I think this is different, though.

MR. TODD: I know we keep saying it's different.

MS. MITCHELL: I, I really do think that this is an exponential...

MR. TODD: But I'm just saying, don't be surprised if it falls...

MS. MITCHELL: There have been behavior changes. People are really using less, driving less. This has affected people's lives, people's employment who are not able to drive where they need to drive. I think this is exponential.

MR. BROKAW: It's a combination of the economy and energy prices at this point.

MS. MITCHELL: Exactly. And I do think that the fact that Obama changed, as McCain had earlier changed, in Florida, on offshore drilling, they're looking at the polls. And, in fact the, the House Democrats are behind the curve on this because they fled for their August recess, and Nancy Pelosi was playing to her home base in California and not permitting a vote on offshore drilling, trying to protect Barack Obama, the candidacy, the platform against offshore drilling. And now Obama has shifted, even though he says it's not a shift, which is yet another example of him trying to...

MR. TODD: By the way, President Bush could help here.

MS. MITCHELL: ...tweak that on a Friday night.

MR. TODD: President Bush could help here and call Congress back and force them to pass something...

MR. MURPHY: And that's going to...

MR. TODD: ...and he's not doing that.

MR. MURPHY: That's going to be a bigger issue in the fall, when this thing gets serious after Labor Day, is Obama plus the House Democrats, all that pent up kind of liberal energy they're going to have if they run up the number in the Senate, the idea of one-party government in Washington, all Democrat, all liberal. Look for that as an emerging theme out of McCain. I think it'll be effective.

MR. BROKAW: Why wouldn't Senator McCain be in favor of rolling back the tax credit for oil companies, given the profits that they have just turned up? And it was a tax credit that was designed to create jobs, after all. They've got plenty of money to create jobs.

MR. MURPHY: Right. Well, I think he argues that beating up on the oil industry beats up on exploration and sources of new oil. And, you know, Exxon just paid, like, $30 billion taxes. So there's two sides of the story. But the politics of it are very attractive. I think what the McCain guys are trying to do is harness kind of the energy politics right into "more drilling equals lower gas prices," which policy people kind of argue about, but the politics of it are pretty good. And that's where Obama was feeling the pain, and that's why he moved, I think, on drilling. Or moved to hint that he might do drilling.

MR. BROKAW: Who's going to be the keynoter at the Democratic convention?

MR. TODD: Oh, my money's on Chuck Hagel. And I, I think it would be a Republican. That's the message that Obama wants to send. I mean, the whole idea of the Democratic convention, I think, is going to be two parts. One is you are going to see them be more aggressive on McCain than John Kerry was on Bush. I mean, I talked to an Obama person, and I asked them what they thought of that 2004 convention as a whole, was it too soft on Bush? And immediately said, "Oh, absolutely." So expect--in fact, don't be surprised if Obama starts ratcheting up rhetoric against McCain this week. Forget the convention. But I've always--my money's always been on Chuck Hagel as the, as the keynote. But it's not--you know, technically Hillary Clinton may dominate that night because she's, she's the, she's the big speaker that night. But you send a message with your keynote, and I think we may have seen the other keynote on this, at this desk.

MS. WOODRUFF: Yeah.

MR. BROKAW: What's your money on Joe Lieberman for keynoting the Republican convention?

MS. MITCHELL: Especially after today, pretty good money. You know, Joe Lieberman is actually, you know, leaving--he's left his party, he has infuriated--look, look at some of the reaction shots from John Kerry looking at Joe Lieberman. I mean, he's infuriated his former Democratic colleagues. But he is a great argument...

MR. BROKAW: But he did say at the end he would still be welcome, which was quite surprising to me, frankly.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, they, they're looking at breaking filibusters, and depending on what happens...

MR. MURPHY: Sixty, yeah.

MS. MITCHELL: ...they need 60 votes. They're looking at Alaska, they're looking at edging up that Democratic majority in the Senate. But Joe Lieberman--you know, Florida and going--cutting into what would normally be the Jewish-American vote for a Democrat to bring them back over to the Republican Party, that's a pretty compelling message.

MR. BROKAW: What do you think the chances are that Joe Lieberman will stay a D, Democrat, come the next term?

MR. MURPHY: I think he probably will. I take him at his word. But I think it'll be a very icy welcome. You could hear a little bit of that iron in, in Senator Kerry's remark of, `Well, I think you're going to be one--be part of our new big majority.'

I will make one convention prediction. I think Hillary Clinton will give a pretty well-received speech, actually. I don't think she'll be the keynote. But--and I can't ever prove this, but I'll predict she votes for John McCain. I'm going to be watching those Chappaquiddick poll results very closely. She wants an adult...

MS. MITCHELL: Chappaqua.

MR. MURPHY: Chappaqua, excuse me. She wants--yeah, still politics.

MR. TODD: You Republicans are programmed...(unintelligible).

MR. MURPHY: No, no, no, no. I believe it. I would bet money if there's a way to prove it, because she wants to race in four years. She'll be back. She'll never stop running. And she wants an adult on foreign policy, and that's OK.

MR. BROKAW: One minute left, around the table. Judy Woodruff, who is Senator Obama's choice for vice president?

MS. WOODRUFF: Oh, my gosh. It's either going to be...

MR. MURPHY: Good answer.

MS. WOODRUFF: ...Evan Bayh, Joe Biden or, or...

MR. BROKAW: Oh, come on, this is not multiple choice.

MS. MITCHELL: Yes, it is.

MS. WOODRUFF: ...or Tim Kaine.

MS. MITCHELL: I'd say Bayh or Biden.

MR. TODD: I'm in Biden or Kaine, if you're going to--we get to do two.

MR. MURPHY: Kaine, unfortunately.

MS. WOODRUFF: We're all in the same...

MR. BROKAW: And...

MS. WOODRUFF: ...ballpark, Tom.

MR. BROKAW: ...for McCain?

MR. MURPHY: Boy, I, I think Romney or Pawlenty, though I'm pushing Ridge.

MR. TODD: I think none of the above on the short list, I think we're going to continue to see new people. I think the person--we're not talking about him.

MS. MITCHELL: I think he's going to end up with Romney, as much as he, he'll hate it. But he'll have to do it.

MR. BROKAW: Judy, one choice this time, not three.

MS. WOODRUFF: Come on, conventional wisdom, Pawlenty or, or Romney. But the new name is Eric Cantor, the young congressman--46-year-old congressman from Virginia.

MR. BROKAW: Thanks very much to all of you.

Next Sunday, I'll be here on MEET THE PRESS. We'll be talking about what's going on in China with the Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson from Beijing. I'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW: That's all for today. Another reminder, I'll be back next week from Beijing with the secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson. Plus, I'll have the very latest on Decision 2008. And we'll be airing at a special time in some areas due to NBC's Olympic coverage, so please check our Web site this week or your local listings for special airtimes for MEET THE PRESS. If it is Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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