'Meet the Press' transcript for August 17, 2008

MR. GREGORY: Right. Well, let's get to that point because this is one of the weekly strategic review memos that you uncovered. And this is from Mark Penn, her chief adviser talking about what could hold Obama back. "Lack of experience, lack of American roots, removed from working man and woman, phony, just another politician." And this is what he writes about lack of American roots: "All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting it in a new light. Save it for 2050. It also exposes a very strong weakness for him - his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

Back in March, Chuck Todd, to your point, the McCain campaign aired this ad. Watch.

(Videotape, campaign ad)

Announcer: What must a president believe about us? About America? That she is worth protecting, that liberty is priceless, our people honorable, our future prosperous, remarkable and free. John McCain, the American president Americans have been waiting for.

SEN. McCAIN:  I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: He is going there.

MR. TODD: He is. I'm surprised he didn't say, "I'm American John McCain and I, and I paid in America to pay for this American message."

MR. GREGORY: Yeah, yeah.

MR. TODD: No, but he is, but they did back off that slightly. I mean, there--it's certainly, it's certainly implied and it's not that subtle. Country first is, you know, he talked about it last night. In the Rick Warren thing, he mentioned putting country first a number of times. So they are going there to a point, but you can't do it with a sledgehammer. You know, Mark Penn wanted to do it with a sledgehammer. That ad did it with a sledgehammer and then they backed off, realizing there is sort of this line. If you're going to do it, you have to do it in little more subtle ways and that's what country first, I think, does more than anything.

MR. GREGORY: But Joshua and Andrea, why did they back off then? There was a feeling that she wasn't well liked enough to go that negative against Obama.

MR. GREEN: Yeah, that's right. I mean, the main--Penn's comments have gotten, obviously, a lot of attention. He's been murdered in the aftermath of this article for that. Focusing on Obama's "lack of American roots" is really kind of an aberration in these memos. What he wanted to do is pierce the myth of Obama, really tear him down on the issue of the Iraq War, which Penn thought was deadly, and the other side of the campaign didn't want to do that. They didn't believe Iraq was an issue they could ever win on. They saw that Clinton was viewed as strong, experienced, but she wasn't well liked and they wanted to run a campaign that would fundamentally reintroduce her to America, make people look at her again. The problem with those two strategies is they're at cross purposes. And what the Clinton campaign did was won--run one of them one day, another one the next day, and you wind up with gridlock, and that's the story of the campaign in a nutshell.

MS. MITCHELL: Exactly. And being out on the road with her so much, you saw it. They would ricochet back and forth. She would start of saying, "I was born in the middle of America, in the middle of the century," and she was all-American and kept hammering away at that, and also was very negative, Pennsylvania, going after him on the bitter comments, was seizing on that YouTube from what he had said in San Francisco, trying to portray him as not being authentic. And it worked in those final primaries. And I think that the McCain people, if they backed off on that commercial a bit, they'll either reinforce it later on or have the 527s do it for them. But you're going to keep hearing that theme. They think it's worked for them.

MR. GREEN: The other lesson from the Clinton campaign is that by doing what she did, you really wind up with the worst of both worlds. You get tarred from being negative without getting any of the benefits that a sustained negative attack might yield and I think that's, that's a mistake the McCain campaign has not made yet and doesn't look as though it's going to.

MR. TODD: John McCain has the favorable rating, right? He had favorables to give, Hillary did not.

MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about the V.P. search, but before we do that, Chuck Todd, let's look at the latest NBC News electoral map. And what's striking about this in your recent formulation, is that you see Obama's states, his lean or likely states going up to 217 at this stage.

MR. TODD: They are. It is--he got a little bit stronger. He's just, you know, Oregon and New Jersey, these states that could've been McCain targets in a better Republican year, Obama's putting them away. McCain's not putting away any states. He's not putting away Indiana, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota. They're all still states that he's favored in, but he's not putting them away. But the most remarkable thing, I think about the map is how the toss-ups are fairly steady. McCain is strong in the places that he's campaigning and advertising. Now, he is a limited amount of states that he's advertising in. He's only in about 11 of the battleground states, Obama's trying to expand the playing field, he's advertising in 18 and you see that difference. In those seven states that only Obama's in, his numbers have moved up a lot more and obviously McCain hasn't, but in those other states, McCain's holding steady and even has a lead in some of them.

MR. GREGORY: And Andrea, two states we're looking at day in and day out, Virginia, Colorado. Governor Kaine was just here, he likes Obama's chances there.

MS. MITCHELL: Virginia could go Democratic. Obviously, if Governor Kaine is on the ticket that would be a help. More of a help than what he said was staying in Virginia and working the state, being on the ticket would, would be that. I don't necessarily think that that is going to happen. I don't think that's where they're going right now. But Colorado also a big opportunity, and clearly the Denver convention is the best way of them lifting that.

MR. GREGORY: All right, let's go through the final four here. We can take a stab at, at some of these candidates for the number two slot. Let's start with Obama and talk about pluses and minuses of these candidates.

We talked about Governor Kaine, Josh. He was just here, he's on that short list. What does he do for Obama and what are some of the negatives?

MR. GREEN: Well, I think what he does for Obama is he doubles down on the message of change and the message of, you know, "I'm coming from outside Washington and we're going to go in and get rid of the calcified, you know, gridlocked community that we have there and get some things done." He obviously helps you in an important swing state. And along with Mark Warner, that, that would, that would make a pretty fearsome team for the Obama folks. On the downside, it's the question of inexperience.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. GREEN: He does not have a lot of experience in national politics. He, he sort of doubles down on that negative for Obama. I think part of this will be determined by, you know, is Obama feeling really confident? You know, I think a Kaine pick would signify that Obama is feeling good and confident.

MR. GREGORY: And Chuck, he--Obama can win on change but he could lose on inexperience if he doesn't get past that threshold.

MR. TODD: I think that's right. And you almost wonder if did Vladimir Putin suddenly become on the vetting list a little bit for--is he joined Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy and eliminated Tim Kaine.

MR. GREGORY: He apparently wants to stay in politics.

MR. TODD: Yeah, exactly. But no, but Putin, Putin's decision, you know, to cause this uproar in Georgia was just a reminder that during the campaign something of foreign policy nature could pop up, and while Obama's very confident, I think that's why Tim Kaine's out.

MS. MITCHELL: And guess where, guess where Joe Biden is today?

MR. GREGORY: Well, wait, let's talk about Joe Biden as well, Andrea. He--a lot of talk about him in the last couple of weeks. This is somebody who could give him the foreign policy chops.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, he's in Tbilisi this morning. He went as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, invited by the president of Georgia.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL: I think that this is where they are heading, you know.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL: Bayh would be a safer choice, we'll talk about that in a second. Biden's advantage, his real virtue besides foreign policy experience is he's been there. Yes, he may talk too much; yes, he may make a mistake, but he would be such an attack dog in a debate. He would win a debate with almost any vice presidential choice that the Republicans could choose. And they have a few moments for the vice president: the speech at the convention, the debate and the initial, the initial roll-out.

MR. GREGORY: So when we, we talk about...

MR. TODD: David...

MR. GREGORY: ...we talk about Evan Bayh from Indiana as well, is Chris Dodd also a sleeper here?

MR. TODD: Well, he is somebody that early on I think was one of Obama's--if he was going to pick a veteran senator, that was the person he was most favorable toward. But it does seem like there's a lot of momentum with Biden these days because of that attack dog mentality.

MR. GREGORY: All right, let's talk about the Republican side. Mitt Romney, Josh, has been, it seems, a favorite for John McCain.

MR. GREEN: Yeah. And, and there's a real case to be made for Romney here. We talk about the importance of Virginia and Colorado. You know, if McCain were to win the Bush '04 states but Obama were to pick off those two, you'd have John McCain at 264. And being able to have a Romney on the ticket, who knows a lot about business, who could carry a state like Michigan, that could end up being the deciding factor. He's been vetted, he's got experience on the national stage and he's not likely to make a mistake or overshadow your candidate.

MR. GREGORY: As we run out of time, we'd also talk about Lieberman, who's an independent but still a Democrat who's been close to McCain. Tom Ridge, we said he might be open to this week. Pawlenty and Jindal. Who pops at, at this point now?

MS. MITCHELL: Well, Lieberman and Ridge, I think, is where his heart would go. But there was such hard pushback, strong pushback from the conservatives, from right to life constituents, that it would be pretty tough. That was a big trial balloon. If McCain says, you know, "To heck with everyone else, I want to follow my heart," that's where he goes. Pawlenty is a much safer choice if he wants to secure the base.

MR. TODD: Neither campaign believes they have to roll the dice. So you're going to see safety first when it comes to, I think, their pick. Both of them feel very confident of their trajectory, but also nervous about creating their own problems.

MR. GREGORY: All right, we will leave it there and we will be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: That's all for today. Tom Brokaw will be back next week at our regular time, live from the site of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Nov. 8: Casey, Barbour, Rendell, roundtable, Brokaw Nov. 1: Tim Geithner, David Plouffe, roundtable Oct. 25: Cornyn, Schumer, Burnett, Sorkin, roundtable Oct. 18: Jarrett, Dodd, Kyl, Shriver, Podesta Oct. 11: Levin, Graham, McCaffrey, Myers, roundtable Oct. 4: Ambassador Susan Rice, roundtable Sept. 27: Bill Clinton, Paterson, Kyl, Webb Sept. 20: President Obama, Sen. Graham, Rep. Boehner, roundtable Sept. 13: Durbin, Cornyn, Dean, Gingrich, roundtable Sept. 6: Axelrod, roundtable Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: