'Meet the Press' transcript for August 31, 2008

GOV. PAWLENTY: We've said in Minnesota, in my view this is a local decision. Intelligent design is something that in my view is a plausible and credible and something that I personally believe in; but more importantly, from an educational and scientific standpoint, it should be decided by local school boards, by--at the local school district level.

MR. BROKAW: Governor, this is The Economist, which is not exactly a house organ for the Democratic Party, as you know. They say "Bring back the real" John "McCain." Among other things, they talk about his evolution as a candidate. They conclude: "Hawkish foreign policy, irresponsible tax cuts, more talk about religion and abortion. All this sounds too much like Bush 3, the label the Democrats are trying to hang around the Republican neck. We preferred McCain 1." Isn't that a fundamental issue for your party going into this campaign, about whether John McCain will be seen simply as an extension of George Bush, who's running at record low approval ratings?

GOV. PAWLENTY: The problem with that argument, Tom, first of all is that Senator McCain has spent an entire lifetime developing and establishing a brand as a maverick and as an independent, even relative to President Bush as it relates to climate change, as it relates to campaign finance reform, as it relates to surge, as it relates to importing prescription drugs from Canada, as it relates to spending, as it relates to nuclear arms proliferation, as it relates to torture. The list goes on and on and on. On most of--on many of the big issues of the day--not the average statistics, but the big issues of the day, Senator McCain has parted from President Bush. And people recognize him as a maverick and as an independent. So that argument doesn't stick. The other thing I would add is as people talk about President Bush's approval rating, as low as it is, it's twice as good, nearly so, as the Congress, which is run by the Democrats. So if you want to hook Senator McCain to an--President Bush, then we'll hook Senator Obama to a Congress that is half as popular as the president and say that he's going to be a rubber stamp for a Congress that is even less popular.

MR. BROKAW: Good debating point, but Congress is not running for president.

GOV. PAWLENTY: Well, when you put a president and a Congress together, it's a pretty unstoppable package as to what will happen to the country.

MR. BROKAW: Governor Pawlenty, thanks very much for being with us this morning.

GOV. PAWLENTY: You're welcome.

MR. BROKAW: We know this is going to be a busy week and some tough decisions are ahead for you as well, and we wish you all the best. And I know I speak for all of us, we're, we're happy to be here in the great state of Minnesota.

GOV. PAWLENTY: We're glad you're here, Tom. Thank you very much.

MR. BROKAW: Great. Thank you.

Coming up next, Obama and Biden vs. McCain and Palin. Our political roundtable will weigh in: Maria Bartiromo, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Mike Murphy and Kelly O'Donnell. All that and more next here on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW: Our political roundtable after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW: We're back. We turn first to NBC's Kelly O'Donnell who's traveling with the McCain campaign in St. Louis headed for the Gulf Coast, I gather, Kelly.

MS. KELLY O'DONNELL: Yes, Tom. Senator McCain and Governor Palin are changing up their schedule today, going to Jackson, Mississippi, to get a briefing at an emergency operations center. And what this really means for the campaign at this point is an opportunity to try to show the kind of leader, the kind of reaction time that John McCain has and the kind of way he would engage in a crisis. And they see that as a potential opportunity here. But of course, what they expected is so different. They had hoped for the kind of roll-out of the running mate and the big convention that would showcase John and Cindy McCain, their family, introduce Governor Palin to the country and they know now they will not get that.

Is there potential positive in this? Well, they're trying to assess that right now. One of the things that I'm hearing is that if the president is not participating, and that's what we expect now, the White House says there might be some way he would be involved in a lesser way, that might actually be a benefit to John McCain because of the Bush 3 label that has been put on this.

Also, no matter what the convention looks like, it's unlikely now that the Democrats and the Republicans will be judged on the same playing field, a side-by-side picture. That may help John McCain. This opportunity to show how he would react to a crisis might be a plus as well, but clearly they lose the kind of spotlight they had hoped for to really introduce the country to this McCain-Palin ticket. And they just don't know what the political impact of that will be. So from talking to advisers, what I'm really watching is a group that has been planning for months for this convention, weeks for the roll-out of this running mate. They're now simply having to improvise. Tom:

MR. BROKAW: Thanks very much, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, who is traveling with the John McCain campaign as they head for the Gulf Coast. And of course, what this party cannot afford to do is to boo two in a row when it comes to a big storm hitting the Gulf Coast.

We're back now with our political roundtable. NBC's David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and in New York, Maria Bartiromo of CNBC who recently interviewed the new vice presidential candidate of the Republican ticket, Sarah Palin, the governor or Alaska. We'll be talking a lot about that. In fact, this pretty well sums it up for a lot of people looking in. This is the cover of the Daily News. "McCain picks political rookie for veep: The Very Odd Couple."

We want to begin by talking about Governor Palin and what we want to do if we can, Doris, is to put in some perspective John McCain's attitudes about the vice, about the vice presidency. He was asked about this eight years ago when he was thought as a prospective candidate for George Bush when they had that heated exchange. Here's what John McCain had to say about what he thinks of the vice presidency.

(Videotape)

SEN. McCAIN: The vice president has two duties. One is to inquire daily as to the health of the president, and the other is to attend the funerals of third world dictators. And neither of those do I find an enjoyable exercise.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW: Doris, this is a surprise choice, but she is a winning personality. You, in fact, had lunch with her recently at a larger gathering, I guess. She's taken on corruption in Alaska, she's taken on her own Republican Party. But in fact, the magnitude of what lies before her can almost not be discussed in just a few moments.

MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: No, I think the idea that the vice president's main role is to simply inquire after the health of the president is an old whacked idea that's no longer relevant. First of all, when you look at history, nearly one out of three vice presidents have actually become president, most of them because of the death or assassination or the resignation of a president. Secondly, the office of the vice presidency has become so much more powerful ever since Mondale, really. I think there was a sense in which you cannot have somebody there without a real job to do, so it no longer makes sense to say, as Daniel Webster did, "I don't propose to be buried before I die," or to say, "It's the most insignificant office in the history of the Constitution," as John Adams did. That's looking back at old jokes.

So it really does provide a window, I think, onto the first major decision that Mr. McCain made. Even last spring he said, "I know I'm older, and I'm going to choose somebody--the first important thing is that they be ready to be president." I think the other window we may be seeing is, hopefully not, is the vetting process. I mean, how much time do they have to really vet her? Look what happened with, with Mr. Quayle. Everybody says, "Well, they won anyway." That's...

MR. BROKAW: Tom Eagleton.

MS. KEARNS GOODWIN: That's--and Tom Eagleton. I mean, that undid, in a certain sense, McGovern's campaign right away to have to let him go from the ticket. And it shows are you serious in the deliberative process you're creating. You're going to have to create Cabinet officers, Supreme Court people. What is the process you're going through? If something crops up now, just as it did with Eagleton and just as it did with Quayle, even though they won in the end, Quayle and Bush, it threw the campaign off for a while. We keep forgetting.

And I think the last thing is just a sense in which you wonder about what pressure it's going to put on Governor Palin. You could be Einstein and not be able to answer the questions that you guys are going to put at her. And to put somebody in that position and then to think they're going to be ready, I think as you were saying earlier, it's true that maybe Obama wasn't as ready as we thought three, three months ago, six months ago, 18 months ago, but we've gotten comfortable with him. It's the public perception. Because we know him now, we've seen him. And we have not seen her. So I think it's a very strange choice. I understand the maverick part, he wanted to be running against the Republican Party. She's a maverick, she's Teddy Roosevelt, he's Teddy Roosevelt. They like hunting and fishing, and that's his hero. But I think it's a very strange choice.

MR. BROKAW: Mike, you know McCain well. He's a rogue and a gambler. He's more than double down on this call, though.

MR. MIKE MURPHY: Yeah. He's not afraid of a big bet. I mean, he's a paradigm breaker, that's who he is. I think the McCain campaign would tell you what they're trying to do here is make it very clear their campaign is about change in Washington and he picked a rootin' tootin' maverick corruption fighter who has a stellar record doing exactly that in Alaska where there's some corruption that needs to be fighting. I think the question is what is the price they will pay for this pick? What it says about McCain is he's definitely a maverick. That's a big plus. It also puts the experience issue, where McCain had been getting some traction, in a much weaker position. It's hard for them to defend her on experience.

Finally, it strikes me as a base pick. She is going to crush in this room, in this hall, when the convention gets going--should it, with the hurricane. She's going to be a star inside the Republican Party. But in the tough business of practical politics you don't care, really, how happy your voters are, you care about how many voters you're going to get. And the question is what new voters--from my point of view, anyway--will she bring to help McCain win in a tough year? Is this the year for a base pick or is it the year for a more of a ticket splitter pick? So in one way he focused his message on reform, there's no doubt now she's really accomplished that and she has great charisma to carry that message. But what about the side cost of this as far as questioning his decision making process and experience? Ultimately, I'm not sure a vice president is as important as we all make it. But it does say a lot about the guy. Balance sheet: strong reformer now, but the--on the experience issue is he paying a heavy price for that and does he get any new votes for this or just reinforce the votes he already has?

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