'Meet the Press' transcript for Sept. 28, 2008

MR. BROKAW: But I get the sense that you think that he has the potential for greatness, but he's not yet arrived at that station.

PRES. CLINTON: Well, he would probably agree with that. I mean, he was, you know, until he was in the State Senate until 2005 and then he began a campaign for president, which is, in all probability, will be successful, and those are very great accomplishments. But those are personal accomplishments. When he becomes president, he'll be doing things for the American people and for the world and he is--and the greatness will then become apparent because of the good he'll do. And I, I think that's what I very much believe is going to happen.

MR. BROKAW: Mr. President, after the primary season came to an end, you went back to Africa to work on your foundation work there and you were interviewed by Anne Kornblut from The Washington Post. You said, "This is my life now, and I was eager to get back to it. I couldn't be happier." Then you did come back, obviously, and you spoke at the convention. You were extremely well received there. You had the meeting with Senator Obama in Harlem. No one has any keener sense of what is required in a political campaign than you do. How much time are you going to spend either at Senator Obama's side or working on his behalf between now and Election Day?

PRES. CLINTON: I'm going to do my very best to do every single thing he asks me to do. I mean, I...

MR. BROKAW: Where do you think you can help him the most?

PRES. CLINTON: I ask--let me back up and answer your question because what I told Anne Kornblut is right. I had to go back to work when this was--after Hillary concluded her campaign, I had to go back and rev this foundation up again, made my Africa trip work, make sure that this works and I love this work. But I also accept that by engaging in this primary process, Hillary and I both feel that we did--we told--first of all, she told everybody that if she didn't win, she told everybody from the very first primary in Iowa that if she didn't win, she would support the winner. Then when it was obviously between her and Senator Obama, she said, "Absolutely, I'll support him." And she has been as good as her word. I don't think anybody in 40 years who's been in a race like this has ever done as much for the nominee. And I said I would do the same. And I was asked repeatedly. So I'm keeping my word, but I also feel strongly for the reasons I said in Denver that he should be elected. So I'm going to do whatever I'm asked to do.

MR. BROKAW: Do you think that Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, who's the running mate now for John McCain, will peel away the disaffected Hillary women voters who are not happy that she didn't get the nomination?

PRES. CLINTON: Maybe some. I read two different articles about women who said what African-Americans often said about Senator Obama. They said, these women said, "Look, we think gender's more important than race or party or even issues. It is the defining characteristic of the social order and we believe that it's important to do this." But I don't think they'll be many people who do that. I think the differences between Senator Obama and Senator McCain and between the ticket of Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin are significant enough that the overwhelming majority of people who supported Hillary in the primary or who didn't vote in either primary and are going to vote, I believe they'll break for Senator Obama.

MR. BROKAW: What's your advice to Joe Biden in debating Governor Palin?

PRES. CLINTON: I would--I would make the case for--why he and Barack Obama should lead a different direction for America, and I will be quite specific, because my sense--and you know who these undecided voters are. You've seen the polls. Most of these people that are undecided, they like John McCain, and they kind of like her, what they know of her. And if they're going to move off of her or dislike her, it's going to be because they think she is too conservative or too traditionally Republican on some issues that are very important to our future. So if I were Joe Biden, I would demonstrate to the American people that first, "Barack Obama picked me because there's not a better foreign policy mind in the United States Congress, anybody with more experience or better judgment."

Second, that "He picked me because I'm from the folks who didn't vote for him in the primary. I'm from northeast Pennsylvania, from a Catholic working family, and I go home to Delaware every night to be with my wife, and my kids are great." That is, I don't think he has to whack her, or should. Everybody that really is upset about Sarah Palin because she's too conservative or too Alaska or too this, that or the other thing, they're already for the Obama-Biden ticket. We've got to get people from your native state, in South Dakota, and people in Arkansas, and they look at this woman, and they say, "You know, this is a pretty impressive deal."

MR. BROKAW: When you ran successfully for president in 1992, the unofficial slogan was, "It's the economy, stupid." It's hard to imagine, given the political and especially the financial climate that we're all living in now that someone can say it's about aid to Africa, stupid, or it's about AIDS, stupid, or it's about doing something about poverty, stupid. Is this not going to be an issue, your great work here as the Clinton Global Initiative, in this campaign? Is it going to have to be set off to the side?

PRES. CLINTON: Well, I think the answer is it will not--it's not nearly as big an issue for the two thirds of American people who are having trouble paying their own bills and are worried about their future. On the other hand, I think there--the two great issues in America in this election are how to restore economic strength and broadly shared prosperity and how to restore America's position in the world. I think--if I were making the CGI argument in a political speech, I'd say we're not going to have the America we want unless prosperity is broadly shared, and to do that, we have to have economic opportunity in the poorest parts of America. And in the world, the places where America is popular today in the world, really popular, 10 countries in central and eastern Africa. Look at the Pew poll. Wildly popular. Why? Because they see us through the prism of President Bush's AIDS and malaria programs and the work the Gates Foundation does, the work that I do, the work that others do. So we can--this should be presented to the American people that as a part of our participation in the interdependent world, we actually make more partners and fewer enemies.

MR. BROKAW: One of the concerns that the Gates Foundation has, that everything coming out of Africa that is reported is doom and gloom, and they say there are real success stories there.

PRES. CLINTON: Absolutely.

MR. BROKAW: And the American people need to hear about that.

PRES. CLINTON: The American--first of all, I wish we could have a cessation in the use of the word Africa for just 18 months while America learns that Africa is a continent that just in sub-Saharan Africa has 48 separate countries, and that it's not just the geography, it's the politics, the culture, the language, everything is different, and that yes, there's been bad news in Darfur, yes, there's been bad news out of Zimbabwe, but you have country after country after country with very high growth rates and remarkable progress. I mean, Rwanda, genocide in '94, 10 percent of the country dies in 90 days. Four years later, their per capita income still well under $300 a year, 10 years later, $1,000 a year. Nearly quadrupled their per capita income. That's the real Africa. That is far more representative of what the African people are doing and can do tomorrow than the other, and I really wish every time we talked about it--you should discuss it with your news people--whether we would mention a country. You might say, "Oh, by the way, it's in Africa," but we've got to stop thinking of Africa as a monolith.

MR. BROKAW: Mr. President, thank you very much.

PRES. CLINTON: Thank you.

MR. BROKAW: And I'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW: On October 7, I'll be hosting the first town hall presidential debate in Nashville, and you can participate in the debate as well by submitting possible questions for the candidates online, now through Tuesday. You can find a link to mydebates.org at our Web site, mtp.msnbc.com.

That's all for today. If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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