'Meet the Press' transcript for Oct. 5, 2008

MR. TOM BROKAW: Our issues this Sunday: Just 30 days to go and the battle for electoral votes is shifting rapidly. We take you through the national political map and the key battleground states with two top political strategists—Democrat Paul Begala, who helped Bill Clinton get elected to the White House in 1992; and NBC News analyst, Republican Mike Murphy, who worked on McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign; also joined by Chuck Todd, political director of NBC News and the keeper of the scorecard.

Then, a bailout bill finally passes on the Hill. What does this mean for the American people and for the next administration? And the vice presidential nominees go head-to-head for the first and only time in this campaign. Did they help or hurt their tickets? Insights and analysis from our political roundtable: David Gregory, chief White House correspondent for NBC News and host of MSNBC’s “Race for the White House”; Gwen Ifill, moderator of PBS’ “Washington Week,” senior correspondent for PBS’ “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of this week’s Biden-Palin vice presidential debate; Peggy Noonan, columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of a new book, “Patriotic Grace: What it is and Why We Need it Now”; and David Yepsen, chief political correspondent for The Des Moines Register, taking the pulse of America’s Main Street.

But first, the final month of this campaign. Let’s get the latest on the current state of play in those all-important battleground map states with NBC News political director Chuck Todd. He’s our walking, talking MapQuest, actually. We’re going to take a look at what’s going on.

And, Chuck, there’s been a dramatic change in those states just in the last 10 days or so. Let’s begin by comparing 2004 and the state of play now one month before the election, 2008.

MR. CHUCK TODD: All right. Well, let’s go to our surface. Here’s where we were in 2004, Obama being—representing the Kerry states here in blue, John McCain representing the Bush states in 2004 in red. Two eighty-six, 252; John Kerry came up 18 electoral votes short, or one Ohio. And here’s where we were last week, just to show you where the battleground was. And I want you to keep an eye as I change things to these states up here in the northern tier of the country, the industrial Midwest. And everything has moved, at least with the Kerry states, have moved out of toss-up and into the Obama column. Throw in the fact that he is up in Iowa and up in New Mexico, and right now, if the election were held today, we would say that Obama is up five or more points right now in enough states, 264 electoral votes. John McCain under 200, under 175. And as you see here, all, all of these states are Bush ‘04 states—Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Indiana, Colorado and Nevada.

So right now, Obama one state away. Even if it’s Nevada, 269, it sends it to the House where, where Democrats have an advantage. Any other state, one state, as it stands today John McCain would have to run the table. Now, good news for him, they’re all states that voted Republican four years ago. However, he’s behind right now a little bit in Ohio. There’s a dispute of who’s ahead or who’s behind in Florida, but it feels as if Obama’s a little bit ahead in Florida. Obama’s a little bit ahead in Colorado. And it’s a dead-even race in Virginia. Dead even in, in Nevada; and even Missouri, which we almost put in toss-up this week is getting very close where McCain just has a very narrow lead, Tom.

MR. BROKAW: Chuck, a very senior Republican was startled the other day when he called me and said, ‘What in the world is going on in Florida? Why are we in trouble there?’

MR. TODD: Well, Florida is all about the economy. And it may explain the Michigan decision. Michigan decision, you know, had—McCain had all the money in the world. He would have stayed in the state. He’s down maybe eight to 10 points there. But they had to make a financial decision; because Florida, not only is Obama even now, it looks like he’s pulled ahead a little bit, and this is all about the economy. It’s a one-two punch down there—the real estate boom that happened over the last 15 years in Florida coming home to roost, the credit crisis is hurting. And then here’s a state that also depends on tourism, and when people don’t have a lot of money in their own pockets, they don’t vacation. So here Florida’s getting hit twice. Less, less tourism, bad news on the home front—on the home building front, and all of a sudden that has turned Florida in a very economically sensitive state, perhaps more sensitive than even Michigan, Ohio, the states that we’re used to see being sensitive to the economy.

MR. BROKAW: I would think it would also be very unsettling for Republicans looking in this morning to take a look at Virginia in play and North Carolina in play. Is that organization on the Obama part, or is it the economy?

MR. TODD: That is all organization. They have changed the electorate. We had a poll earlier this week with our friends at MySpace and The Wall Street Journal where we just looked at new voters, and if, if 10 to 15 percent of the electorate is new voters nationwide, it could be up to 20 percent in places like Virginia and North Carolina where Obama has registered hundreds of thousands of voters. And remember the, the thing about both of these states, Tom, they were both very important primary states. And so Obama got a huge head start here, registering voters because he was trying to stop Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Well, all of that effort that took place then has now catapulted this—these two states from lean Republican states into, frankly, pure toss-up states because they have changed the electorate, really, the way they changed the electorate in places like Iowa and Wisconsin during the primaries.

MR. BROKAW: All right, let’s go to another session that you have there and see if we can move a couple of those states around for just a moment. Say New Hampshire, for example. What’s going to happen in Indiana which, surprisingly, may be in play at this point?

MR. TODD: Well, let’s, let’s look at this. So right now, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, two of the, the blue states that McCain was going after, double-digit leads probably right now. Now, they’re very volatile states. Both states have a lot of independent voters who will move around. But right now, they’ve been moving heavily in Obama. Obviously we know the Michigan decision. That leaves Pennsylvania where, where Obama has the smallest lead of any of the Kerry states. And this could be why we’re going to see a lot of the William Ayres stuff and the culture character stuff because, of all the blue states left, this is the one that the McCain folks feel could be the most sensitive to it where they could keep things close.

But for now, you put it there and, like I said, we’re, we’re at 264, so he just needs one state. It could be Colorado, and he’s at 273. It could be at Virginia, what we just talked about, at 277. Florida puts it away at 291. And then this is the real fear, and we’ve seen some coverage of this over the last week. If this is where things are going and we are at a tipping point and all of these tip in one direction, well, look at the ceiling that Obama has right now, if he ended up sweeping all of these states and they all go in his column, all of a sudden you’re looking at 364 electoral votes. Now, this is the high-water mark, and, as you pointed out earlier, Tom, this is where things would be if it were today. And 30 days, we’ve got a, a long way to go, but that’s the danger the McCain folks have. They now have to hold everything in order to keep this thing competitive in the toss-up column before they even think about starting to steal some Obama states back.

MR. BROKAW: All right, Chuck, we’re going to see you later in our roundtable here.

But we’re going to be joined now by two top strategists in presidential politics: Democrat Paul Begala, who worked for Bill Clinton when he made his first successful run for the presidency, and Mike Murphy, who was with John McCain in 2000. Mike Murphy is now an NBC News consultant.

To tell you how dynamic and fluid all of this is, just 10 days ago that map would have looked a lot different.

MR. MIKE MURPHY: Right.

MR. BROKAW: But a great deal has changed since these two candidates first appeared in Oxford, Mississippi. This is the cover of the Weekly Standard this week, which is the bible for the conservative movement in this country. “Can they catch up?” And that is the operative question. As you look at that map, Mike, from the McCain point of view, what strikes terror in your heart?

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