'Meet the Press' transcript for Oct. 26, 2008

MR. COOK:  Well, the first question is, does--is Joe Lieberman--what's your base?  Fifty or 51?  Is Joe Lieberman a Democrat?  Is he an independent?  And what happens in Ted Stevens' trial?  Because if he's acquitted this week, then odds are he probably survives.  If he's convicted, odds are he goes down.  If I had to pick a number, I'd pick 59, but do I have--would I bet a dime on it? No.

MR. BROKAW:  Chuck Todd, we have Hillary Clinton out on the campaign trail for some of these Senate candidates, including Al Franken, who has come from double digit back to within reach, easily within reach in Minnesota.  Here's Hillary Clinton campaigning for Al Franken in Minnesota.  We're going to share that video with you now.

(Videotape)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY):  We don't have a lot of time to turn our economy around, and it's going to take a new president and 60 senators willing to stand up for change.  Now any single Republican can block the progress we need.  Al Franken could very well be that 60th vote.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW:  Look, I'm going to come back to this again.  A lot of people get very nervous about the idea of the Democrats having big majorities and a filibuster-proof Senate, and a Democrat in the White House.  They'll say it's "Katie, bar the door, and certainly lock up the treasury."

MR. TODD:  You know, the old direct mail guy, Richard Viguerie is probably thinking, "Really?  Did Hillary Clinton really do an ad for Al Franken?  I can't wait to write mail on this." Look, I understand the political strategy in Minnesota.  It's a three-way race.  All Franken needs is Democrats to vote for him and he wins.  He doesn't need swing voters.  But if you're Roger Wicker or Mitch McConnell, are you going to grab that ad and run it in your state and say, "Hey, Hillary Clinton and Al Franken are trying to get the 60 Senate seats.  If you want, she can become..."

MR. BROKAW:  She becomes the Ted Kennedy of this election.

MR. TODD:  Well, the two of them together.

MR. BROKAW:  Right.

MR. TODD:  And so I was stunned when I saw that, that Clinton did that ad.  I get the strategy for Minnesota, but it was one of those things you're like, some, you know, these aren't, these aren't just state-known figures.  Hillary Clinton and Al Franken could be created to become liberal boogey men and women in a place like Mississippi and Kentucky, which is the difference between getting from, you know, 58 to 60.

MS. O'DONNELL:  And Senator McCain is beginning to do that.  One of the rallying cries at his events now is "Obama!  Pelosi!  Reid!" And the response from the people attending his events is a huge roar, trying to make that argument.  It's not the sexiest political argument.

MR. COOK:  Right.

MS. O'DONNELL:  It's not one that is easy to put on a bumper sticker.  But they're trying to drive Republicans to do those get-out-the-vote activities, to cast their ballots, actually saying that even for some Democrats, if it is a complete Democrat control, that that will be hard for those members who live in states that are actually a little bit more conservative because it would be easier to fight against a McCain presidency than to have all of that Democratic control.

MR. COOK:  Here's...

MS. O'DONNELL:  So that's a tactic.

MR. COOK:  Here's the ironic thing that normally, historically, people preferred divided government, sort of checks and balances rather than one party control.  But the support for dividing government is now lower, one of the lowest it's ever been.  And, and it's a sign of the anger and the frustration, the fear that's out there that, that people are willing to give it to one, or more willing to give it to one side than normal.  And that's, that's really unusual.  And, and, to me, you know, going back to the Obama thing, my home state is Louisiana.  Now, Louisiana did not elect 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants last year just to show that they were multicultural, just to show that they were open-minded and all this.  It was like, "This state is in such bad shape, we've tried everything else.  The kid seems smart. He seems really knowledgeable.  Let's give it to him.  We have nothing to lose." And I think writ large, that's kind of what you're seeing nationally with Obama, with his, you know, relatively thin credentials and youth and all this.  And people are saying, "Gosh, things are so screwed up, we got to do something desperate."

MR. BROKAW:  That fact is that Obama did go back on his word about accepting public financing.  He went to private sector.  He is spending a ton of money. Is this the end of public financing in American politics, Chuck?

MR. TODD:  I, I--$3/4 billion dollars is what he is going to raise.

MR. BROKAW:  Right.

MR. TODD:  This is--his ad campaign is going to be more than Geico, OK?  For this, for this last year.  His brand more than, I think, Diet Coke.  About...

MR. BROKAW:  McDonald's.

MR. TODD:  Yeah.  About equal for what McDonald's is.  This is an astronomical figure, and, and it is going to trouble a lot of folks because how, this is, once again, every time government tries to rein in campaign finance system, the--money finds like, you know, it's like this thing in "Jurassic Park" where the Jeff Goldblum character says, "Life finds a way." Money always finds a way no matter how you rule it, and this is happening again.  And it's--it...

MS. O'DONNELL:  Well, it's...

MR. TODD:  ...might be ungovernable.

MS. O'DONNELL:  At the top of the McCain campaign, they are constantly talking about the fact you'll never see a future candidate accept public financing given what Senator Obama's been able to do.  And they also suggest that what brought this whole process into being in the Watergate era was the need to try and prevent corruption.  And a question about will there be real doubts about some of his small donors, Senator Obama's, after this all wraps up.

MR. BROKAW:  Well, the irony is, of course, that the greatest philosophical resistance to the idea of public financing comes from the Republican Party...

MS. O'DONNELL:  Yes.  Yes.

MR. BROKAW:  ...from the conservatives, who say it's all about free speech.

That's it.  Kelly O'Donnell, Chuck Todd, Mr. Cook, always nice to have you with us.

We have to leave it right there.  We'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW:  That's all for today.  Our thanks to our old friend here at KWWL-TV, our NBC affiliate in Waterloo, Iowa.  I'll be back next week, the final Sunday before Election Day, because if it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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