'Meet the Press' transcript for Nov. 2, 2008

MR. BROKAW:  Welcome back now to our roundtable.  David Broder, Michele Norris, Chuck Todd and David Gregory on the other side of the table.

David, I--you've been covering campaigns since Theodore Roosevelt, but you say that this one is the most exciting one that you'd covered since 1960, and it exceeds it.  We're going to begin our roundtable discussion with something that you have written recently.

"In what history may record as [Obama's] singular achievement - dealing with the classic American dilemma of race - he had the largely unappreciated help of his opponent, John McCain, who simply ruled out covert racial appeals used by politicians of both parties in the past.  But Obama himself demonstrated repeatedly how to bridge the facial divides that still remain, by emphasizing his calm good judgment and respect for others.  As a symbol of that national maturity, he carries a powerful, positive message to the world."

There's been so much discussion about race.  Do you think in the closing days that's all been muted?

MR. DAVID BRODER:  It's been muted, and I think it's been surpassed by the willingness of both the candidates and the mass of the American people to look beyond race as they make these judgments.

MR. BROKAW:  Michele, my own judgment has been, and it's anecdotal and intuitive on my part, that race is not much of an issue for 45 and under, the age group, and it remains one for those 45 and older.  Is that fair?

MS. MICHELE NORRIS:  It's--I think that's accurate.  It's much more of an issue for people who are older and lived through a much more difficult and painful chapter in, in America when it comes to race.  It's interesting because I don't think we're completely past it.  I think it's too big and too divisive and too thorny an issue to say that it's behind us, but it's almost like the atmosphere.  It's there, and it's, you know, we don't necessarily take note of it.  It's like the sky.  You know, ever present but sort of, you know, something we kind of take for granted and don't much think about.

And what is interesting is that people may be past it, they may not be talking about it, but Peggy Noonan wrote about something a while ago called the reverse Bradley effect, and that's something that we might actually be seeing, is that people aren't willing to say that they're supporting Barack Obama publicly, but they'll go into the booth, sort of the reverse of what we've seen with the Bradley effect where people will tell pollsters one thing and then go and do something else.  In this case, they'll tell pollsters perhaps that they're not supporting Barack Obama because it's not popular in their family or their community, but they may be supporting him when they actually go in the booth.

MR. BROKAW:  In the arcane art of polling, can we measure that?

MR. TODD:  We've tried a little bit by doing certain things.  You ask certain questions, "Have you ever experienced--do you believe you've been discriminated against because of your race or gender?" You've asked certain--we've asked a question on our NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, "Does Barack Obama represent your values?  Do you feel like you..." So we've done that and Peter Hart and Neil Newhouse, our two pollsters, they think there is a one to, one to two points among voters who, when you profile them, they're voting Democratic.  For Congress they're voting Democrat in a lot of ways. They probably voted for John Kerry and Al Gore, and they're still sitting at undecided.  So it's a couple of points.  I kind of think it's, it's not just--you, you talk about it as far as generational.  I actually think there's going to be a regional aspect to this, too.  I think we'll see it more in the North and in the industrial Midwest pop up, in an Ohio and Pennsylvania. Less, I think, in the South.  The South has openly dealt with race for much longer than the North ever did, and so I think you're going to see Obama overperform potentially among white voters in, in some of these Southern states.  But, you know, we'll see race pop up in those industrial states.

MR. BROKAW:  David, a lot of this in the final 48 hours is about turf.  We're going to share with our viewers now where the candidates are going to be and measure them against where they were four years ago.  Four years ago John Kerry was campaigning in the final weekend in Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Wisconsin.  Barack Obama:  Colorado, the Rocky Mountain West--we've been talking a lot about that; Florida's still in play; Missouri, which has been safe Republican territory; Nevada, again another Western state that the Democrats covet; North Carolina; Ohio; and Virginia.

Let's talk about the Democrats first of all.  There are some new targets of opportunity there for Barack Obama.

MR. DAVID GREGORY:  Absolutely.  Barack Obama on a Saturday is campaigning in Pueblo, Colorado, in a part of the state that went handily for George Bush in 2004.  His advisers say, "Look where we're spending our last few days.  We are on offense across the board." And what are they trying to do?  They're trying to drive down those McCain margins and his pockets of strength in states like Colorado, while at the same time in, in--with their ground game trying to maximize the Democratic turnout.

What's interesting, Tom, about what's happening in some of these targets of opportunity and in the Bay states is that Obama is doing what Bush did successfully in 2004, at least they're counting on it, which is to create new voters.  They're not just relying on their base, they're out there trying to increase African-American turnout.  Six hundred thousand African-Americans in Florida who did not--who were registered but did not vote in '04, they think they can get three-quarters of those African-Americans this time.  They could overwhelm the polls with that, and that's what they're counting on.

MS. NORRIS:  Yeah, it's interesting if I could just say something.  With these new voters, when you look at that, most of the polls look at likely voters.  They're not necessarily catching these voters who are new to the system, and so there may be real surprises.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  Or sporadic voters, lapse voters, or who haven't voted in the past.

MR. BROKAW:  All right, we're going to take a look at the Republican map in the final 48 hours as well.  George Bush 2004:  Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and he told me on the Sunday before the election, he really thought he could win Pennsylvania--he couldn't--and Wisconsin.

John McCain now, final weekend:  His home state of Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The idea that he has to campaign in Virginia, David, is pretty striking.

MR. BRODER:  It's entirely a defensive posture, except for Pennsylvania.  And as you were talking with Chuck earlier, Pennsylvania is their one offensive card--a place where they hope to be able to break into the Democratic base.  I think the odds are against them.  And I'd have to say that the choice of Governor Palin did not work in the Philadelphia suburbs, and they're going to pay a price for that.

MR. BROKAW:  You have also written about the organization of the Obama campaign.  And the fact of the matter is that four years ago the Bush campaign, led by Karl Rove, was better organized than the Kerry campaign.  It looks like the Obama campaign has taken a page right out of his playbook.

MR. BRODER:  They really have, and it's probably the most unexplored story about why this first-time candidate was able to do what I think probably it's fair to say no other first-time candidate has ever really been able to achieve, to build an organization of this kind of power and efficiency.

MR. BROKAW:  And, Chuck, as you talk to the campaigns and to the Obama campaign particularly, where are they worried about the system working against them?  They can be organized and organized and organized, but secretaries of state, voting machines...

MR. TODD:  Right.

MR. BROKAW:  ...and, and, and the manipulation that can come on Election Day?

MR. TODD:  Well, I think they're worried about places like Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Less so, Florida.  I think they think places where there has early vote and there has been a loose rules on absentee voting, they feel pretty good about.  But take a state like Pennsylvania.  Michele and I were talking about this before.  This is a state with no early voting.  They haven't been able to bank any votes.  They've banked votes in North Carolina, they've banked votes in Florida.  They haven't been able to do it there in Pennsylvania.  There's a little bit of nerve-racking there.  I've heard from some Democrats who are worried that Obama hasn't handed out enough money for the city get out the vote operations, hasn't done enough there.  Ohio, of course, they're worried a little bit about the same thing.  There was a loosening of the early vote rules there, but not enough.  So those two states in particular, I think, will have them staying up late on Monday night into Tuesday morning.

MR. BROKAW:  You know, I've been saying repeatedly during this campaign that of all the campaigns I've covered--and I don't go quite as far back as David, but close--the nerve-endings of this country are more exposed than any time I can remember them.  I mean, everybody is tuned in.  There are no casual observers, even those who say they're not going to vote want to know what's going on.  But there are undecideds.  Kathleen Parker, who writes for the National Review and also for The Washington Post, wrote this on Halloween. "It's hard to imagine that `undecideds,' like restless phantoms with unfinished business, still haunt these final hours.  ...

"So what are these zombies of the voting booth really waiting for?  Something they won't find:  the perfect choice.  It doesn't exist.  The clear path is dappled with doubt.  The telling clue is buried in the hearts of Colonel Mustard, who worries about Iraq and taxes under Obama, and Miss Scarlet, who can't get past McCain's age and the winking wonderwoman of Wasilla." That's Governor Sarah Palin; she's been writing pretty critically about her.  How much of the undecideds do you think how they will break, David?

MR. GREGORY:  I think it's probably optimistic on the part of the McCain campaign that they break in a way of 2-to-1 or in such a fashion that's decisive for McCain.  But nevertheless, if we look at the primaries in a state like Pennsylvania, we see that these undecideds are not breaking for Barack Obama.  With all this spending, with all of the media saturation that Obama's had, it's hard to think at this point, if he hasn't gotten them yet, that he's going to get them now.  All of these threshold questions about whether he can handle the big stage seemed to have been answered or not answered, depending upon where you're coming from.

MR. BROKAW:  We're talking a lot about the election and what happens on Tuesday, understandably, but it's Wednesday that also interests me.  The line that's been going around is that the candidate who wins is going to wake up and demand a recount because of what's ahead in terms of the meltdown and the economy, the vexing decisions that are going to have to be made.  You know, let me just share with you what Tom Friedman writes this morning in The New York Times.

"Since the last debate, John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation's financial health, but they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free.  McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day.  The Obama tells us--Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us get out of this hole.  Neither is true."

Based on what you're seeing in the polling, Chuck, how much are people looking for more candor from their candidates and willing to make those sacrifices that they've not been asked to make in the last eight years?

MR. TODD:  Well, I do think that there's going to be an expectation that there's acting fast.  There's--gone will be the days of checking in on the president-elect as he's relaxing at his, you know, where he's trying to figure out, "Is it going to be a Western White House, a Southern White House, a New England White House." It is going to be an expectation that he hits the ground running.  But I tell you, I'm just concerned watching everything that's--we're going to see 10, maybe 10 new senators, 12 new senators, you know, mostly from the Democratic Party.  Potentially 40 to 50 new House members.  Folks that have--are really new to the system, not just new to Washington, new to politics, new to what they do.  You know, when they--some of these folks that are going to win, when they announce, they really didn't think they were going to win, they were sort of trying this out for once to see if this was going to be...  And so the learning curve, not just for the incoming president, but this new Congress.  You know, there is--this first 60 days in--before these guys take the oath is going to be very critical because their problems are too big.

MR. BROKAW:  Finally, there's a phantom in all of this, and we want to share with our viewers what John McCain had to say about the sitting president back in March when he wrapped up the nomination.

(Videotape)

SEN. McCAIN:  I intend to have as much possible campaigning events and--together as is in keeping with the president's heavy schedule.  And I look forward to that opportunity.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW:  David, have you ever seen a president so completely disappear?

MR. BRODER:  Not since Lyndon Johnson and, and Hubert Humphrey, I think, have we seen one quite like, like, like this.  That's a little cruel to John McCain, because he was saying the absolute minimum that he had to say when he was standing next to George Bush.  He knew perfectly well that he was not going to be enlisting President Bush in this campaign.

MR. BRODER:  And he's been emphasizing the last two weeks, "I am not George Bush.  If you want to run against him, you should have run in 2004."

One of the beneficiaries of all of this has been "Saturday Night Live," and John McCain appeared on "Saturday Night Live" last night with Tina Fey, aka Sarah Palin.  We want to close out the hour this morning with just a little bit from "Saturday Night Live," if we can.

(Clips from "Saturday Night Live")

MR. BROKAW:  Well, there are circumstances in which she could go back to Alaska.  If Senator Ted Stevens, who has been found guilty, wins the election and then is sentenced, then guess who gets to appoint his replacement?

What do you think the chances are, Chuck, that Sarah Palin would say, "Maybe I'd like to go to the Senate in Ted Stevens' place"?

MR. TODD:  I don't know if it's good to self-appoint, but, you know, it was just amazing, the Sunday before the election, there's one of the two nominees. You know, one thing about this campaign is we--these--all of the candidates that ran exposed themselves to a press corps that wasn't just the mainstream media, but it was bloggers, it was the entertainment media to a point.  The only thing missing is they weren't strip-searched by TSA.  Beyond that, we have found out a lot.

MR. BROKAW:  All right.

MR. TODD:  Maybe too much.

MR. BROKAW:  Thank you very much, Michele Norris, my old friend David Broder, David Gregory and Chuck Todd for being here on the Sunday before the election. I'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. BROKAW:  Stay with NBC, MSNBC and msnbc.com all day Tuesday for nonstop election coverage.  That's msnbc.com.

That's all for today.  We'll be back next Sunday.  If it is Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.  And, of course, we'll have all the results this next Sunday.  I'll see you then.

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