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'Meet the Press' transcript for March 2, 2008
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 Netcast March 2: Two days before the crucial primaries in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas & Vermont, four veteran campaign strategists sit down with Tim Russert: Democrats James Carville & Bob Shrum and Republicans Mary Matalin & Mike Murphy. |
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MR. RUSSERT: Mary Matalin, as a political strategist--take away your own political identity--what would you be saying to Hillary Clinton today after looking at those polls?
MS. MARY MATALIN: That even if she wins barely--well, she loses, she's out. But one thing that we don't know for sure yet, and there's not been a pattern that's emerged through these primaries of who voted early and who did they vote for, and who's voting late and where are they going to break. They've broken in different spots. So say, if she loses both, that's one scenario. If she wins both, even fractionally, she says, "He can't close the deal. There's something, you have a lot of concerns about me. I've run a terrible campaign. I might not be the face of change that he is, but I've"--you know, go back to the message that worked, connect with people, quit talking about herself like, "Why do I always get the first question?" "Why do I always get the last question?" What, what--that's not about what they care about. So go back to those things that work and say, "Why can't he close the deal? He can't close the deal."
MR. MIKE MURPHY: And she's got one thing working for her, which is the near-death experience phenomena this year. Every time it looks like...
MR. BOB SHRUM: That's right.
MR. MURPHY: ..."Perils of Pauline," the train's coming, she has a rescue. And in their meeting, they have the simplest message of all: "Guys, victory or death." So.
MR. SHRUM: Right.
MR. CARVILLE: And, and, and if--but if she does win both, it changes the narrative.
MR. SHRUM: Well, if she wins...
MR. CARVILLE: And wins big--if she wins both, it changes the narrative.
MR. BOB SHRUM:
MR. CARVILLE: Then she has a real case, then she has a real sort of case to make that she's coming back.
MR. SHRUM: She has a real...
MR. MURPHY: She does. She has...
MR. SHRUM: She has a real case to make where the math is very much against her.
MR. MURPHY: Right.
MR. CARVILLE: Right. That's right. Right.
MR. SHRUM: She has to go to Pennsylvania then, which is going to be a seven-week campaign, which is going to be amazing. And she has to win by more than a point or two, not only because she can't catch up in the math, but because she's got to establish some kind of moral claim to the nomination.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let, let's go through that math so our viewers have a sense of it. These are elected delegates to date. Obama, 1,194; and we have Clinton at 1,037, a difference of 157. Here's the breakdown amongst the so-called superdelegates. Now it's Obama, 208; Clinton, 254, a lead of Clinton, 46. Since Super Tuesday, about a month ago, Obama has gained 38 superdelegates. She has lost six. You put all those together, and you have Obama with 111 delegate-vote lead, including the superdelegates. Chuck Todd, our political director, says this: "According to our delegate math, Clinton winning both Ohio and Texas by 52 to 48 would net her a combined five to six delegates. Yet toss in a potential Obama landslide in Vermont, and then her net March 4 haul could be as little as two to five delegates."
So you would still, even with victories in Ohio and Texas...
MR. MURPHY: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...have Obama in a very controlling elected delegate count.
MR. MURPHY: Right. And the great irony here is the Democrats have this kind of Mr. Nice Guy delegate system of proportional delegates. So even if she starts winning primaries, it's hard to win big enough to get the delegate advantage. We Republicans like these sudden-death, winner-take-all--because we're mean. That's why I joined up. We're all social Darwinists. And if they had had winner-take-all primaries in California and New York like the Republicans do, the vast right-wing conspiracy, she'd be in front and hard to beat right now.
MR. RUSSERT: Those liberals who made those party rules, Murphy.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. Yeah. The liberals are the ones who did her in.
MR. CARVILLE: Right.
MR. SHRUM: Harold Ickes.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. It's Harold's fault, yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah. We're going to get to Harold Ickes in a second.
MR. MURPHY: I think I heard that from Penn.
MR. RUSSERT: But James, this has been...
MR. CARVILLE: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned Bill Clinton. This is what Bill Clinton said on February 20th in Beaumont, Texas.
(Videotape)
FMR. PRES. BILL CLINTON: If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she'll be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be. It's all on you.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Then Mark Penn on February 13th said this: "After March 4, we project that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be virtually tied with" all "delegates still to be chosen in Pennsylvania--"with 611 delegates still to be chosen in Pennsylvania," "remaining states."
Howard Wolfson, her campaign communications director, said: "I think" we'll "be ahead in the delegate" count "race after Texas and Ohio."
And then on Friday, this memo came out: "The media has anointed Barack Obama the presumptive nominee, and he's playing the part. With an 11-state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states. He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies and--of course--making speeches. If he cannot win all" four "of these states with all this effort, there's a problem."
MR. SHRUM: Holding rallies, James, can you believe that? He's holding rallies.
MR. RUSSERT: Are those goalposts being moved there, James?
MR. CARVILLE: I--look, it doesn't--you got to hang up--you got to, you got to win something. OK, it doesn't matter who we are.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah.
MR. CARVILLE: And politics is not an exercise in mathematics you go through.
MS. MATALIN: Right.
MR. CARVILLE: If she wins in Ohio, and she wins in Texas, President Clinton is right, the, the, the tenor of the race changes, she has a compelling narrative. She's come back after, after going down $35 million in February. Her supporters really stuck with her in an unprecedented way. She wins these two states, there's not a single person in Pennsylvania that's going to say, "We don't want to weigh in on this." It, it goes on.
MR. SHRUM: My only disagreement with that is...
MR. CARVILLE: Right.
MR. SHRUM: ...she has a narrative. She doesn't necessarily have a compelling narrative.
MR. CARVILLE: But...
MR. SHRUM: Because if Pennsylvania is then close, he wins North Carolina, he wins Mississippi...
MR. CARVILLE: But...
MR. SHRUM: ...he has a real delegate lead...
MR. CARVILLE: OK. It, it...
MR. SHRUM: ...you may see the superdelegates decide that they're going to go with a guy who won the delegates.
MR. CARVILLE: If, if...
MR. MURPHY: I'll give Howard Wolfson the professorship in bad math; I'm barely any better. If she wins Pennsylvania--off what James is talking about--60-40, most of the delegate projections give her a gain out of that like 28-to-30 delegates still. Not enough to probably catch up unless...
MR. CARVILLE: If we--right.
MR. MURPHY: ...all the superdelegates to swing back.
MR. CARVILLE: If we think that this is not--if, if she wins Ohio and Texas, comes in and wins Pennsylvania, then the process goes--they have to do--I mean, she--yes, this is not, this is not a--somebody sitting in green eye shades with a calculator figuring things up. Then the narrative becomes something is switching out there in the party, if she starts winning elections.
MR. SHRUM: But it is--but, James, it is somebody at the end of the day calling the roll at the convention.
MR. MURPHY: right.
MR. SHRUM: And the number of delegates you have is going to matter. That's why I said she has a narrative, not necessarily a compelling comparative narrative. She's going to have to win Pennsylvania convincingly...
MS. MATALIN: But her...
MR. MURPHY: But, but then she has to...
MR. SHRUM: ...and then deny him North Carolina and Mississippi.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. She has to win North Carolina. If she got this switch a few primaries ago, back in time, she'd have enough time to wrap--to start gaining enough delegates.
MS. MATALIN: There's still time; there's still states.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, but I'm...
MS. MATALIN: What people are forgetting, however late it is, is Puerto Rico has 63 delegates
MR. MURPHY: Yeah.
MS. MATALIN: ...and they usually swing one way or the other. Changing the narrative will change the numbers. It's--change the numbers. She may not have a compelling narrative for herself, but she will create a compelling non-narrative, a negative narrative for him. "He can't close the deal." The states he's been winning, where he's getting his delegates from--he's not going to win Kansas and these places in the general election. She's winning big blue states.
MR. SHRUM: Because...
MR. MURPHY: But there aren't enough delegates. I mean, I'll make a cash money bet right now on Obama.
MS. MATALIN: You don't think these superdelegates are going to flip back?
MR. SHRUM: The numbers matter.
MR. MURPHY: The math, the math...
MR. SHRUM: I'm in, I'm in between the two of you. I'm just saying she has a narrative, a real narrative, but it's not necessarily a compelling narrative. because the numbers still matter.
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