'Meet the Press' transcript for March 16, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  And we're back.

Welcome all.  Let's go back to that delegate count again and talk about it.  Here it is on the board.  As we can see, Obama, 1409; Clinton, 1250.  Again,  he--a net gain of 10 in Iowa yesterday.  That's 159-delegate lead amongst  elected delegates.  Superdelegates, Clinton still with the lead, a plus 36;  put them all together, Obama leads Clinton by 123 delegates when you combine  elected and superdelegates.

David Broder, we have the following states coming up:  Pennsylvania, Guam,  Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, Puerto  Rico, South Dakota and Montana, all there, 566 delegates at state.  Hillary  Clinton would have to win 65 percent of those delegates in order to come even  on elected delegates, not as much if she can win more superdelegates.  What's  the state of the race?

MR. DAVID BRODER:  It's very unlikely, Tim, that she catches up in terms of  the pledged delegates from the primaries and caucuses that remain.  I think  she's got one other possibility because both Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the  House, and most of the unpledged delegates--superdelegates that The New York  Times was able to reach in its survey today said that they think that the  superdelegates who are now uncommitted ought to follow whoever is the winner  of the pledged delegates out of the caucuses and primaries.  She has one other  game that she can play, which is that, after the last primary in Puerto Rico,  there will still be two months before the convention meets.  During that time  there will be events and there will be a ton of polls.  Her hope has to be  that either something happens to Senator Obama or that the polls indicate that  she would be a better candidate against John McCain.

MR. RUSSERT:  You see it, then, going all the way to the convention, not  having a preconvention caucus of the superdelegates to try to unify the party?

MR. BRODER:  I don't know whether that will happen or not, but given the, the  ability that Senator Clinton has showed time and again to come back from what  seemed to be defeat...

MR. DAVID GREGORY:  Right.

MR. BRODER:  ...I think it'd be a hard case to make that she ought to drop  out.

MR. GREGORY:  Tim, I think what David is saying, too, is that these  superdelegates are going to have to get into a position where they're going to  buy the Clinton argument that they are free agents, that they don't follow the  will of the people or follow the will of the districts of how their districts  went.  And that's, that's a debate that she appears to be losing, at least  right now.  Unless something changes that dynamic, it becomes this kind of  fairness idea, that if he's got the pledged delegates, if, if he's got  that--the momentum that comes with that, that they ought to, that they ought  to toe that line.

MR. RUSSERT:  One other game that the Clinton people are talking about,  Michele, is popular vote.

MS. MICHELE NORRIS:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  That even though they're behind 700,000 votes now, the  cumulative vote, that if they can get do-overs in Michigan and Florida, win  Pennsylvania big, that she may be able to surpass Obama with the popular vote  total, even though she loses elected delegates, and go to the superdelegates  and say, "Here's my portfolio, I got more votes."

MS. NORRIS:  Right, surpass him or at least get close enough to make that  argument.  Now, Nancy Pelosi did dismiss this idea when she granted that  interview.  She said this is a delegate race.  But the Clintons are trying  very hard to buy time, and that's exactly what they have now.  And she's  changed the atmosphere in this race.  Barack Obama is very much more on the  defensive, and she has a team of people who are really working hard, working  these superdelegates and asking them to just take a breather, don't do  anything rash.  In fact, don't do anything right now.  Just, you know, assess  the race, look closely at this so they can come back and, and try to make this  argument.  I will say one thing, though, that what I'm hearing in Pennsylvania  is there's a worry that all this talk about the superdelegates could depress  turnout, and they're going to be, you know, looking at that very closely  because there's a sense that some of the party officials on the ground there  fear that the people are seeing this as a race that the voters don't matter  anymore, that this will be decided by this sort of House of Lords, this sort  of star chamber that determines who lives or who dies.

MR. RUSSERT:  David Broder, talk about events happening.  You had this  situation with Geraldine Ferraro that I talked with Nita Lowey and Bill  Bradley; with Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  Also, Tony Rezko, the fundraiser for  Barack Obama.  On Friday, Senator Obama went to Chicago Tribute and Chicago  Sun-Times, sat down with both editorial boards and reporters for about an hour  and a half at each place and went through exactly his relationship and the  money he raised.  Here's one of the headlines:  "Obama says Rezko played a  bigger" fundraiser "role.  In a 90-minute interview with [Chicago] Tribune  reporters and editors, Obama disclosed that Rezko had raised more for Obama's  earlier political campaigns than previously known, gathering as much as  $250,000 for the" "three offices he sought." That'd be state Senate, House of  Representatives and U.S. senator.  "Obama also elaborated on previous  statements about his private real estate transactions with Rezko, saying they  were not simply mistakes of judgment because Rezko was under grand jury  investigation at the time of their 2005 and 2006 dealings.  `The mistake, by  the way, was not just engaging in a transaction with Tony' Rezko `because he  was having legal problems.  The mistake was because he was a contributor and  somebody who was involved in politics.'"

David Broder, does that issue create difficulty for Barack Obama?

MR. BRODER:  I think it's not a big issue at this point.  But this trial is  in the very early stages, and we don't know what will come out.  It appears  that Mr.  Rezko's real connections were down in Springfield with Governor  Blagojevich rather than with Obama.  But the one thing we know for sure, Tim,  is that between now and the first day of the Democratic convention there will  be events and they will impact on these candidates.

MR. RUSSERT:  We have Bill Bradley calling for Bill Clinton to release the  list of $500 million in contributions to his library and foundation, the  Clinton tax returns post-presidency, which will be some significant income.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  And the archives' information about Hillary Clinton's role in  the Clinton White House.  All that might be fertile ground, certainly, for  journalists; perhaps for voters.

MR. GREGORY:  Right, because this is a campaign that's not about policy, it's  about the personalities involved.  It's become about race and gender and, and  this sort of amorphous idea of preparedness for crisis.  It's not about what  they stand for.  Congresswoman Lowey was saying, "Well, let's talk about  health care and the economy." I mean, truth is, there's not a lot of  difference between them on that, and voters are not going to make up their  minds about the question of mandates on health care.

I think who you have to watch here is John McCain because he's in the position  to begin running his general election campaign against the both of them in  front of these Democratic primary voters who are going to look and say, "Well,  let's see how McCain is running against Obama.  How's he standing up on this  issue of Reverend Wright?  How's he standing up on the issue of Rezko?  Does  he look tarnished in some way?" Because it's the Republicans who the Democrats  are going to say "we really have to worry about," and that may inure to  Senator Clinton's benefit.

MR. RUSSERT:  Michele, you have Geraldine Ferraro...

MS. NORRIS:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...Reverend Wright, gender, race.  Much--must each of these  candidates address these issues in bigger detail in terms of the impact on  society and culture?

MS. NORRIS:  Well, I think, I think they have no escape from this because it  keeps coming up.  And Barack Obama dealt with this directly yesterday, saying  that this is sort of a generational shift, that certain people who are, come  out of the 1960s and talking about Jeremiah Wright, carry with them--I think  he said that men of ferocious intelligence who came out of the 1960s, whose,  whose ambitions were stymied, carry with them the anger and the baggage of  that in trying to explain some of the rhetoric there.

You know, I should say, though, where Jeremiah Wright is concerned, it's  interesting.  If you--or introduced to him for the first time just based on  the clips that you showed on this program and that have been in heavy  rotation, particularly on cable news and on talk radio, you don't get the full  measure of, of, of this man and who he is and a sort of full understanding of  why Barack Obama may have been attracted to him.  Barack Obama is in a  difficult position because he has said repeatedly "Words count." And so he  can't diminish these words or, or easily step away from them.

But if you just focus on the words, it seems that you ignore something very  important.  When Jeremiah Wright makes these statements, the amen chorus in  that church was very loud.  His words resonate with a large number of  African-Americans, and the blunt language that he used makes people  uncomfortable, you know, when he talks about America's inglorious record on  race.  And yet many people find, find something that they relate to in those  words, and that's what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton may want to start  focusing on, is this chasm that both Ferraro dustup and the Jeremiah Wright  dustup seems to point to in this country.

MR. RUSSERT:  And yet many African-Americans have said to me in the last 48  hours that their concern was that Obama be seen not as a new kind of  African-American leader and that we get caught up in those kinds of climates,  comments and hyperbole, which will frighten white Americans and create  difficulty for Obama in uniting the country.

MS. NORRIS:  That's part of why he was so fresh and new is that he was a  voice that was without anger.

MR. BRODER:  Well, and I said, I said to Michele a moment ago that what's  striking to me is that I don't know Reverend Wright except for these clips,  and that's not a basis for judging his whole approach or personality, but his  tone seems so far removed from the tone that Obama has tried to strike, not  just in this campaign but throughout his political career, that it raises a  question in my mind:  What was it about Reverend Wright that attracted Obama  when he had, as a newcomer to Chicago, choice of any of the number of churches  or pastors to go to?

MS. NORRIS:  You know, when you talk about tone, though, it's interesting.  You're talking about his tone and not his words.  The, the sort of fire from  the pulpit...

MR. BRODER:  Yes.

MS. NORRIS:  ...is, is not something that is unusual in an African-American  church.  That is, that is some--and in fact, in many churches in America.  And  so what you're dealing with in these, in these statements is in part the  words, but also in, in the way that they were delivered.  And you're right in  noting that is very different from, from what Barack Obama hears.  But it's  not altogether different from, from what many people are hearing at this  moment in churches all across America.

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