'Meet the Press' transcript for March 30, 2008

MR. BEINART:  That's true, but there were other factors at work here and one can also look at cases where, where the, where the, the primary campaign went on for a very, very long time and in fact people managed to win the general election.  When, when presidents have primary challenges, like, like Jimmy Carter did in 1980, like George Bush's father did in 1992, it's a very bad sign.  But when it's an open field and it's a very contested primary, there's no evidence, actually, that it hurts you in the general election.

MR. RUSSERT:  David Brooks, your point about gender, I was quite taken by some of the comments made by the Clinton campaign over this last week.  Here's Bill Clinton on Wednesday in West Virginia.

(Videotape, March 26, 2008)

FMR. PRES. CLINTON:  Apparently it's OK to say bad things about a girl. It's OK.  The only thing that matters is what happens to you.  That's all that matters.  If a politician doesn't want to get beat up, you shouldn't run for office.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  And then the former governor of Vermont, Madeleine Kunin, had this to say on Friday.

(Audiotape, March 28, 2008)

FMR. GOV. MADELEINE KUNIN (D-VT):  It seems a bit patronizing to tell her, "Honey, you've got to drop out for the good of the party."

(End of audiotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  And then Senator Clinton herself, or her advisers, according to The New York Times, "Mrs. Clinton told aides that she would not be `bullied out' of the race.  ...  She compared the situation to the `big boys' trying to bully a woman."

MR. BROOKS:  That's why this is different from all the others.  The other Democratic debates were debates between the center and the left.  The Republican splits have been the center and the right.  They were ideological policy debates and they would go at each other on policy issues with some personality brought in there.  This is about everybody.  This is about how women feel about the party, this is about how African Americans feel about the party, this is about how the country feels about the party.  And so this--and I keep emphasizing this fact, we're halfway there, we're three months away. Three months ago was Iowa.  That seems a long time ago.  Three months from now is going to be a long time from now, and emotions will change.  And to have a debate about these touchy issues of race and gender in the midst of a campaign, a debate that is led by political hacks who are going to demean it in all the worst possible ways, as, I think, frankly, Bill Clinton did just there, it's just, it's just going to be bad for the party.  And I'm not saying it's going to hurt Barack Obama among Democrats, but it's going to hurt him among independents, it's going to hurt him among Republicans, and it's going to, I just think, demean the party.  I've never seen an elevated debate in the midst of this kind of viciousness.

MR. BEINART:  But we just went through Jeremiah Wright, and David already said that it hasn't hurt Barack Obama amongst independents.  The evidence is in.

MR. BROOKS:  Among the independents, among Democrats.

MR. BEINART:  But it hasn't hurt him amongst independents, either.  It has hurt him a little bit amongst Republicans.  Republicans, I think, are coming home to John McCain, to some degree.  I think that was probably inevitable.  I think it's worth noting that we also--this seems so stretched out because the primary was so compressed, the calendar's changed over the four years that it's become so compressed that now it seems epically long, when it's really just as long as it was eight or 12 years ago.

MR. BROOKS:  One thing I do agree with Peter on, Hillary shouldn't get out because she's weak, she should get out because she's strong.  She has no chance of winning, I think, or a very small chance, but she's strong.  So she's going to have an arc, where the arc of this race is going to be for the next couple of months.  Why is she still in it?  Why is she still in it?  Then she's going to win Pennsylvania, maybe win it by 8, 9, 10, 11 points.  Then it'll be, she's back!  And so she'll get a bounce.  Maybe she'll do well in North Carolina, Indiana, other places.  So she really can plausibly go into the convention strong.

MR. BEINART:  But if she...

MR. BROOKS:  Without a chance of winning.  And that's the, that's the crux.

MR. BEINART:  I totally agree with David that her chances are 5 percent or even less at this point.  But if she wins Pennsylvania and wins Indiana, comes close in North Carolina, wins West Virginia, wins Kentucky, there are a lot of states later on which actually are quite good for her, wins Puerto Rico, then I think the chances are above 5 percent.

MR. RUSSERT:  The superdelegates would say, even though she's behind in elected delegates, she's shown momentum and strength as a candidate.

MR. BEINART:  I wouldn't bet the mortgage on it.  I think it's still, by far, the less likely scenario.  But if she has a real winning streak, then I think we've been wrong before in these, in these predictions.  I certainly have.

MR. BROOKS:  That's exactly my argument.  That's why it's a mess because she'll go in strong.

MR. RUSSERT:  One of the more interesting photographs from the week was this. This is Hillary Rodham Clinton talking to Richard Mellon Scaife, who owns the Pittsburgh paper, the Tribune-Review.  That is the same Richard Mellon Scaife who basically funded the investigations of Troopergate, Whitewater, through American Spectator contributions.  He had suggested that perhaps Vince Foster did not commit suicide.  One theory was that Hillary Clinton paid for an apartment, rented an apartment where he was killed, that Ron Brown did not die accidentally in a plane crash.  What did you make of that meeting?

MR. BEINART:  Well, it is remarkable.  I mean, the Clintons have spent a lot of time, since she entered public life, trying to reconcile with their former opponents.  You remember, she co-sponsored a lot of legislation with people who were involved in, in her husband's impeachment.  So it may be that this is simply that.  There are others who see more nefarious things involved.  But I think it may simply be part of Hillary Clinton's effort to win everybody back over to her side.

MR. BROOKS:  There's a joke, a Woody Allen joke, in "The End of Days." "The lion will lie down with the lamb but the lamb won't get much sleep." I'm not sure who's the lamb is in that picture.  They're both kind of lions.  Obama told us he would be the unifier but maybe she's actually the unifier.

MR. RUSSERT:  James Carville called him the "godfather of the vast right-wing conspiracy."

MR. BROOKS:  Yeah.  Well, she's brought us all together.  She's filled the breach.

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