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'Meet the Press' transcript for June 8, 2008
Ron Allen, Lee Cowan, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Kelly O'Donnell, Chuck Todd
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 Netcast June 8: We devote the full hour to insights & analysis on the race for the White House with NBC's team of veteran political reporters: Ron Allen, Lee Cowan, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Kelly O'Donnell, and Chuck Todd. |
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MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: It is over, as Barack Obama proclaims victory.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): I will be the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States of America.
MR. RUSSERT: And Hillary Clinton finally concedes.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won.
MR. RUSSERT: How did this freshman U.S. senator from Illinois beat the former first lady and the former president? Will she, should she be picked as the vice presidential running mate? And what will the Obama vs. McCain campaign be like? Insights and analysis from the NBC News political team: Ron Allen, NBC News correspondent covering the Clinton campaign; Lee Cowan, NBC News correspondent covering the Obama campaign; David Gregory, NBC News White House correspondent and host of MSNBC's "Race for the White House"; Andrea Mitchell, who covers all things politics for NBC News and MSNBC; Kelly O'Donnell, NBC News correspondent covering the McCain campaign; and Chuck Todd, political director for NBC News.
And in our "Meet the Press Minute," 40 years ago this week, after winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. On March 17th, 1968, the day after he announced his candidacy, he appeared on MEET THE PRESS and talked about his campaign.
But first, we have an official presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for president of the United States, Barack Obama. And we are joined by the NBC News political dream team.
Welcome all, together at last.
MS. KELLY O'DONNELL: Nice to be home.
MR. RUSSERT: From all across the country right at this table, here we are.
MS. O'DONNELL: This is the first time...(unintelligible).
MR. RUSSERT: Let's start. Here was Hillary Clinton yesterday at the National Building Museum in Washington.
(Videotape)
SEN. CLINTON: Life is too short, time is too precious and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be, and that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: David Gregory, did she do what she had to do?
MR. DAVID GREGORY: I think so. I think it was a gracious speech. She conceded, she said that she's prepared to lock arms with Barack Obama. "Yes, we can," she told her supporters, parroting his campaign theme. It was a time when she definitively said, "This is over. I congratulate him. He's done something historic. We've done something historic as well, but it's time to give the ground." The question that she's faced all week compared to how she ended the campaign earlier in the week on Tuesday was whether a graceful exit was still possible. She hit all the right notes yesterday after meeting with Barack Obama this week, so now we'll see.
MR. RUSSERT: Andrea Mitchell, on Tuesday the tone was much different, including the introduction of Senator Clinton. Let's watch.
(Videotape)
MR. TERRY McAULIFFE: Are you ready for the next president of the United States of America?
SEN. CLINTON: This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: What happened between Tuesday and Saturday?
MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Charlie Rangel. Pressure from her own biggest supporters. It was Charlie Rangel who first catapulted her into contention for the Senate.
MR. RUSSERT: The Democratic congressman from Harlem.
MS. MITCHELL: The Democratic congressman from Harlem, her biggest supporter, who said, "How can we, as members, deal with this? He is the nominee, you have to accept it." And there was such anger among some of her supporters. They didn't understand her mindset, which was, "I just won South Dakota. I have all of these votes. I have to thank my supporters. I have to pull them along with me." She thought she had time, that she could take a week or longer. She had no intention of giving the speech Saturday until her own Democrats came to her and said, "Enough already. We can't live with this, we have to get off the fence." There was a lot of pressure, and she finally did come to it. And it is a question as to whether people will remember the lack of grace on Tuesday--her own supporters said people don't understand her emotional connection and that she needed time--or the speech on Saturday, which I think was a perfect coming together of everything she needed to do.
MR. RUSSERT: Ron Allen, what was going on inside that Clinton campaign on Tuesday night and then what we saw on Saturday?
MR. RON ALLEN: I think a lot of emotion. I think it did take some time to get from Tuesday to yesterday. It was a very--I think it was a very painful thing for Senator Clinton to do. I think it was a very difficult thing for her to do to give this speech. And I know that in the room yesterday, for her supporters, we looked them in the eye, you could see that they really never believed that they were going to be at this moment. They really--and I think Senator Clinton also, in her heart, she still believes that she should be the nominee. And I think she really believes that she is the stronger candidate and, and, ultimately, she still wants to be president of the United States.
MR. RUSSERT: Lee Cowan, the Obama campaign. I read that Senator Obama watched the address live on the Internet. What was the response from the Obama campaign watching Senator Clinton yesterday?
MR. LEE COWAN: I think it was, "Finally. She actually said it." I think on Tuesday night there was a sense that she had stolen the spotlight a little bit when she came out and didn't concede. I think a lot of people could sense that he was a bit taken aback by that. It's one thing to be able to come out and claim victory, but it's another thing to have your rival actually recognize that you've, you've taken victory. I think he'd much rather have had that on Tuesday as opposed to having it Saturday night. So I think he wanted to step back, he wanted to let her have the spotlight, but I think he thought, "Finally now, we can move on and start focusing on John McCain instead."
MR. RUSSERT: Kelly, John McCain has spent the week reaching out to Senator Clinton, praising her, condemning the media for the way they treated her, trying to embrace some of the constituencies that are important to Senator Clinton--women, blue collar workers, Hispanics. What did the McCain campaign watch and how did they react yesterday as opposed to Tuesday?
MS. O'DONNELL: Well, I think they viewed the span between Tuesday and Saturday as helpful to them. If there was still a sense among Hillary Clinton's supporters that they had somehow been wronged or disappointed, that's an opportunity for John McCain to embrace Hillary Clinton as he did. Now, throughout the campaign, we saw him much less contentious when it ever came to Hillary Clinton. He would always save his fire for Obama. So he's been preparing for this because they knew all along her voters could potentially be their voters. So it was certainly a warm embrace over and over in these last several days. And so the delay for her to finally concede, they saw as an opportunity.
MR. RUSSERT: Chuck, when we look at some of the comments made, I thought this one from Geoff Garin who became the top strategist for the Clinton campaign, and I'll share it with you and our viewers. "Asked why the campaign could never crack the superdelegates, who had started out predisposed towards her candidacy, Geoff Garin, one of the top strategists" for Senator Clinton "said, `I think it's a mystery and an irony, and an irony in the sense that Hillary was seen as inevitable when it didn't matter and Obama was seen as inevitable when it did.'"
The Clinton campaign always believed that those superdelegates would come around to them in the end. But when Obama had a lead amongst elected delegates, those supers were not disposed to "overturn" that decision.
MR. CHUCK TODD: You know, the biggest myth of this campaign was that somehow the Clintons controlled the apparatus. They didn't. And, and, you know, I look back and I think that the, the two moments before the campaign even started were clues as to how difficult this was going to be for them. One was the election of Howard Dean as DNC chair, and the other was Democrats winning control of Congress in 2006 and the ascension of Nancy Pelosi as one of the leaders. Here they had two of the sort of three cogs of the Democratic leadership, in Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, who were waiting for there to be a crack in this inevitability armor of, of the Clintons. And once there was, it's as if they were just waiting. And it wouldn't have mattered if it was Barack Obama, Mark Warner, had he run, or John Edwards. Whoever ended up filling the vacuum of the anti-Clinton, they were going to rush to them. And I think that that's something the Clinton campaign never appreciated. I think they thought that it was sheer will they would get those superdelegates with them. They would get whatever rulings they needed, whatever primary calendar they wanted. But every step of the way, nothing went their way on process in the inside, and I think that shocks a lot of us today that they lost the inside game. It's one thing to lose the outside game, votes and all that stuff, but they lost the inside game.
MR. RUSSERT: David, it's amazing when you look back at this, in December of last year, right before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls 2-to-1, ahead in money 2-to-1, had all the structure, all the inevitability going for her, and this--and as he describes himself, this "skinny black kid with big ears from the south side of Chicago" has beaten Bill and Hillary Clinton. It's an extraordinary, historic story, the first African-American nominee of a major political party.
MR. GREGORY: It is, it is stunning. It's stunning both from a historical point of view and a political point of view from where he came in this race. And his own sense of stick-to-itiveness in this campaign before Iowa when he kept trailing and he was under a great deal of pressure to play a different sort of game and to go after her more directly and start frontally assaulting her politically. And, and he held off from doing it, and he took a lot of flack from that in the press and even from his own advisers, but he stuck to a particular game plan. And then he was so successful in Iowa and this enthusiasm continued to build. And I'd say about these superdelegates, as well, I think it's striking. I think there was a tipping point at some point, and we'll look back and say this race was over a long time ago because the superdelegates reached a point where they said, "We are not going to overturn the will of the voters and somehow deny the first African-American candidate for the presidency at this level the nomination based on another argument that's a subjective argument about whether he's fit, actually, to beat the Republican. That was, that was a striking turnaround. And I don't think there are a lot of profiles in courage, by the way, among these superdelegates. I mean, Congressman Lewis from Georgia did switch and, and went with Obama. Other than that, this was a real mass that was waiting for some, some real direction.
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