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'Meet the Press' transcript for April 13, 2008
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 Netcast April 13: With less than 10 days to the Pennsylvania primary, we will devote the full hour to insights & analysis on Decision 2008 with four of the sharpest minds in politics: Democratic strategists James Carville and Bob Shrum, and Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy. |
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MR. RUSSERT: Mary Matalin.
MS. MATALIN: Well, the damage here is that what he said accurately reflects the current Democratic Party. It's more affluent. It's more liberal. That's the way it's moving. He was saying it to San Francisco Democrats, rich San Francisco Democrats, and it reflects the kind of Democrat that loses at the presidential level. In the last half century--greater than the last half century--Democrats have not won at the presidential level unless they have a centrist southern--a centrist Southerner. This is in the, in the, of the ilk of endives, Belgian endives, remember that...
MR. SHRUM: Right.
MS. MATALIN: ...in the '88 campaign? We didn't know what endives were, let alone Belgian endives. Now he's talking about arugula from Whole Foods or, with respect, the Wind Surfer, the Wind Surfer and Speedo. Those are not the kind of Democrats that Americans are going to elect. And that's what this is in the, in the tradition of. This is not--and he may be lulled into a false sense of "We can get past this," because the people he's talking to, as was the case with the Wright incident, will not react to this. But this is a general election nightmare for that candidate.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, from the Republican point of view this is beyond beautiful because it works on so many levels. On one level, you've got the Hillary Clinton campaign out of money, out of gas and big trouble. This is like all of a sudden a huge shot of steroids to them. It gives them a reason to go, it'll give them a bounce in Pennsylvania where I think they were in danger of being upset. So now Hillary Clinton is still in business, the fight goes on. I think Barack probably still prevails, but in the primary it means more trouble between the Democrats, more ammunition for her, good for Republicans. But in the general election, though, this is a window into the wheelhouse of the Democratic Party. I agree with Mary. The--one of the big vexing things for Democratic elite is how to hell do working-class whites ever vote Republican? We give them all the class warfare stuff, but they still seem to do it. Well, they do it on culture. And the Democrats, many of them, look at this like some sociological disease to be explained away. And Barack, sitting in some $10 million backyard had to explain it like a sociologist...
MR. SHRUM: I guess I...
MR. MURPHY: ...to quote Shrum. Let me finish here, Bob, and then you can, you can defend him.
MR. SHRUM: All right.
MR. MURPHY: And now it becomes the defining point that hurts Barack among the very votes he's going to need in the general election to beat John McCain. This thing is going to stick because it's part of the way the, the Democrat Party of today is, is disconnected, I think, from the swing voters who are going to decide this election.
MR. RUSSERT: Bob Shrum, the, the words "cling to guns," "cling to religion," you're going to hear those over and over again...
MR. SHRUM: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: ...a suggestion of condescending talk.
MR. SHRUM: Yeah, I think he confused the comfort of the familiar with the fear of the unknown when he sort of lumped church and guns with immigration. I don't agree with any of this, and I guess I'll just dissent.
MR. MURPHY: You elitist.
MR. SHRUM: Yeah, right, you--listen, let me tell you, no one's sitting at this table that has it tough the way people in Pennsylvania have it tough.
MR. MURPHY: Uh-huh.
MR. SHRUM: And I think he was explaining what was going on with a lot of those folks. Now, should he have said it that way? No. I think it does give him the chance, by the way, to go back into these small towns and talk about what he really meant. More than that, I think this will be settled by the debate on Wednesday night. I think this will be a big issue in the debate. The way he handles it will, will establish whether he can create resonance with these folks he was talking about.
MR. MURPHY: But the question is, is what--the argument he made--forget about cling, an unfortunate word that he, of course, says he regrets--is the argument he makes true? Do people resonate to issues like the Second Amendment and, and the other things he mentioned--guns and trade and everything else...
MR. SHRUM: But I...
MR. MURPHY: ...because of economic distress, or is it legitimate to be a cultural conservative? That is the question he brought up.
MR. SHRUM: People go with sociology, and he shouldn't be a sociologist.
MR. MURPHY: So he's wrong.
MR. SHRUM: People--sociology says that when people are in distress, when they're economically deprived, they, they hold onto the things in their lives that give them some sense of security and identity. That's faith, that can be hunting, that can be all of those things.
MR. MURPHY: But he implies it's a illegitimate.
MR. SHRUM: Should he have said it? No.
MR. MURPHY: He implies it's a construction of economic...(unintelligible).
MR. SHRUM: No, he does not imply it. No, he does not.
MR. CARVILLE: (Unintelligible). There are a substantial number of people in this country that hunt for pleasure, or they have guns and they shoot for pleasure. It--they, they...(unintelligible). They're people that go to church. And, Bob, you and I know this, that people that go to church because they're people of faith. There are people that go to church because it's a joyous experience.
MR. SHRUM: You mean like Robert...(unintelligible)...goes to church.
MR. CARVILLE: Yeah, whatever. I'm just, I'm just saying that in--culturally, he, he, he, he--I know he's not sociologist in charge, but that he didn't have his kind of history right. He needs to have a better history and a better understanding. I think--and I think Bob is right, he's going to have a chance in the debate, and he's going to have a chance to, to, to kind of re-explain himself here. But this statement was really off in terms of his--its, its, its accuracy and understanding who "these people are." They're--they'll--there's a large segment of the Democratic Party that would like to win an election without these kind of white, working-class voters, and we need a substantial...
MR. SHRUM: Well, I come, I, I, I come from these folks.
MR. CARVILLE: I know you don't. Bob, I've worked...
MR. SHRUM: I come from those folks, and I want to win with those folks.
MR. CARVILLE: I--right, I--but...
MR. SHRUM: But let, let, let me say, I, I think we're being unfair to the guy. I thought two weeks ago everybody was being unfair to Hillary Clinton saying she ought to get out of the race.
MR. CARVILLE: Right.
MR. SHRUM: And I wrote an op-ed piece saying she ought to stay in and she ought to fight this thing until it's decided. But I think we're being unfair to him. I understand why these guys are. The truth of the matter is, he's describing a, a condition that exists in a lot of these towns that have been abandoned. I was born in one of them. The population is half of what it used to be.
MR. MURPHY: Right.
MR. CARVILLE: And I think you're right, he's going to have a chance to explain it.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah.
MS. MATALIN: It's called, it's called--excuse me, it's called a dynamic global economy. You cannot...
MR. SHRUM: I hope you guys go into Pennsylvania and explain it that way.
MS. MATALIN: Let, let me, can I say something more practical about this, getting out of the anthropological study of it? He's not the candidate that he's promised to be. This is a very important point. We know he's not been vetted properly because every week something comes out. He's--hasn't been tested properly. He's never run a tough race like this. The reason it's important that he said it so poorly is because he holds out the promise of being the "great articulator," the "great communicator" of the new Democratic Party. And when he's under--he, the, the longer he goes, the more he's exposed, and this is not an isolated incident, to be a not particularly overwhelming candidate. And that's when there's really no issues. You're not fighting over issues. Wait till he gets up against John McCain where there are real issue differences.
MR. SHRUM: Mary, if I were supporting the candidate who can't tell Sunnis from Shias, I'm not sure how fine a point I'd make about the exactitude of vocabulary.
MR. MURPHY: Oh, unfair, Bob. (Unintelligible).
MS. MATALIN: Whoa.
MR. CARVILLE: This is a defining--yeah.
MS. MATALIN: You're going to defend Barack Obama with that old-timey politics?
MR. SHRUM: No, no, you just, you just said they used, he--you can't do it because his vocabulary is inexact.
MS. MATALIN: Bob, it...
MR. MURPHY: No, this is part of what...
MR. SHRUM: I think he--I said, I think he made a mistake. He said it the wrong way.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah.
MR. SHRUM: OK?
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, but you essentially agree with the constructivist argument. I don't think the country does. We're going to test it in the election. The question is, will this start to define him in the general election? Should he be the nominee in a bad way? And I think it will because cultural issues are where the Democratic Party always fumbles, and he is well on his way to fumbling. He's turning into Mike Dukakis, that kind of Democrat.
MS. MATALIN: Yes.
MR. MURPHY: If that sticks, he loses.
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