Two days before the Pennsylvania presidential primary, we hosted an exclusive debate: Obama's Chief Strategist David Axelrod squared off against Hillary Clinton's new chief strategist Geoff Garin. Then, we had a political roundtable on Decision 2008 with David Brooks of the New York Times, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post & Michele Norris of NPR.
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RUSSERT: Looking at those [poll] numbers, what is Hillary Clinton’s path to the nomination? How does she win?
GEOFF GARIN, CLINTON CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST: Well, step by step is the short answer, as we’ve got 10 contests left, starting with Pennsylvania on Tuesday. We recognize that we have to show up well in all of those contests. But we’re going to let the process play through. The process has been good for the Democratic Party. We are gaining new Democratic registrants every day. People are excited. People say that there is a view among Democratic voters that this is a process that should go on. People care much more about getting it right than getting it done. And, you know, we’ll go through to June 3rd. I think at that point it’ll be a very, very close election. Neither candidate’s going to have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination to have the 2200-plus that are needed. And we’ll see where we are, and the, and the, and the party leaders and elected officials will then start to exercise their good judgment about what’s in the best interest not just of the party, but of the country in terms of who will make the best, strongest president for America.
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DAVID AXELROD, OBAMA CAMPAIGN STRAGETIST: Well, I agree with Geoff that there has been something very positive about this contest. We’ve brought more Democrats out than at anytime in recent memory. There’s great enthusiasm within the party, but to say that \"we shouldn’t have a rush to judgment,\" I mean, we’ve been at this for 15 months. We’ve been through, you know, 40-some-odd primaries.
Now, look, I don’t believe that, that anyone should tell Senator Clinton to get out of the race. She has to make that decision, and as long as she feels she has a reasonable chance to win the nomination, I understand her continuing... She’s a formidable candidate and a formidable person. But if the strategy ultimately becomes, “We can’t win the, the delegate count, we really can’t win the nomination on the legit, so we’re going to apply the kitchen sink strategy and tear down Senator Obama and see if we can destroy him in order to advance our own candidacy,” that is damaging. That is bad for the party. "; mtp_GarinAxelrod_080430[i++] = new Array("","On Clinton's Iran statements","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""); mtp_GarinAxelrod_080430[i-1].body = "MR. RUSSERT: In last week's debate in Philadelphia, Senator Clinton was talking about \"an umbrella of deterrence.\" She said, “I think we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course, I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States. But I would do the same with other countries in the region.” To my ear, that’s suggesting that if Iran invaded or attacked Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Senator Clinton would use U.S. troops and U.S. military power against Iran.
MR. GARIN: I think she would take the appropriate steps against Iran. But, at the moment, I believe that Senator Clinton believes and many other experts, that Iran is the greatest threat to the stability of the Middle East.
MR. RUSSERT: But when she says we would do the same with other countries, is she saying that the United States would rush to the defense of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan? Which countries is she talking about?
MR. GARIN: Tim, I want to be totally honest here. I am helping Senator Clinton with her message, I am not her policy adviser, but I, I think what is—what she is saying is that Iran is a threat. Iran has to know that we take it seriously as a threat, and we’re not going to sit by idly as it gains nuclear strength and power, in part because of the failures of this administration. We’re not going to sit idly by and let them attack other countries militarily.
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MR. RUSSERT: David Axelrod, based on the last couple of weeks, many Democrats fear Republicans in the fall will string together an ad which shows Michelle Obama saying that she really never had pride in America until this campaign when Barack Obama was running, Barack Obama with his hands clasped in front of him rather than holding his heart during the pledge of allegiance, Barack Obama not wearing a flag pin, Barack Obama talking about clinging to faith and to guns, suggesting—Barack Obama meeting with Bill Ayers, a former Weatherground under—Weatherman figure. Are you concerned that all those kinds of issues could be strung together to create an impression of Obama that would make him almost unelectable to a lot of swing voters?
DAVID AXELROD: No. First of all, understand that whoever the the Democratic nominee would be, the Republican Party is going to string things together to try and destroy the Democratic candidate because they have an untenable position. They have to defend the record of the last eight years, and that’s an indefensible record. So of course they’re going to attack. But as people get to know Senator Obama during this campaign, what they learn is, here’s a guy who was raised by his grandparents from Kansas, his grandfather served in Patton’s Army, his grandmother was a Rosie the Riveter on the bomber assembly line. He has said many, many times, only in America could his story be true. I don’t know anybody who’s more patriotic and who loves this country more than Barack Obama. And that’s the person people are going to get to see when he’s the Democratic nominee and campaigns across this country. We’re going to fight all those caricatures off, as Senator Clinton will have to deal with many, many things were she the nominee. But ultimately, this is going to be an election about who can lead us into the future. Do we want to continue eight more years of the Bush policies, which is what John McCain promises? Or are we going to bring real change to this country? I think people are going to choose change.";
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RUSSERT: Geoff Garin, your candidate, the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, is Hillary Clinton honest and trustworthy? And look at these numbers. Now, 39, yes; no, 58. That's amongst Democrats.... [Now] there’s been a new issue, and that is a comment she made at a fundraiser about Democratic activists and MoveOn.org... Last year, when she was seeking the endorsement of activists and MoveOn.org, her tone was remarkably different. What changed?
GEOFF GARIN: Well, I don’t think anything changed. I don’t really see a contradiction. The truth is that we agree with MoveOn on lots of issues, disagree with them on some. One of them is they, they’ve endorsed Senator Obama, and they have been very effective in these caucuses for turning out...
RUSSERT: Wait a minute. She said, “I don’t agree with them, and they don’t agree with me.”
GARIN: On a particular set of foreign policy issues, Tim. It’s not about everything. We...
RUSSERT: She also said that they, “They intimidated people who were showing up to support me.” When did MoveOn.org or liberal activists intimidate Clinton voters?
GARIN: Tim, I don’t—I’m here for two weeks now, so this comment was made in, I believe, at the beginning of March. But, look, the truth is Senator Clinton, as she said in that other clip, respects the right of MoveOn to be involved in this process and respects the role that activists in our party. I think the larger point is that when you move from the caucuses to the primaries, where participation is much, much greater, she has done extremely well. We’re very proud that in four of the five events with the largest turnouts she’s won them and won them well. We hope to continue that in Pennsylvania. Look, we’re not, we’re not looking to pick a fight with MoveOn. They play an important role in the Democratic Party. I think she was making an observation about the caucus process. I think the primary process, mathematically it’s hard to ignore the fact that there’s much greater participation in those. And when lots and lots of people vote, as we encourage them to do all the time, she does very, very well.";
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RUSSERT: David Brooks, back in January you said Barack Obama “may be changing the face of American politics.” This week you said something much different, that he’s been ground down and probably would have a difficult time being elected.”
DAVID BROOKS: Well, he’ll have challenges. And, and I don’t know if it’s the tragedy of Barack Obama, but, but the challenge of Barack Obama. The man has extraordinary gifts. The man is extraordinarily thoughtful for a politician, enormously deep in the way he thinks about the world. And I think he really does want to have a discussion, really change American politics. But it’s been 15 months since he’s been running, and the last three months have been different. And the conversation we just heard on this show, the tone of that conversation, believe me, is very different from the tone of Barack Obama’s speech in Des Moines three months ago. And the campaign has changed him. And I think it’s changed him in two ways, which has made him less inspiring for a lot of us who are not orthodox liberals. It’s changed him because he seems like a more conventional politician, trading jibes about who’s throwing which negative ad at each other, which is not particularly hopeful. And then he’s had to chase Democratic primary votes, he’s become much more orthodox liberal. He, he seems very traditionally liberal on trade, on the war, in the debate. He made an ironclad promise to bring American troops home in 16 months after he’s elected. We don’t know what Iraq is going to be like two years from now. Why is he making ironclad promises for a policy that won’t be enacted for two years? So it’s become a much rougher season, and it’s really taken him away from the most inspiring parts about him."; // END editorial data