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Tavis: Ken Mehlman is the newly-named chairman of the Republican National Committee. Not bad for a guy still a few years shy of his 40th birthday. Prior to taking the reigns at the RNC, he served as campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, and Ken Mehlman joins us tonight from Washington. Ken, congratulations. Nice to have you on the program for the first time.

Ken Mehlman: Thanks a lot. I appreciate the opportunity.

Tavis: I'm delighted to have you. Let me ask you how they're treating you over at the RNC so far.

Mehlman: They're treating me pretty good right now.

Tavis: Um, tell me what it is, and this is a question that I know you can do a seminar on, but in short, tell me what it was that you brought to the table this last time around, along with Karl Rove, that allowed you all to be victorious in the way that you were. What was that thing, that thing that made the difference?

Mehlman: I think the most important thing that made the difference was not what we brought, but what the president brought. I think that the president's leadership, I think his vision for the future is ultimately what the American people voted for. What we tried to do is put together what we thought was a strategically smart and effective system for folks who supported the president around the country to get the word out, a good way of helping to remind people what our president would try to accomplish in the coming 4 years through television ads and through earned media, and ultimately, I thought, a successful turnout operation. I think we ran a good campaign, but there's too much focus on what we did and not enough on the president's leadership.

Tavis: Let me raise the name of Howard Dean, your new counterpart at the Democratic National Committee. There's a particular--a specific difference and a specific similarity that I wanna raise that I see at least between you and Mr. Dean, or Dr. Dean. Let me ask you right quick, though, your thoughts. What do you make of Howard Dean as the new head of the DNC, first of all?

Mehlman: I think he's gonna be a formidable chairman. Howard Dean went from nowhere to being, for a while, the Democratic frontrunner in 2003 and early 2004. He raised a lot of money on the web. I think his energy and his passion will help improve the political process, and I expect to have a lot of vigorous debates with him. I hope we'll be able to keep it on the issues, and I look forward to talking with him.

Tavis: The similarity that I referenced a moment ago is that both of you are awfully good at grassroots organizing. To your point, Dr. Dean went to the front of the party, went to the front of the line, I should say, in the race for the party nomination because he was so good at the grass-roots organizing and obviously taught everybody, Republican and Democrat, how to effectively use the internet to raise money from grass-roots sources. So he's good at that. You're good at that. That's what people say about you. The difference: he's a bit--a little bit older than you are. As I mentioned it before, you're not quite 40. Now, I wanna come to that because I wonder whether or not there is a strategic benefit that the Republican party gets out of having a chairman that's under 40, versus a guy like Dean who is, shall we say, more chronologically gifted?

Mehlman: Ha ha. I don't know. I ultimately think that folks mostly vote on the issues, and they mostly vote on the fact that what our parties believe about helping to save social security, to improve health care, grow the economy, to keep America safe and strong. I hope I do bring a lot of energy to the campaign. And look, I think our party is trying very hard to reach out to younger voters, and I'm gonna try hard to reach out to younger voters as well as others, African-Americans, Latinos, women, to try to expand the Republican party.

Tavis: You said two or three things I wanna pick up on right away, so let me follow your lead and go. First of all, with regard to the Latino voters you just referenced a moment ago, what did the Republicans do this time around that has caused so much consternation inside the Democratic Party in terms of siphoning off a significant number of brown votes? What happened? How'd you guys do that this time?

Mehlman: I think, once again, like I said I the beginning, we ultimately talked about the issues, and I think all across the country, Latino-Americans agreed with our president that we need to support their troops all the time in their battle against terrorism. They agreed that out-of-control lawsuits made health care unaffordable. They agreed that ultimately on education, we need to make sure the system is accountable to the parents and not the parents to the educational system. They liked what the president talked about when he said we need to create an ownership society in this country where more Americans own a piece of the American pie. All those were examples of issues we reached out to the Latino community, and quite frankly, the African-American community, and we're proud of the fact that we increased our numbers, but we still got a long way to go. This is just the beginning.

Tavis: Is the Democratic Party in trouble when it comes to the Hispanic vote? I mean, what you guys did this time, this last time around was significant. There are some who are suggesting that it might be that way for years to come, others who clearly see the Democratic party in trouble, but not to the extent that it's long-term. They can get those Latino voters back next time around. Your thoughts?

Mehlman: Oh, absolutely. I think the Democratic party will be very competitive when it comes to the Latino vote and so will the Republican party and the fact that we're both competing hard for the Latino vote I believe will benefit the Latino community and ultimately make both political parties stronger and more effective.

Tavis: You mentioned social security. I've been dying to ask you, I cannot imagine that you and Mr. Rove and the president and his inside, his kitchen cabinet for some time now, have not been discussing social security. Why did this issue not come up in the campaign, why did the president wait until after the campaign to raise this issue, if in fact, he's so passionate and so serious about the system making trouble? Why wait till after he got re-elected?

Mehlman: Well, he did discuss it. He discussed it at the convention, he discussed it almost everywhere he went. One of the challenges in the campaign was this: he can give a 20 minute speech on the economy, 10 minutes on social security, 5 minutes on education, and 2 sentences on Iraq, and the press would say the president's giving an Iraq speech, so the war on terror and Iraq had the effect, I think, of kind of dominating the public discussion, but this is something not only to be talked about in this campaign, he talked about it in the 2000 campaign.

Tavis: While we're on social security, admit to me that the president is in trouble. He came out the gate on this thing with a lot of energy in that State of the Union address. He's been a target by folk all across the country on this issue in part because even Speaker Hastert will not concede that the system is in crisis, maybe in trouble, but not in crisis. Is the president in trouble on this issue?

Mehlman: I don't agree that he's in trouble, in fact, I think we've seen some strong progress in his direction. This past weekend, you heard from Senator Biden, talking about the fact that the system has problems, that it needs to be fixed. The first step of any debate on reform is do we need a reform? Is there a problem? And overwhelming majorities, whether you call it a crisis or call it a problem, folks now understand in a way that before, they did not. This clearly needs to be addressed. The second thing the president has been able to do is to talk to people about personal retirement accounts and why that's such an important part of whatever solution we develop, so is it gonna be a long debate? Absolutely. Is there a lot more to go in terms of ultimately fashioning a bi-partisan legislative compromise? There is, but I believe the president's on the right track convincing the public there needs to be a fix and talking about one of the most important concepts that ought to be part of modernizing and saving social security for the long term.

Tavis: To the president's credit, Ken, he's been talking to African-Americans in particular about why he believes they should support his effort to reform social security and he offers his reasons. You know them better than I do. I don't need to recount them to you. What he's not telling this African-American audience he talks to across the country is that the very reason why so many African-Americans, and for that matter, Hispanic-Americans do not live long enough to ever draw down on the money they pay into the system is because of all the health disparities that cause them to die too early. Why not talk about the health disparities and do something about that and save their lives so they live long to have benefit from whatever reform we make to social security?

Mehlman: I think the president is talking about that and he's doing stuff on it. One of the reasons he was so committed to passing a prescription drug benefit to add to Medicare was to close the health disparity that exists in this country. One of the reasons that he's funding billions more to the A.S.C.H.I.P. program and to Medicaid is to start off when children are young, making sure we close the health disparity. One of the reasons we want to do medical liability reform is 'cause when you raise the cost of health care, you know who gets hit the worst? Folks who can barely afford their own health care. Increasing numbers of African-Americans are starting and are working in small businesses. We have a plan called Association Health Plans, which lets folks who work in small businesses pool together so they can buy health care at the same cost of General Motors or big businesses so we've got an agenda that includes lots of different things to make health care more affordable and more available so we've reduced that disparity, but you know what else? We've gotta reduce the disparity in wealth in this country and one of the most important things we can do is this personal retirement account plan. Here's why: right now, if you live paycheck to paycheck, you can never build wealth, you can never build a nest egg 'cause you can never have access to the capital markets, access to investments. If you're a typical American that lives paycheck to paycheck, and in 1988, you put $10,000 into social security, you'd have $11,700 today. If you had put that money in the Thrift Savings Plan, which is a personal retirement account available to every member of Congress, to every employee who works for the Federal government, you'd have $42,000 today. It seems to me, we need to close the disparity between wealthy and poor Americans in the ability to save money and build a nest egg that they can either use for themselves or pass along to their children.

Tavis: The president calls Karl Rove "The Architect." He calls Mr. Mehlman "Rain Man." If you saw the movie--if you saw the movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, you understand why I look forward to the coming months and years, Mr. Mehlman, to talk to you a number of times about some critical issues. Glad to have you on the program.

Mehlman: Thanks a lot.

Tavis: All the best to you.

Mehlman: Thanks.

Tavis: Up next on this program, Oscar-winning filmmakers behind a terrific documentary on the civil rights struggle in Birmingham. Stay with us.