E-mail a friendSen. Bill Nelson
original airdate February 13, 2008
Bill Nelson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000. A lifetime Floridian, he previously served six years as a member of the state Cabinet and 12 years as a congressman. Nelson is an expert on NASA who, after intensive training, spent six days on the Space Shuttle Columbia as a payload specialist. Since, he's worked to protect the environment and been an advocate for space exploration. Nelson is a Democratic Deputy Whip and serves on the Armed Services, Budget and Foreign Relations committees.
Sen. Bill Nelson
Tavis: Senator Bill Nelson is serving his second term in the Senate from Florida and sits on a number of key committees, including Armed Services and Intelligence. The former shuttle astronaut has thrown his support behind Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination. He joins us tonight, as you can see, from Capitol Hill. Senator, nice to have you back on the program, sir.
Sen. Bill Nelson: It's always a pleasure, Tavis.
Tavis: Let me start by asking why you decided to endorse Mrs. Clinton.
Nelson: Well, that's a 20-year personal friendship. Our families have known each other; our children have grown up together. It was the natural thing for me to do. She obviously is well qualified, and having said all of that, I feel very, very sanguine about Barack as well. He's a personal friend in the Senate as well. But when it came down to the long-standing personal friendship, it was clear that that's who I was going to endorse.
Tavis: Let me ask you, since we keep reading so much about it, what you make, as a close friend of Mrs. Clinton, of the momentum that Mr. Obama certainly has, given what happened in the Potomac primaries last night. He has momentum and as you well know he also has money, so as an HRC supporter are you at all a little shook today?
Nelson: Naturally I'm concerned, and I'm concerned when I see the turnover in some of the top staff. But Hillary is a very resilient person and she is a good campaigner and she's got a very strong wellspring of backing behind her. And as expected, in a couple of weeks, if she does well in Ohio and Texas, it's back to that neck-and-neck race which of course everybody loves to see, a real horserace.
Tavis: Everybody loves a real horserace except for the fact that there are some mitigating factors and circumstances, as if you don't know, that might make this thing not just interesting but downright ugly, and your state, of course, of Florida sits right at the middle of it. Now today, as we know, Mr. Obama now officially - a few days ago the media couldn't figure out all these news operations had different numbers on who had what in the delegate count.
I think today may be the first day since Super Tuesday that everybody agrees by any objective standard, Mr. Obama is now leading in the delegate count. Although, that said, that would not be the case had the votes in Florida been counted by the Democratic Party in terms of the distribution of delegates. I'm going to back up now, let you explain to the audience what happened some months ago, why the votes of Democrats in Florida have not been accounted for the delegate total, and why thereby Mrs. Clinton today is behind Mr. Obama in the delegate count. It's all yours, Senator.
Nelson: Well over a year ago the legislature of Florida, which is a Republican legislature, passed a bill that would change the date to January the 29th. It was signed into law by the Republican governor. There was actually an attempt by the Democratic leader of the state Senate to move that not to January 29th but to comply with the Republican and Democratic National Committee rules, that it couldn't be before February the 5th.
That Democratic legislator's amendment was defeated. So the law was passed, the law is the law, and that's when Florida had the primary, January 29th. The Republican National Committee says, "Republican candidates, we're going to take away half the delegates of Florida as a punishment." That's what the Democratic rules call for.
But the Democrats went a step further. They said, "We're going to take away all of Florida's, and oh, by the way, the first four states are going to enforce on the candidates a pledge not to campaign in Florida." And that pledge was honored by the candidates. So you get up to Florida, Florida votes, record turnout, 1.75 million Florida Democrats voted.
Hillary gets 50 percent, Barack gets 33 percent, John Edwards got 17 percent, and that leads us to the situation that we're in, is the Florida delegation going to be seated? The Democratic National Committee says no.
Tavis: All right, so Mrs. Clinton now - never mind the fact that she and the other candidates at the time agreed to play by the DNC's rules - they did not go to Michigan, really, they did not go to Florida - we're talking about Florida, obviously, now since that's your state. Mrs. Clinton now certainly has it in her best interest to fight with the DNC to get those delegates seated and counted because she stands to gain the most.
Mr. Obama would certainly get some but she stands to gain the most. Hence our sitting on the precipice of what could be an ugly fight if she wins Ohio and Texas and this thing is a dead heat; Florida comes back into play. What is it about the water in Florida that keeps you all in the middle of all these controversies? I say that to ask where do you think this story is headed, Senator Nelson?
Nelson: Well, and you set it up exactly right, Tavis, because we are very sensitive in Florida about our right to vote and to have that vote counted, and to have that vote counted as it was intended because of what we've gone through in the 2000 presidential race.
Here's what I think's going to happen. I think as a practical matter this thing is going to be over by the time of the end of the primaries. But if it's not, then you've got all of these superdelegates, which are the elected officials and the members of the Democratic National Committee, that more than likely would decide it. So that by the end of June we're going to know who the nominee is and we're not going to get to this crisis precipice of the cliff that you talked about that would be all the way into the end of August in the convention, whether or not Florida and Michigan's going to be seated.
If we did that, that would be cataclysmic because the Democratic nominee for president, whether it's Barack or Hillary, is going to have to have Florida and Michigan in November in order to win. And you sure don't want to deny their delegations the right to be a part of the convention only two months away from the general election.
Tavis: So you're hopeful, as a practical matter, that this will be resolved - that we will not get to the point of having to deal with a brokered convention once we get to Denver with the Democrats.
Nelson: Not only am I hopeful, I am prayerful.
Tavis: (Laughs) From your mouth to God's ears.
Nelson: Amen.
Tavis: All right, that said, I got two minutes, I've got to let you go here. Let me ask you right quick - I had the wonderful pleasure for the second or third time in my career to speak to the astronauts while they were in outer space. As you know, Atlantis is up right now. Had the occasion the other day to speak with the astronauts aboard the space shuttle on the occasion of their waking up to the music of Quincy Jones - a piece he did back in '69 called "Walk in Space."
They used it as the wake-up music the other day. And so I had a connection of my studio, Quincy at his home, and the astronauts in outer space were talking on a galactic conference call. It was a wonderful conversation with these astronauts. I raise that only because, of course, I know and we all know that you were, as I said earlier, a former astronaut.
So many comparisons between Obama and Kennedy - Kennedy, of course, a historic effort on the part of the space program - not a lot of conversation so far about the president, whoever it might be, and their call to do what with regard to NASA and outer space?
Nelson: As a matter of fact, both Hillary and Barack have come out with good platforms on the space program. Initially Barack did not, and I spoke to him before Christmas about this, and he says, "You know I'm a strong supporter of the space program." And true to his word he went back in and got his staff to correct that. So both of them have good plans for the follow-on to the space shuttle when it's shut down in 2010, which is the new vehicle, the Orion and the Aries rocket.
Tavis: Fair enough. Senator Bill Nelson, of course Democrat of Florida, with some good insight tonight on where this nominating process is headed, certainly vis-à-vis his state of Florida. Senator, as always, nice to have you on, thank you for your insight, sir.
Nelson: Thank you, Tavis.
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