Party Strategists Answered Questions on '08 Race

CHERI JACOBUS: He'll visit some of the states that they are in, they're competing in, just to make sure he can maintain his position, particularly in those states where he's -- that are very competitive.

He's also had the luxury, if you will, to go into places when Republicans traditionally ignore, because we feel we don't have a chance and you want to use your resources only for those places where you have to go.

We saw him, last week, in Selma, Ala. That's not a place where Republican candidates typically think they have a very good change of getting votes.

But, he is going into those places. He known that he has a chance at getting the support of any independent-minded Americans. No matter what your previous Party affiliation is, no matter your race, your gender -- because of the climate that we're in now in the Democratic primary -- more importantly, because John McCain since 2000 and before has been known as that independent, as that maverick, and has the ability to draw in non-traditional voters.

He's doing something a little bit different than other Republican candidates have done, and Selma, Ala., is just one example -- I think we'll see more of that in the weeks and the months to come.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Laura, do you have a quick comment about that?

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, independents are making up more of the electorate than ever before.

And so, it's very wise for John McCain to go towards the independents. I think that's something the super delegates will be thinking about when they case their votes -- those remaining uncommitted super delegates -- that, who's going to get more of that independent vote, because that is something that John McCain is very successful at, they're making up almost a third of the electorate in a general election coming up in November, so, I think the super delegates are really going to look at which Democrat would have the best chance with an independent, because John McCain's worked hard at it, he's kept a lot of them, and they're going to be an all-decisive factor for the general election.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, I'm going to turn now to a number of questions that have been submitted about the Democratic side, but we want to broaden this out as we go along.

And the first thing I want to ask you both about, because this is, I think, top of mind right now, this week, and that is the comments by Barack Obama's former minister, Jeremiah Wright who, over the weekend, and into Monday, the first part of this week, made some pretty -- shall we say -- controversial comments, made more controversial comments.

And we know that on Tuesday, Senator Obama responded and said that he was outraged at what the minister had said, is saddened by the spectacle.

But given that, is it too early to say right now, Laura, what the fallout is going to be for Barack Obama?

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, the fallout is better to happen now than a month from now, or in October, for example, if he gets the nomination of the Democratic Party. But it is devastating, nonetheless.

This is someone who's good at popping up -- he not only is getting his 15 minutes of fame, the Rev. Wright, they replayed his speech three times on one of the cable news networks this weekend -- it's taking all of the air out of Barack Obama's chance to form a narrative on the middle class in the next week as we lead up to the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

It is going to be a daunting black cloud over the head of Barack Obama and his campaign and that's why I think it's good that he has decided to come out again, and perhaps more forcibly, denounce the reverend's comments and his actions, and his speeches over the last few days.

He's got to make sure that he reminds people, we are our faith, not our pastor.

And there is nothing that Reverend Wright has said that has been echoed in any of Barack Obama's policy decisions, or the way that he morally assesses his life.

So, he's going to have to talk about this at every debate, he's going to have to answer questions at every town hall, but as long as he remains forthright and talks about it out rightly, saying, "I do not agree with this pastor," I think he can make it a non-, you know, voting issue.

If he just keeps at it and keeps denouncing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And Cheri, from a Republican perspective, I mean, even Barack Obama saying, as he is saying this week, that what Reverend Wright is saying contradicts everything Obama's done in his life -- is that enough?

I mean, what is it going to take, or can he put this behind him?

CHERI JACOBUS: This is a very big problem for him. I was first up on one of the cable news networks after Wright's speech on Sunday night in Detroit. I was vilified, by e-mail, by phone calls and by others on the air, immediately following my comments.

By the next morning, everybody had changed their tune, and Republicans, Democrats, blacks, whites were all very much, you know, almost unanimously denouncing Reverend Wright and saying that this was bad for the Obama camp.

Now, the problem for Barack Obama, while his press conference stating that he's outraged by Wright's comments in these speeches, that's all well and good.

But Judy, the real problem for Barack Obama is the problem that he had with the ABC debate, the Stephanopoulos questions that really asked him, that were never addressed, did -- "Why were you sitting in that pew for 20 years?"

The fact that we now have seen Reverend Wright in all his full-blown glory, you can't claim that these were just isolated clips taken out of context, and then Barack Obama claims that he had no knowledge of these comments.

We now have a clearer picture of the views of Reverend Wright, and I think it's -- it lacks credibility when Barack Obama says he had no idea.

This is a church that, this reverend married him, officiated his wedding, baptized his children. He brought his children, presumably, to this church.

And I don't think that too many people are going to believe it -- I don't think it's a reasonable expectation that Americans are going to believe that Barack Obama did not know that these were the views of Reverend Wright, when he sat in that pew for 20 years.

This did not just come out now. This is not new information about Reverend Wright.

So this is why this is a longer term problem for Barack Obama, until he addresses that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You want to quickly respond, Laura?

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, I have to say, thank you, Judy. I live here in Chicago and have, actually, many acquaintances that attend the Trinity United Church of Christ, and I think Barack Obama is right, and we should continue to make a big distinction between Pastor Wright and the Trinity Church.

Because the church has done amazing things in our community among the homeless, the impoverished, AIDS victims, single mothers and so forth. And it is a travesty that this man has had such an effect on Barack Obama's candidacy.

But I urge everyone to go online and read the "Audacity of Hope," the sermon that inspired Barack Obama to write the, to title the book and get back into his Christian faith, and I believe this man speaks out of context a lot, Reverend Wright.

And you could even take almost all of those clips from this week's address at the National Press Club. And they were in context as far as Reverend Wright was concerned, but I believe still out of context with the mission of Trinity Church, and with some of those amazing sermons, like the "Audacity of Hope," which I completely agree with.

Now, if I give this one to you, Cheri, you're speaking as a Republican, I know, but I do want to give you both an opportunity to comment.

But, Cheri, what -- put yourself in the shoes of somebody, you know, who's an analyst, here, and tell me what you think?

CHERI JACOBUS: I think that Barack Obama perhaps -- and this is just my immediate reaction to this, perhaps needs to not focus just on his role as being "the one person to unite the country."

I think that's a pretty tall order, it needs to be part of what any candidate has to do. I think his big problem is, he gets closer to the general election, if he in fact is the nominee, and as we've seen him in the past three or four weeks doing poorly against Hillary Clinton, and you know, up at -- you know, this Pennsylvania primary, of course, proves that, and some of the numbers since then -- he needs to really start showing people what he's about with regard to the issues.

Right now it's been great on personality. He's had a very positive image, his personality, his speaking style -- that can take you only so far.

Now he needs to show that he can hang in there with the big guys; that his lack of experience is not going to be a liability. He needs to start showing what he's about with regards to the issues. He needs to have a crisper message with regards to the issues, rather than just being a wonderful orator.

So, in terms of uniting the country -- well and good, any candidate should have that as part of their goals, as one of their goals, but he needs to be stronger on the issues and show who he is, and that in fact, will be one way to make the Rev. Wright issue be not so strong, if Barack Obama could design himself in other ways.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Laura, this is a question from Brooklyn, N.Y., from Tam, "What do the most recent polls say, tell us, in North Carolina and Indiana>" Those, of course, are the upcoming primaries next Tuesday. "What do they tell us about Clinton versus Obama, who's ahead, and so forth?"

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, Mrs. Clinton -- Senator Clinton -- obviously got a big boost coming out of Pennsylvania. Whether it's 9.2 percentage points, or 10 percentage points, she was able to have justification to go on.

And before Pennsylvania, Barack Obama led Indiana by about five to eight points, now they're pretty much in a dead heat in Indiana.

Barack Obama, much like the role Hillary was in with Pennsylvania, has been ahead by double-digits over Hillary Clinton in North Carolina.

So, the big strategy for the next week, going into both of those are, Hillary wants to win Indiana -- even if it's just by a couple of points, she can say a win is a win, and there is a large voter base of white women in Indiana that she excels with.

Over North Carolina, Barack Obama wants to keep as much of a margin as he can.

Now, Mrs. -- Senator Clinton has definitely decided to go after North Carolina, perhaps not to win, but really cut into his lead. So, she can say -- like Barack Obama did the day after Pennsylvania, "Sure, we lost, but look at how much ground we made up."

And again, this is to validate herself to super delegates, to show that Barack Obama's unelectable, and that's what she wants to do in the states of North Carolina and Indiana -- put as much doubt in the minds of the super delegates as she can, and try to make up some ground in the popular vote.

But it's interesting, you compare Pennsylvania from a week ago, where there were 158 delegates at stake, and then on May 6, the two primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, makes up 157 delegates. So, she just wants to try to tear into Obama's base as much as she can, and he wants to hang onto it.

But you are seeing a great play is being made by Senator Clinton, Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, in all of these states.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We received a number of partisan comments -- very pro-Clinton, and pro-Obama comments.  I'm going to read just a couple of those to preface these questions.

This one comes from Pinole, Calif., -- I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, Celeste Johnson, she says, "I'm a Hillary supporter, I will not vote for Obama, ever." She says, "This man is not mature, he has a terrible debate, and pouts, and in the safety of his supporters he misbehaves." I'm not sure what that's a reference to, but she says, she goes on to say, "How is the Democratic Party going to bring these two sides together?"

We've already talked about that to some extent, but for those who have strong feelings on either side, and let me just go ahead and read, here's a comment from a pro-Obama visitor to our website, Stuart Phillips, from Chapel Hill, N.C., he says, "Where is the media analysis of all of the terrible judgments Hillary Clinton has made in the financial and strategy aspects of her campaign? I want to know," he said, "just looking at this shows us who has the better judgment."

Cheri, how do you bring these two sides together?

CHERI JACOBUS: Well, first of all, I want to address the issue of where's the scrutiny of how Hillary Clinton has been running her campaign.

It's only been very recently that people have been giving her a gold star for running her campaign.

There was a lot of news when Mark Penn was pretty much pushed out, she she's had a lot of people in her campaign, so she's not gotten a free ride in terms of that, but she definitely has learned an awful lot, and now is very strong on the campaign trail.

I'd like to address, too, the -- the percentage of Obama supporters now who say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton, and in fact would vote for McCain, and the percentage of the Hillary voters that say they would never vote for Obama and will vote for McCain -- to a large degree, that's going to go away, they will unite by their convention, but there's still going to be a large number of those people who are going to stick to their guns.

It's been very polarizing. And those are the ones that McCain has a real shot at, I think. So, that's going to be significant.

With regard to the first question, the person from California, talking about Obama and his style of campaigning, he's actually been very, very strong. But I think what this goes to show, is that there is a case for Hillary Clinton to make to the super delegates, as Laura addressed before, and one of them is, just again, this trend that the numbers are tightening and the Obama lead is not as strong as it used to be.

And if this thing went on indefinitely, Hillary could ultimately be the winner.

But the Democrats choose their nominee in sort of a convoluted way, with a proportional distribution rather than a winner-take-all system like Republicans.

If they had the Republican system, Hillary would be ahead, with the delegates, right now, with the pledged delegates.

JUDY WOODRUFF: If it were winner-take-all?

CHERI JACOBUS: If it were winner-take-all, yes, she would be ahead, but they do it in a different way. This is something -- this is why they have the super delegates, to look at all the different aspects of this type of a campaign, you know, they aren't going to do something that they think, just because it's politically correct, or because, "Oh, this person deserves it."

The Democrats are going to want to have a nominee who they feel can win against John McCain. And this is just one other factor to throw into the mix. That you can't say that she hasn't "really proven" that she can win, a lot of this is just a stage that we're in right now.

She's also, obviously, if she takes Indiana, and then she's also won Ohio, as we know, she's won Pennsylvania -- that whole portion of the country if extraordinarily important in the general election.

And the super delegates know that. So, Hillary Clinton does have some pretty strong arguments for the super delegates.

Linda in New Windsor, N.Y., picking up on this, she says, "It appears Sens. Clinton and Obama have each constructed a core group of demographic groups, who are especially supportive of each of them. How will the Democratic Party handle this problem of these distinct core group members who may not be willing to support the other candidate?"

It's what we've just been talking about, but we've seen it in the polling; women, older voters, and a majority of white voters supporting Senator Clinton -- working class, blue collar voters supporting Senator Clinton, and on the other hand, younger voters and African-Americans, reliably supporting, in large majorities, Senator Obama.

LAURA SCHWARTZ: And that is why for this questioner, as well as Stuart and Celeste, there's such an allegiance to their primary candidates that makes the most important person at the convention, and from the time the nominee is decided this summer, actually, the loser.

The loser will be the most important to unite their voter base, along with the winner of this long, but yet very exciting primary season. Because unless you have the one, you know, that has to drop out, stand and rise to the occasion, hand in hand, arm in arm with the one that takes the nomination, you are not going to reunify.

And so I think that's why -- I think more of the spotlight is going to be on the loser when this is all said and done, because it's up to them to tell their voting block, "Listen, the differences between us," and we've heard this from both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, about the last two weeks, "The differences between us are going to seem like nothing when it comes to the differences between us and John McCain, and the Republican Party."

So, they are going to try to highlight the divisions between parties, and rally their voter bases from the primary in order to be a unified party going into the Democratic convention in August, and especially coming out of it when they face John McCain head-to-head in the general.

CHERI JACOBUS: That is, unless Hillary Clinton would like to preserve the option of running in 2012, if she's not the nominee this time, as some people are saying.

So, it would be interesting, if Obama is the nominee, just what type of support the Clintons actually bring to the table for an Obama candidacy.

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, she's going to be pigeon-holed to bring that support, because when you look at the new voter registration driven by Barack Obama's candidacy, the young voters, and their turnouts, African-American voters that -- a lot of them are not too happy with the Clintons right now.

They would need those voters in 2012. And they need to make amends immediately and get on board if she is not the nominee.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And continuing along the lines of what you're both talking about, this is Nancy Foster, raising, asking a question, she's from Round Rock, Texas, she says, "Do you think the DNC would be having the discussion about the delegates from Florida and Michigan, if the race were not so tight?"

That really raises the question of what are the Democrats going to do about the delegates, and counting the votes from those states.

Laura, if you'd weigh in, and then Cheri.

LAURA SCHWARTZ: Well, the states are going to be meeting with the DNC at the very end of May with their bylaws committee.

I think they will be seated, whether that's a proportion based on the ending proportion of the overall primaries that followed the rules and did participate. I'm sure that there will be a way that they will be seated.

You know, the Democrats, and the Democratic National Committee can not ignore Florida -- the size of Florida, the electoral votes that Florida brings, and the fact, they want to win Florida -- finally, again, this general election.

And I think that they will sit down and find a way to seat them on a proportion that would be fair. Because, as Howard Dean and the DNC has noted, they have to be fair to those other 48 states that followed the rules.

They have to be fair to the candidates that executed a campaign on the rules, and they have to be fair, also, to those voters in the states, because it wasn't the voters that screwed their states up, as much as the politicians in those states.

So, you've got to find a happy medium, while at the same time, there are rules in place for a reason. And when you've got a state like Michigan, where Barack Obama wasn't even on the ballot, and you've got a state like Florida, that happened early on, before Barack Obama got momentum or was as known -- you've got a lot of factors there, and it's tough to just go ahead and grant the popular vote tally and grant the delegates.

So, I think there will be a way to come together, but I think it will be based on proportion that the other states set.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You want to quickly comment on this, Cheri?

CHERI JACOBUS: Sure.

Yeah, I feel very comfortable speaking for John McCain and every Republican and Republican leadership and the Republican Party, saying we're more than happy to take each and every disenfranchised voter out of the Democratic side from Michigan and Florida, those that have been told that their vote doesn't matter, we'll take them, and I think we can get them.