Friday, September 5, 2008

MS. IFILL: The field is set. Now the final lap begins. We set the stage for the amazing race to come, tonight on "Washington Week."

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what's right for our country.

MS. IFILL: John McCain makes his case and introduces a shiny new partner.

GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK): Here's a little newsflash for those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion, I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.

MS. IFILL: Wow, was she talking about us, or just changing the subject? Sarah Palin under the microscope. Democrats under attack.

SEN. FRED THOMPSON (R-TN): The Democrats present a history-making nominee for president, history making in that he's the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for president.

MR. RUDY GIULIANI: Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy.

MS. IFILL: Is this the shape of things to come? We take a look back at the Republican National Convention and a look ahead to the general election with the reporters covering it: David Broder of the "Washington Post," Peter Baker of the "New York Times," Jeanne Cummings of Politico, and Todd Purdum of "Vanity Fair."

ANNOUNCER: Celebrating 40 years of journalistic excellence, from our nation's capital, this is "Washington Week" with Gwen Ifill, produced in association with "National Journal," from the campus of the George Washington University. This is a Campaign '08 special edition.

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ANNOUNCER: Once again, from Lisner Auditorium on the campus of the George Washington University, moderator Gwen Ifill. (Applause.)

MS. IFILL: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Washington, D.C. It is nice to be back home. When last we met, just last week actually, most of the political world had scarcely heard of Sarah Palin, but after the last balloon dropped last night in St. Paul, it was clear the self described "hockey mom" from Alaska was the new star of the Republican Party. Her primetime speech may even have overshadowed John McCain's. So get ready for a 60-day sprint to Election Day. Everyone's on the road and all four candidates are trying to seize and to keep the upper hand. So after watching both conventions, my friend David, who has the upper hand?

MR. BRODER: I think probably the Democrats still have the edge because of the widespread disappointment with the last four years, but it is a very competitive race at this point, and I think both sides know it.

MS. IFILL: Jeanne, did the formula change this week and did Sarah Palin in particular change it?

MS. CUMMINGS: Well, I do think it changed and I think it changed in a couple of ways. Palin has a lot to do with it. She came out of nowhere. She did a great job in unifying the party and exciting the social conservative base that was tepid about John McCain. That was a really important add that she brought to his ticket. But the other piece that changed this week was that John McCain changed his reason for running, from experience that matters to the maverick and change. And so we start the general election from an entirely different place than we thought we might have been just a few weeks ago.

MS. IFILL: And Todd, it also felt a little bit like we were moving to culture wars again. Sarah Palin, if we know anything about her, it's what her beliefs are, what her family is about, not so much about other policy choices.

MR. PURDUM: Well, partly that's because her record hasn't required to make a lot of policy choices on most of the big issues affecting national policy, foreign policy, those kinds of things. We did see some rhetoric at this convention in St. Paul that war reminiscent in some ways of the '88 campaign. I'm not sure they'll be so successful in trying to paint Barack Obama the way the first President Bush managed to paint Mike Dukakis as a kind of out-of-touch, weeny elitist, but they're certainly -

MS. IFILL: But they're trying.

MR. PURDUM: - they are certainly trying. When they called him - when Rudy Giuliani referred to him as a community organizer the other day -

MS. IFILL: Like an epithet -

MR. PURDUM: - exactly, the crowd in the hall reacted as if he'd called him a paid clown at a children's birthday party. It was really - (laughter) - it was a tough -

MS. IFILL: So does that mean that the face of the Republican Party - it's interesting. We get they were inside the room with the most committed party activists. Is that really that what we see was - did what we - did we see a transformation of the party itself or just of the people at the core?

MR. BAKER: Well, I don't think we saw a transformation of the party, but I do think this is by definition now John McCain's party and that it's no longer George Bush's party. He was virtually not mentioned at the convention. He didn't even go, of course, because of the hurricane. When he did speak by video hookup, it was outside of the hour that broadcast networks showed. And it's very much now John McCain's party to try to shape as he will, which if very interesting because, of course, he has been the maverick within that party for so long. The idea of being the leader of the party is not something that suited him necessarily in the past.

MS. IFILL: Let's talk about President Bush for a moment because he seemed - there seemed to be almost relief that he wasn't able to be there. Did you pick that up?

MR. BAKER: Oh, I think that's right. And actually if you watched the speeches, we did a count. The Democrats mentioned Bush's name 12 times as much in their convention as the Republicans did. (Laughter.) And they had -

MS. IFILL: I wonder why.

MR. BAKER: - well, and they had a video at the Republican Convention about 9/11, which is obviously the most searing and most powerful moment in the Bush presidency. They had a picture of Don Rumsfeld and Rudy Giuliani, no picture of George Bush. It's very telling.

MS. IFILL: Is that a smart move, David?

MR. BRODER: It's probably a necessary move. I'm going to offend the audience by saying something positive about President Bush. I thought, given the really uncomfortable circumstance in which he found himself, I thought his statement to the convention was gracious and appropriate and becomingly modest.

MS. IFILL: I bet you a lot of people in this audience work for President Bush, David. (Laughter.) I'm just thinking. Well, let's talk a little bit about things because we began to see the outlines of the fall's contest in this week in the themes that were uttered by John McCain and by Barack Obama. And if we take a look, we can listen to what they had to say.

SEN. MCCAIN: Let me just offer an advanced warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second crowd: change is coming.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): John McCain's campaign manager said - just two days ago, he said, "this campaign is not going to be about issues. It's going to be about personalities." Personalities? I think I've got a pretty good personality, but that's not - that's not why I'm running for president. I'm running for president to put people back to work.

MS. IFILL: Not only the presidential candidates, but the vice presidential candidates tried out their digs too.

GOV. PALIN: In small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they're listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DE): They can't explain the eight years of absolute - absolute - abject failure in our foreign policy and they can't explain the eight years of economic decline in this country, particularly hitting the middle class like a gut punch.

MS. IFILL: Okay, Jeanne, look at the two tickets there and parse out some of the distinctions in the way they decided to come out of the conventions and the messages they decided to bring on the campaign trail.

MS. CUMMINGS: Well, the Democrats have come out and clearly they are going to try to attach the Bush record to McCain and Palin. They've made that clear from the start. I thought it was interesting - the evening that Palin delivered her speech, with all of its direct attacks on Barack Obama, the campaign issued a statement where they virtually ignored her, said she did a fine job delivering it. And then the next sentence was, "and it's a regurgitation of President Bush's record for the last" - so they went right - they stayed right on that. And I think we'll see them try to do that as well.

And I think that McCain and Palin are trying to change the subject and to talk about a new agenda. And the odd part is, it's a new agenda that they want to take Washington and get rid of these entrenched interests, who happen to be their colleagues in the Republican Party. (Laughter.) And so it's a very - it's very - you wrote that today, Peter. It was a very good insight as well that he had. It's just an odd argument to try to make.

MR. BAKER: If you watch these videos you've just showed, which is the opposition party? If you were on a desert island these last eight years and you came back in the United States and you watched, as you say, they're both the opposition party, and there's no incumbent party anymore, which is a really telling thing. But of course, it's easier to run as an opposition party if you are the opposition party, and that's the challenge. (Laughter.) That's the challenge for John McCain. He needs to - he needs to sort of take that mantle away from the opposition.

MR. PURDUM: But the problem for McCain was that he realized that experience wasn't enough this year as an argument. It wasn't enough for Hillary Clinton to defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. And I think he thought it wouldn't be enough for the Republicans in the fall. It's a change election and -

MS. IFILL: I've been struck by how much they've been spending time - everyone's been spending on biography. Lots of talk about, what, gutting caribou or whatever you - I shouldn't say it this way - gutting caribou in Alaska, which I'm sure is a fine, fine thing to do. (Laughter.) What I'm just saying, we heard a lot more about what Sarah Palin did for sport or what she did as a mother or what she did - than what she did as a governor actually, the actual policy decisions. Is that something - a conscious decision that the campaigns make, Todd, that that's what you do?

MR. PURDUM: Well, I do think in the modern era - and David probably knows this better than anybody - but since the dawn of television and really for much of our politics, we've loved our politicians for their stories more than for their 10-point plans. And we loved them for the life they've led, the dangers they've passed, as Desdemona loved Othello. And we love them for the kind of great big narrative they have. And Obama has a compelling narrative. The Republicans are trying to say that's an alien narrative. It's not really a narrative that's American. They're trying to portray Governor Palin as a quintessentially American figure. And of course John McCain, with his war experience, is the ultimate kind of American hero. So yes, I think that's pretty much par for the course, but it's striking how much it has boiled down to that.

MR. BRODER: And the context for all of this, Gwen, as you know, is that there has been just an enormous disillusion widely spread, not just among Democrats, not just among Republicans, but among all the citizens of this country with the performance of their government. And if you're going to try to lead that government or achieve the leadership position in that government, you have to try to build some trust for yourself. And that's what all of these candidates are really trying to do.

MS. IFILL: Is trust undercut, however, when you make the argument one day for experience, then the next day for biography? Which trumps which?

MS. CUMMINGS: Well, that I think is a great challenge to what John McCain's trying to do here. Barack Obama has been running for 19 months or so as the change candidate. And he's found a way to weave into that theme his economic policy, his foreign policy, and all of the issues that matter to voters as well because we haven't discussed those yet, but the speeches were pretty bereft this week in terms of real policy solutions to the concerns of voters -

MS. IFILL: Until last night -

MS. CUMMINGS: - and yes, we had a little bit last night. But there's a lot more to come on that. And that - and McCain and Palin will have basically, what, 60 days to try to turn their message to a change message and then weave their policies through and get all of that through to those swing and independent voters that are so critical in the election. It is a tall order.

MS. IFILL: It is.

MR. BAKER: Well, I was struck by - and watching both of these conventions and both of these presidential nominees making their vice presidential choices, is they both seem to trade away their strongest argument in some fashion. Barack Obama, who's running as a change agent, who's running as a generational change against Washington, picks as his vice presidential running mate a guy who's been in Washington longer than John McCain. And this visual of the young, dynamic, new generation guy next to this older figure with grey hair who's been around for a while is sort of jarring to that original message. And the same thing, obviously, with McCain, the opposite. He says experience is necessary. Barack Obama isn't ready. And he picks somebody who has less time in statewide office than Obama as his running mate.

MS. IFILL: Did it occur to anybody this week that the person missing in all this conversation was Joe Biden, that when the Republicans decide to come out with an ad capitalizing Sarah Palin's big week, they pitted her experience against Barack Obama's, not against Joe Biden's. What's that about?

MR. BAKER: You're going to find out in a month, aren't you? (Laughter.)

MS. IFILL: Oh, that's a good question. I'll write that down. (Laughter.) Okay, Todd, I'll throw it to you since he's being -

MR. PURDUM: No, I wouldn't want to be Joe Biden right now, to tell you the truth. I think he has his work cut out for them. The minute the Democratic Convention ended, the Republicans stole their thunder by announcing the Palin choice. Senator Biden, as we all know, is incredibly knowledgeable about world affairs. He also has a tendency to talk. It's possible that he could look as if he were beating up on Governor Palin if he displays too much knowledge. He has to be careful not to treat her like a little lady and pat her on the head. So I think he's got probably his debate prep will be interesting to see how that goes forward and plans for that.

MS. IFILL: I also was struck this week and last week that both parties - and maybe this is what happens after a party convention - but they both came away having played to and sealed down their base. Barack Obama had to take care of his Clinton problem. And John McCain had to take care of his evangelical, far Right problem. And they both seemed to have spent a lot more attention on that, David, than they did on trying to go after these swing, middle-of-the-road voters and independents, who were supposed to be the deciders in this election.

MR. BRODER: That's true, Gwen, but the main theme of both parties now, if you take them seriously, is a direct response to what they have been hearing from the swing voters; namely, "we want something different in Washington. Don't give us more of the same." And that message clearly got through to both McCain and Obama.

MS. IFILL: So Sarah Palin's kind of a two for one. She appeals to the base, but she also is such a fresh face that has the - she gets the maverick label immediately -

MR. BRODER: And seems to have a personality that is a very winning personality.

MS. IFILL: This is a weird question, but what don't we know about Sarah Palin?

MS. CUMMINGS: Oh, tons, tons, and tons. We really - every day after she was announced, despite the fact that the campaign said that they have done a thorough vetting job on her, all of us and all of our colleagues were discovering something a little bit new or a little bit different. And not only that, we were not finding evidence that we were following in the footsteps of a very strong vetting machine in the McCain operation. And so I think that we don't know a great deal about her and that we are going to find that out. And that's going to be a challenge to her, to both weather the classic scrutiny that comes with this kind of appointment. She's got to weather that plus sell the agenda of the ticket in this very compressed timeframe - not an easy thing for a newcomer to do, either.

MS. IFILL: We've spent a fair amount of time talking about Sarah Palin, but I wonder if John McCain, who actually - this was his nominating convention, last night was his big speech - did he do what he needed to do this week?

MR. BAKER: Well, to the extent that he changed the conversation, it feels like Invesco Field, where Barack Obama gave his speech in front of 80,000 people, was a million years ago now.

MS. IFILL: Actually Monday feels like a million years ago. (Laughter.)

MR. BAKER: Yes, it does. (Laughter.) And I think you know now we're after Labor Day. The preseason is over. The Redskins are playing the Giants. We're now into the serious ballgame here and we're starting off in a position where he is coming out of this convention with at least some sense of momentum and some sense of confidence and a stride at a time when, as David says, historically this party isn't in a great shape. So he's at least created a genuinely competitive race here.

MS. IFILL: Barack Obama got something of a poll bounce coming out of his convention. It's probably too soon to know whether that was completely erased. But how does he - if John McCain came out of his convention with a little bit of fuel behind them, does Barack Obama still have it?

MR. PURDUM: Well, in some ways, we're the worst people to talk about that because I've always thought that being at a convention is the worst way to understand how the convention is really playing with the people who matter, who are the voters at home. But what I think what Senator Obama has to do is really get out there, get his licks every day in the places where he didn't do very well in the primaries, in the states - they still have a bigger target of states in -

MS. IFILL: He's in Pennsylvania today for a reason.

MR. PURDUM: They want to play in 18 states - they're targeting 18 states in the fall. And the Obama campaign high command consistently says they have a broader strategy. They have more states in play, they think, than McCain does. They're hopeful in these Western states like Colorado and New Mexico. They think maybe that Iowa, where Senator McCain has really no standing and never did well in the caucuses, that they could take that state away that went for George Bush. So they - but they just have to be out there day after day after day and making the connections that they need to make.

MS. IFILL: Well, and an important thing - and Jeanne sort of follows this the most closely of all of us - is this money question which is about to really kick in because John McCain, after this week, can't collect any more money that's outside of the federal system.

MS. CUMMINGS: That's right. He's taking the taxpayer money for his general election. Now, he can and they will help the RNC raise a great deal of money. And if they meet their targets, this could be financially a fairly competitive race. But it also depends on how far Barack Obama can push the limits. I thought it was interesting that the RNC this week quickly issued a press release after Palin's speech, saying she raised - they raised a million dollars online that night, which is really good. And then the Barack Obama campaigned countered with, "we raised eight." And so - (laughter) - and they were on track to raise 10 by the time John McCain took the stage. So there - nobody knows the limits of Barack Obama's fundraising, but he is going to need every single penny of it because the Republicans never really lost - the RNC, in particular, never lost its ability to raise a great deal of money. And so - and Barack Obama is spending a lot more money because he does have these large operations in many more states. He's trying to open up the map. That costs money.

MR. BRODER: And the other area of competition, Gwen, as you know, is that is bodies, people. How many folks can you mobilize to work on your behalf? Up to last week, I think it was pretty clear that the advantage there was heavily with Obama and the Democrats because he had so motivated so many people who were newcomers to politics and were very active. I think one of the things that McCain gets out of this convention is a mobilization on the Republican side. Those folks were fired up by the end of the convention.

MS. IFILL: Speaking of fired up, ready to go, right? Okay, since we are representatives of the eastern media elite - (laughter) - we have to address the question - speak for myself, yes - we have to address the question that was raised at this convention and was used with great effect by not only Sarah Palin, but many of the other speakers, which is we're at fault essentially. I was on the floor the other night during Sarah Palin's speech and people were shaking their fists at me, if you can believe such a thing - (laughter). My feelings were so hurt. But there was a genuine grievance underneath all of that, this idea that she had been a victim and a victim of sexism and a victim of media bias. Just jump in anywhere you like. (Laughter.)

MR. BAKER: Look, I think there's some legitimate grievance, as you say - these are real feelings. it's not entirely calculation. People feel like Sarah Palin suddenly was subjected to all sorts of questions that wouldn't have been asked of a man - might not have been asked of a Democratic woman. There's a lot of ways of looking at this, so many different shades of complexities here. And there's also a calculation, though. It's not a bad thing for the Republican convention to have a speech saying, I'm going to go to Washington. I don't care what the media thinks. That's a good applause line.

MS. IFILL: Jeanne?

MS. CUMMINGS: Well, I don't have any sympathy for them. I don't think there is any grievance that matters. John McCain put this woman - and she accepted - in a position to become president of the United States in the next 60 days. We don't have enough time to mess around with this. We need to know a lot more about this woman. And it's our job to find out everything we can about her, so the voters can make an educated decision about whether they want her that close to the presidency. (Applause.)

MR. PURDUM: I do think bashing the press is an old and successful strategy. In Denver I happened to be doing an archive search and I found a 1956 "New York Times" story about the Democratic convention, where they had a film on the history of the Democratic Party that was narrated by a young senator named John Kennedy. And NBC and ABC carried it and CBS made the decision not to carry it. And the convention chairman announced it to the hall. And it was with cheers of "throw them out." So it's - (laughter).

MS. IFILL: David?

MS. CUMMINGS: I think we are at a stage where we are going to get a whacking every so often, and it's fine as long as we can still do our jobs and, as Jeanne said, try to find out as much as we possibly can about these candidates.

MS. IFILL: We've got tough, tough hides up here on this stage, so - (laughter) - hack away at us. Plus, when we get some sleep, we'll even be able to give it back to you. But right now - (laughter) - listen, I know this went fast, but I want to thank everybody up here on the stage, especially for flying in and helping me keep my head together on this, and especially also to the great folks here at George Washington University. I think it's fair to say we have a lot to watch, a lot to cover, and a lot to talk about for the next few weeks. Stay with us for all of that. And if you are in Washington or in Denver or online, stay tuned for an additional half hour of "Washington Week Extra," featuring questions and answers from this good looking audience and panel. Or you can check out our new video podcast. We'll be back in the studio next Friday. We'll see you from there next week on "Washington Week." Good night. (Applause.)