Transcript: Mike Murphy And Bob Shrum On The Presidential Primaries
© National Journal Group Inc.
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008
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National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Mike Murphy and Bob Shrum for "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation.
Audio of the full show is also available.
Q: Well, while we wait for Bob, who is going to be on the line in just a second, we want to talk a little bit about the Republicans because that is actually your political party. It was predicted that John McCain would win in New Hampshire, but what is going on, do you think, with Mitt Romney? He has spent multimillions of dollars now in two states. He almost lived in Iowa. He is right next door to New Hampshire. Massachusetts governors traditionally do really well in New Hampshire. He's done almost everything you can think of. What do you think is going on with his inability to get traction where he wants it?
Murphy: Well, Mitt Romney... I should say by clarification, I'm neutral in the race. I have worked in the past for Mitt Romney and John McCain. I've run campaigns for each of them, and they are both friends of mine.Q: Well, we certainly want to talk about McCain and South Carolina, the history of all that. You were there back with McCain in 2000, but I think we have Bob Shrum on the line.I think Mitt started at 1 percent. People forget that. He brought a lot to the race: terrific candidate, amazing story, a lot of money. And he put a lot of time and effort into Iowa and New Hampshire and, as you say, he's from the neighboring state Massachusetts, and it just didn't happen. He keeps coming in second and can't seem to breakthrough to first -- other than Wyoming, which is a very small number of delegates -- with Huckabee beating him in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire. So I think Mitt keeps saying he got the silver medal, which is an accomplishment, but if he doesn't get the gold, he's not going to last long in the Olympics.
So he's in Michigan: the state he grew up in, where his father was governor, a state McCain won last time. So it's a very competitive contest, a state with a strong Christian vote that's interested in Mike Huckabee. And I think next Tuesday in Michigan, if Mitt finally can't get the gold and win one, I think his campaign will be in very, very tough shape and maybe he'll go to South Carolina. But he'd need a real upset there to win if he doesn't win Michigan. He keeps coming close but no cigar, and we'll see if he can close the deal. If not, I think John McCain wins Michigan and goes into South Carolina with a lot of momentum, and I think has the strongest chance -- not certain, but strongest chance -- to prevail in Florida and be the Republican nominee.
Shrum: You do, absolutely.Q: Welcome to the program. We talked a little bit earlier before we got you on the line whether Hillary's tears worked or didn't work. And I want to ask you as a Democratic strategist, who has been certainly at the helm of many of the big Democratic presidential campaigns over the last decade, is there anything that you think Obama's campaign did wrong in New Hampshire?
Shrum: Well, the biggest thing that went wrong was something they had no control over, which was that the polls in some sense were self-negating. They told people that he was going to win by so much that I think independents, especially independent men, felt free to vote for John McCain. So, in that way, they hurt Obama and they hurt Romney, by the way. I think he did do one thing wrong in New Hampshire. He kept talking about Iowa, and he kept leaving people with the sense that if they voted for him, it would close down the process. And I think a lot of folks, especially women, who might have been inclined to vote for him, weren't ready to close down the process. And on top of that came this sense that somehow Hillary was being ganged up on.Q: I want you to know, Bob, that that's... not the business about talking about Iowa but certainly the business that voters thought it was going to be over for Hillary Clinton if they didn't give her another chance. That's exactly what Mike said.
Murphy: Great minds think alike.Q: Although it's an interesting point that the Obama win was so surprising, that the time period between the two contests was so small, that New Hampshire may have wondered if was going to count at all. If it was going to really say anything independent. Let's talk a little bit about Bill Clinton. He said some very controversial things throughout the five days they spent in New Hampshire. He criticized Obama, talked about the campaign being a fairy tale, brought up the Whitewater investigation sort of unprompted. So the mainstream media were certainly critical of Bill Clinton's behavior. But New Hampshire voters, not so much. So is the conventional wisdom that he should not be out there in front correct or does he, in fact, work for her?Shrum: Well, I think that was a big piece of it, but I also think that... Listen, when Kerry landed in New Hampshire in 2004 and Gore landed in 2000, straight from the Iowa caucuses, they mentioned Iowa once, maybe. And the rest of the week, they talked about New Hampshire. They talked to people in New Hampshire. They didn't talk so much about the process. They talked about the issues. I just think people in New Hampshire have a sense of independence and they want to make up their own minds.
Murphy: An old New Hampshire hand once told me that the best secret message in New Hampshire is "Screw Iowa."
Shrum: Well, it's funny because this breaks with the Democratic pattern of the last couple of cycles. I mean, Gore won both Iowa and New Hampshire. New Hampshire was close. Kerry won Iowa and then won New Hampshire going away.
Shrum: Well, it's perfectly consistent to say that she won the campaign in New Hampshire and also to suggest that his comments were not helpful. I cannot imagine the Clinton campaign wants him out there talking about Whitewater or wants him out there calling the Obama campaign a fairy tale. And I suspect that he will be more contained to the extent that that's possible in the weeks ahead. You're still hearing the resonance and reverberations of that fairy tale comment as other Democrats, for example, are endorsing Obama as Obama is saying hope is not a fairy tale. The one thing I think the President from Hope does understand -- I just think he got frustrated in New Hampshire -- is that running against hope is not a good idea.Q: Although let me ask Mike Murphy this and you can weigh in, Bob, as well. Some are saying that the message of change is too abstract at a time when voters want to hear something really specific about their economic concerns. It was certainly moving. The crowd certainly seemed to be responding to it. But what about that analysis?
Murphy: Well, I think the media misinterprets it. It's not about saying the word change, it's about having a campaign that offers a path away from what people are dissatisfied with now. So it doesn't mean a so-called change campaign, which I think is really powerful in this environment, has to eschew talking about issues and economic pains people are feeling and everything else.Q: Now the issue of race has been lurking in the background of this campaign in the last two contests. It certainly didn't seem to make any difference in Iowa. There is some speculation it might possibly have made a little bit of difference in New Hampshire. It's very hard to know if that is true. But now we're going into South Carolina. Bob, talk to me a little bit about how the issue of race plays out in the Democratic contest in South Carolina.So I think the motor of the election is the tremendous desire among the electorate for change, and I think it can be kind of trivialized into just a word: change. Obama is a very strong change candidate, and I still think he has a slight edge now to win the nomination, but there is no doubt Hillary is back and competing. And she has a great comeback narrative, which did a very important thing for her, which is prevented her campaign from totally imploding, which I think was about 72 hours away from doing had she lost the New Hampshire primary.
Shrum: Well, first of all, I believe -- I don't know what Mike thinks about this -- but I believe that America has grown beyond where it was 20 or 30 years ago, that most of the people who would vote against Obama probably aren't going to vote Democratic anyway because of his color. I think the biggest factor race has played so far in South Carolina is Jim Clyburn, the congressman down there who said he was neutral but may now endorse, who reacted very strongly to a statement by Hillary Clinton, which basically seemed to say, well, don't give Martin Luther King or John Kennedy any credit for the civil rights bill, it was all Lyndon Johnson, the practical guy, who got it passed.Q: Final question to Mike about South Carolina. It was a very rough place for John McCain, as you well know, on his campaign in 2000. What do Republicans have to watch out for there?I think she understood right away that it was wrong, a foolish thing to say, because she went to the next event and tried to include all three of them in the process. But I think you have to be careful with that kind of thing because she has a natural base among African-American voters. Even if they vote for Obama in the primary, she should, if she's the nominee, get a huge turnout and huge support from African-American voters. She cannot afford to win the nomination in a way that alienates them. I don't think they are going to go out and vote Republican, most of them. But some of them might not show up to the polls in what I believe, if it's John McCain, would be a very close contest.
Murphy: Well, I think a lot of that's been put behind us. I think Mike Huckabee, who is maybe not the strongest general election candidate, is still an extremely formidable candidate in South Carolina. So if I were in the McCain campaign now, I would be worried about having an upset by Huckabee in South Carolina, which would make Florida an even bigger contest. And if I'm McCain and I win -- still an if -- in Michigan on Tuesday, I want to lock this thing down with a big win in South Carolina.Q: Well, I love hearing analysis from both of the two of you, and I hope I can get you both back on the program again. Thanks so much to Mike Murphy, Republican consultant who has helped John McCain, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, so many; and Robert Shrum, who was a senior adviser to Al Gore, and John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and many, many governors and senators. So thank you both so much.Shrum: I agree with that absolutely. And I think if he does win both of those, he will be the Republican nominee.
Shrum: Linda, I'm sorry I was a few minutes late, and I'm sorry we were a few votes short in the last two presidential elections.Q: You're forgiven, Bob. Thanks very much, guys.