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Friday, March 21, 2008

National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee for the Mar. 20 edition of "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation. Audio of the full show is also available.

Bredesen: It's great to be on here with you. Thank you.

Bredesen: Well, my concern is that we're going to get to the point of the convention having wasted the summer, having a very divisive convention, and trying to go into the election with a divided party and two months to go. At that point, after the primaries are over on June 3, there is really nothing left but the superdelegates. And what I'm saying is that they need to step up -- I'm one of them -- act our age and make a choice, and let the party get on with it. I think the way to do that and make it happen is to actually call them together -- not in a convention with all the hoopla and the sideshows and so on -- but in a businesslike meeting somewhere they can get to over a weekend, and maybe hear from the candidates and get people on the record. Let's get a nominee and move on, and concentrate on winning this election.

Bredesen: I don't think so. First of all, I absolutely believe that superdelegates are designed to exercise some independent judgment, and certainly the popular vote across the country and in their own states is one of the elements that would enter into that judgment. But come June 3, the rest of that is a done deal. You know what the popular vote is at that point, you know what the delegate counts are at that point. My point is that at that point you have all the information you're going to have.

Bredesen: Well, look, the controversy over Reverend Wright, anyone can see, has not helped him. I think there is no question it has hurt him. But this is a process that has been going on for over a year. There have been ups and downs in the polls before –- the issue du jour, the issue of the week and so on. I think he's the recipient of the negative headlines this week, but I think that stuff will go up and down. I think the premium and the benefit of having a nominee and starting to heal the wounds and close ranks in June really outweighs any little tiny bit of additional information you'd get by going through the whole summer. I want to win this election.

Bredesen: I think, from my standpoint, I'm genuinely undecided. I'm interested in, first of all, what people in my state think. Senator Clinton won the state fairly handily. I'm also interested, as you come in later, in what's happening nationally and, obviously, at the moment, Senator Obama is ahead in the popular vote nationally. I really think just trying to make a good choice and find the right, electable person is something that the superdelegates -- that is what it was designed for. If it had been simply to parrot what went on in your state, they wouldn't be superdelegates. They would be pledged delegates based on the vote totals in the state.

In my case, Obama is ahead nationally and Hillary Clinton won Tennessee -- what's the popular vote for me? We have a number of unpledged superdelegates. Is it a winner-take-all? Are all of them supposed to go with the popular vote winner, or are we supposed to divide ourselves up like the rest of the delegates? I think it really was intended, for better or for worse, that we exercise some independent judgment here.

Bredesen: I think it certainly -- I can speak for Tennessee -- it certainly has not been a positive in Tennessee. It has raised some questions in Tennessee. It is difficult to know -- we're in the first week of any sort of discussion of this and, believe me, anybody in politics knows that things can change dramatically over the course of days and weeks and certainly months. So I don't know how it will all play out. It has not been a good week for him. Mrs. Clinton has also had some weeks that were not good for her, and will probably have more for each of them before this is all over.

Bredesen: Thank you very much.

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