“They know they‘re not Mormons, or 3-time married guys of Italian backgrounds from New York.” October 9th, 2007
[SOURCE: 'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Oct. 8]
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Now it‘s time for the HARDBALL round table. John Harwood is cNBC‘s chief Washington correspondent. Holly Bailey covers politics for “Newsweek.” And Perry Bacon covers the campaign for the “Washington Post.” let me go to John. Let‘s take look, first of all, all of you, at this new Hillary Clinton thing. According to the latest “Des Moines Register” poll.
Let‘s look at Thompson first. Republican voters in Iowa; Romney is in the lead, where he has been for a while. But look at this, Thompson has moved up into second, above Huckabee and above Giuliani. What‘s up, John Harwood? What‘s going on with Thompson? He seems to be doing slow-mo. He came into the race late. He doesn‘t say much. What is he, Gary Cooper? Why does he go up?
JOHN HARWOOD, CNBC: First of all, he‘s a new kid on the block. We have three front runners in this race. Giuliani is the national front-runner. Mitt Romney is still the Iowa and New Hampshire front-runner. And Fred Thompson is getting those very conservative Republican voters, a lot of social conservatives in Iowa. That‘s a danger sign for Rudy Giuliani. If Fred Thompson can consolidate that block, he can be a real threat.
Isn‘t it striking that Mike Huckabee moved ahead in that poll of Rudy Giuliani in Iowa.
MATTHEWS: It would scare me if I were a Rudy Giuliani supporter, hoping to get at least a third in Iowa, and end up in first in South Carolina. It looks like that‘s in trouble. What do you say, Holly? It looks like he‘s endangering Rudy first and then probably Romney when they get south.
HOLLY BAILEY, “NEWSWEEK”: Well, you know, one thing about this poll that I think is really interesting—I mean, frankly, Fred Thompson has been spending a lot of time in Iowa over the last month. Rudy Giuliani has not. Romney has been there, but not as much. Mike Huckabee has invested a lot of time there as well. He has a good grass roots organization, so I think that‘s showing up in the polls.
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Perry on the same question. How do you explain that Thompson is doing at least well, if not great, without seemingly a whole lot of sweat?
PERRY BACON, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: He just got in. He‘s a fresh face right now. I think people are giving him a chance, and I think he had a good conservative message when he came into the race. I think once the debates happens, we‘ll get more of a stronger sense of where he is. Once the debates happen, once they see him on the stunt a few more times. I think that will be key to watch as well.
MATTHEWS: Are you—
HARWOOD: Definitely right about not breaking a sweat. You saw that Darrell Hammond (ph) skit.
MATTHEWS: That was a wonderful skit. Let me ask you, could it be regional and sort of tribal? Let me go to Perry, it seems to me that southern Baptists have a strong identity, evangelicals. They know they‘re not Mormons. They know they‘re not three-time married guys of Italian backgrounds from New York. They know who they are, they‘re southern Baptists. Is it just because he‘s a southern Baptist that we‘re looking at this strength?
BACON: I suspect not. I mean, he‘s actually in the first week talked of how he didn‘t attend church very often.
MATTHEWS: No, he attends church in Tennessee, but not in Washington.
BACON: He lives in Washington.
MATTHEWS: I love the honesty of the guy. You have to love this guy. He says I go to church in my hometown. But I don‘t go—I don‘t do away games. What do you think of this, John? I think this is fascinating stuff.
HARWOOD: You know, you don‘t have to look all that hard to find churches in Mclean, Virginia. There are a few of them out there. I think what you have seen with Fred Thompson is that he hasn‘t shown the kind of want to that somebody like Mitt Romney has done, to reorganize his life, reorganize his approach to issues in order to prepare for a campaign. Thompson is doing this his way. Some people think it hasn‘t been the right way. But he‘s going to get a shot on the stage tomorrow night.
MATTHEWS: You‘re an expert. Do you need the bug to be president, what we call the bug, that obsession with getting there?
HARWOOD: Unless you‘re an accidental president like Gerald Ford, I think you do.
MATTHEWS: Do you think that‘s true, Holly, that you need the bug? You‘ve got to be someone like Bill Clinton, who was born at 13, said I want to be JFK. I‘m going to get there?
BAILEY: I think part of that is maybe why some people like Fred Thompson. You look at him and he doesn‘t really outwardly want the job. They‘ve tried to—his campaign has tried to play that as a positive. But at the same time, you know, somebody has to look really excited when they‘re at these events. Frankly that “New York Times” story last week, where it had Fred Thompson basically asking for applause, you know, that‘s not a good scene right now.
MATTHEWS: You know nobody naturally applauded. He said, how about some applause. I think the “Saturday Night Live” is maybe a ritual that you don‘t want to go through, where he basically pointed out that the guy doesn‘t really want the job. We‘ll find out tomorrow night from the real Fred Thompson. Let‘s come back and talk about Hillary, who‘s just leaped to the front of Iowa. Show could run the table if she keeps it up. It will confound some people. She‘s definitely running an impressive campaign. You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: OK, let‘s talk Hillary right now. The “Des Moines Register” poll of Democratic voters in Iowa now shows Hillary surging with 29 percent of the vote, while Edwards and Obama are still basically tied at 23 to 22. John Harwood, Hillary, god, if she wins in Iowa, based on her national numbers, she would be very hard to stop.
HARWOOD: If she wins in Iowa, the Democratic race ends that night. That‘s why this is so important for the campaigns. She‘s really getting the dividend from a mistake-free campaign, a successful rollout of her health care plan, and she‘s cashing in on the experience issue. That‘s something that Obama has to address.
MATTHEWS: So being first lady and being a senator has now added up to experience.
HARWOOD: Being a senator, having Bill Clinton and that favorable brand behind her, all that‘s pretty powerful.
MATTHEWS: I keep seeing the numbers—I‘m always impressed when people say experience defined by the totality of everything she‘s been through, not just her Senate election. Holly, same question, what do you make of Hillary‘s surge to the front? These are low numbers, but all she has to do, it seems, according to most thinking, is win early and blow them out.
BAILEY: Well, I think, you know, you have to look at the time she spent in Iowa. She has invested a lot of time this summer in Iowa and she‘s brought out her number one weapon, which is Bill Clinton. They have been travelling all over Iowa this past summer. I think that‘s showing up in the polls, frankly.
But, you know, you have to look at what they‘re doing in terms of their schedule. I don‘t think they‘re taking this lead for granted. I mean, Terry McCauliffe last week was travelling in Iowa and speaking to groups of like 20 to 25 people. so when they have someone out there like that trying to rally the troops, it shows they‘re not taking this for granted.
MATTHEWS: That‘s her campaign manager. Let‘s go to Perry Bacon, Hillary‘s rise, explain it.
BACON: I think that they have done a good job of campaigning out there. She spent a lot of time there personally. They‘ve done a good job organizing there. At the same time, I think those polls are very close. We‘ve seen—“Newsweek” had one last week showing Obama ahead. So I think it‘s close out there, and I think the ground games—I was out there last week, the ground games—Obama has a very strong ground game. So I think we should watch carefully Iowa and where things are. I think things will change there more than once before this process is over.
MATTHEWS: John, will he cut her off though? Will John Edwards be able to cut Hillary down to size, the way that Kerry did to Howard Dean last time, by saying I‘m more electable than she is. She‘s a she, that‘s what this implies. She‘s the wife of Bill, with all that baggage. He‘s implying all the negatives there. Can he work against her popularity with that sort of sobering thought, we want to winner?
HARDWOOD: Well, he can. He‘s trying. And he‘s got to make that work for him in Iowa, because that‘s really where he‘s—
MATTHEWS: He‘s got to go negative, basically?
HARWOOD: No question about it. A lot of people think Obama has to go negative too. His campaign says he doesn‘t. And, of course, Howard Dean can tell all of us what an October lead means when it comes to January. So Barack Obama is still in this thing. John Edwards still has a shot of winning Iowa. They have to make up ground, prevent her from building that lead too big.
MATTHEWS: I just don‘t understand why Barack doesn‘t fight the way Edwards does. He has got more inspiration behind him, more history, more excitement and yet you see Edwards really trying to win. I think that — I‘m not running this campaign, but Barack seems so ethereal. What do you think Perry? Doesn‘t he seem like he‘s sort of an arch-angel of the campaign, rather than a candidate?
BACON: His whole theme throughout has been that he‘s this unifying, optimistic figure. I think if he went out and blasted Hillary Clinton by name every day
MATTHEWS: Don‘t fight a straw man. I mean run for office. Anyway, thank you.
Popularity: 1% [?]
