Guests: Matt Nesto, Pat Buchanan, David Rivkin, Alejandro Beutel, Susan Page, Mark McKinnon, Drew Westen, Michael Steele
Transcript of program:
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Obama cracks the whip. Let‘s play HARDBALL. Good evening. I‘m Chris Matthews in Washington. Leading off tonight:
Too slow? President Obama just cracked the whip on the Christmas bombing intelligence failures, but is he going too slow, President Obama‘s big problem? That‘s when something happens, or should happen, it takes him a long time to get on it. Health care waddles its way through Congress, and he watches. There‘s a horrid (ph) terrorist incident at Ft. Hood, and he shows up days later and a bit too cool.
And he‘s only (ph) late today calling a meeting of his security people to find out why a guy nearly blew up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day. Is this slowness to act, this tendency to narrate events, rather than control them, the reason President Obama is being hit so hard these days from right, as well as left? Republicans are out to destroy him, obviously, but where are his supporters on the Democratic side? Are they slow to defend him because he, the president, has been slow to lead?
The head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, who‘s coming here, has made his plans clear. His new book is called “Right Now:
A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda.” Could it be that the Republicans poll lower than any point in history because all they do—all they do—is say no? Michael Steele joins us later.
Plus, the increased check on airline passengers from 14 countries. Is this a reasonable thing for us to do, given that the 9/11 killers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Emirates? What are we supposed to do? Let‘s debate it.
And can we talk? How is it possible the underwear bomber makes it onto the plane but Joan Rivers can‘t? That‘s in the “Sideshow,” where it belongs.
And finally, is the tea party movement the answer to a Republican comeback or a sign of its demise?
Let‘s start with President Obama‘s meeting, just held this afternoon, with his national security team. Did he deliver a tough enough call to action in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing plot? Pat Buchanan‘s an MSNBC political analyst and Drew Westen is a professor of psychology at Emory University and author of “The Political Brain.”
You‘re a smart guy, Drew. What‘s the president‘s problem? Why does he seem to be taking a lot of heat from all directions, especially right now?
DREW WESTEN, AUTHOR, “THE POLITICAL BRAIN”: Well, I think, in general, what we‘ve seen from the president is just what you describe, which is often too late, too soon—I mean, coming on too—whatever the word—whatever that phrase is! He‘s a little too slow to react and typically waits until the damage has been done.
In this case, I‘m not sure he was—that was the case. I thought he delivered a pretty strong—strong speech today. But the problem was, the conflicting message between him today and his homeland security chief, Janet Napolitano, when this first struck, where her tone was very reassuring, Don‘t worry, the system worked, and now today his tone is very different. But I thought he took a much better tone today.
MATTHEWS: Yes, they‘re still paying for her comment, that the system works, when it‘s like a chicken in every basket. It sounded like something from the Hoover administration.
Here‘s President Obama after the meeting today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The bottom line is this. The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack, but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots which would have placed the suspect on the no-fly list. In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. The information was there. Agencies and analysts who needed it had access to it, and our professionals were trained to look for it and to bring it all together.
Now, I will accept that intelligence by its nature is imperfect. But it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. That‘s not acceptable. And I will not tolerate it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Would that have been a better statement on St. Stephen‘s Day, the day after Christmas, 10 days ago?
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, it sure would. That is tough. He‘s—there‘s some anger in that, Chris. There‘s a sense of, Look, let‘s get to the bottom of this. Somebody dropped the ball here. This is a grave situation. Three hundred people could have been scattered across Detroit area. And I‘m going to find some answers. Somebody didn‘t connect the dots, and I‘m going to find out whether the information didn‘t get to DNI, the director of national intelligence, or whether the dots were not connected there.
I think out of this, you‘re going to see possibly...
MATTHEWS: Didn‘t you know, Pat—as an observer and reporter, didn‘t you know that everything that he just said...
BUCHANAN: Sure.
MATTHEWS: ... a couple days right after Christmas?
BUCHANAN: As soon as you heard...
MATTHEWS: You didn‘t have to wait until the 5th of January.
BUCHANAN: No, as soon as you heard the guy had this manufactured bomb sewn into his underwear, he‘s a 23-year-old Nigerian, somebody...
MATTHEWS: You know all these facts.
BUCHANAN: Well, you can...
MATTHEWS: You knew that we had picked up information in Yemen...
BUCHANAN: Sure.
MATTHEWS: ... just a few days after. You knew the kid‘s father had warned us...
BUCHANAN: Exactly.
MATTHEWS: ... more than a week ago. Why did he give the speech today?
BUCHANAN: Well, that‘s his problem. As Drew was saying, he is late. He is too little, too late. I think this is a good move. I think he is on top of it now, Chris. But he‘s been damaged by these 10 days. And I know Cheney‘s been hit, but I‘ll tell you, Cheney has stung him, and if he stung him to this action, that‘s a good thing.
MATTHEWS: Well, a broken clock is right twice a day. That would include Dick Cheney. Drew, your thoughts about this timing issue. Is this endemic? Is this, to use the term all over the place right now, systemic, this slowness and rather coolness with regard to Ft. Hood? The president arrived several days later and was part of that service down there, appropriately so. Many people thought he was a bit too detached, he didn‘t really feel emotionally connected to the event. It was about our service people getting killed in the line of duty. He didn‘t seem to act emotional, as most presidents would in those circumstances. Is it timing? Is it emotion? Detachment? Size it up.
WESTEN: I think—I think you‘re right on the money on...
MATTHEWS: No, I‘m asking you. You‘ll notice there‘s an interrogate.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I‘m asking you because I know what you think and I‘m asking you to define it.
WESTEN: Well, I think it‘s both timing and emotion. And I‘m really with Pat on this. I think this is—that this is a—I think this is, as the president would use the word, a systemic problem. We saw this on health care, where there was no passion in anything that he did until it got to be October and the plan was almost run into the ground. There wasn‘t a coherent story that he told on health care, really, until October, when he decided to say, OK, I guess there are some problems here, let me tell you about what they are. It took him a long time to get there. And I think that, you know, he‘s a—he‘s a guy who comes across as—he can be phenomenally passionate. That‘s what won him the election. But he‘s preferred to run...
MATTHEWS: OK...
BUCHANAN: Let me tell you his problem...
WESTEN: ... the government much more like a—much more like Dukakis.
BUCHANAN: His problem is he is not a natural executive at all. He is not engaged. He is diffident. He is—quite frankly, he is academic. He is professorial. He is aloof. And even on health care, the thing—the tea party people almost dynamited that thing during the summer. Then he did come back and give his speech...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
BUCHANAN: ... but then he says, OK, Harry Reid‘s got it. He just doesn‘t seem to be terribly...
MATTHEWS: OK, let‘s talk about...
BUCHANAN: ... engaged...
MATTHEWS: ... that executive role. And I want you to jump in here, Drew, because I think we‘re on to something very narrow and very particular and pointed here. Something like the White House security and those grifters broke in—a small matter, you could argue, because nothing really went wrong, but they did break in. They had no right to be there. It took him the longest time.
Now, Sally Quinn, who writes about things in Washington, said today in “The Washington Post” on the op-ed page, he should have fired somebody. It should have been Mark Sullivan out of Secret—somebody, Desiree Rogers, in charge of social life. That was a case. Then the other thing with this thing with the airplane almost being blown up—nobody seems to be—you don‘t get a sense he‘s the boss.
BUCHANAN: Look, I...
MATTHEWS: He‘s got some people like Rahm Emanuel enforcing them. And nobody gets sledgehammered.
BUCHANAN: Well, let me tell you—this is—now, I know you might...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... what Sally said...
BUCHANAN: You might not like the...
MATTHEWS: ... the president explained (ph) every time.
BUCHANAN: You might not like this comparison, but Nixon would have called in Haldeman, if those two people had walked in there. What went on, Bob? What happened? You get to the bottom of this. Heads roll. And Haldeman would have been right on top of this. I know they ran into a lot of trouble, but I‘ll tell you, that was the best-run White House I have ever been in, first term of Nixon. I mean, when Nixon demanded this kind of action—and he would not have been satisfied...
MATTHEWS: Well, Watergate, was first term, though.
BUCHANAN: Well, Watergate was first term. There‘s no doubt about it.
OK. You can laugh about it, what I‘m saying...
MATTHEWS: I‘m not. I‘m just bringing it up.
BUCHANAN: ... is Bob Haldeman was an executive.
WESTEN: He was decisive.
BUCHANAN: And I don‘t know that—and Rahm Emanuel is a congressman and a guy that runs around getting money from Wall Street.
MATTHEWS: OK, let me get a little dispassionate from you there, Drew, and that is this question. Executive ability—this president was not a governor. He was not a mayor. He‘s not used to cashing the checks or signing them. He‘s not used to being there when there‘s a four-alarm fire downtown.
My idea of a president, my idea of a mayor, a police chief is exactly the same. In fact, the job I‘ve always wanted was police commissioner of Philly, OK? I want to be the guy standing on the curb when there‘s a big fire. I want to be there when the reporters come by and says, What happened here? Have you got things under control? How many engines you got here? Are you going to put it out in an hour or what? I want to see a president on the job. I love that stuff.
I thought Bush was out to lunch during Katrina. I think that really killed his presidency and his role in history because he wasn‘t there. He was somewhere in Crawford with his feet up, drinking near beers. I don‘t know what he was doing, but he wasn‘t on the job.
This president was in Hawaii getting some sun. Fair enough. But it looked terrible. It looked terrible. When there‘s a big fire, the mayor ought to be there.
WESTEN: Well, you‘re absolutely right, and...
MATTHEWS: That‘s my thought. What are your—what‘s your thought...
WESTEN: ... your example of...
MATTHEWS: I mean, you‘re the brain here. You wrote about “The Political Brain.”
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Give me some brain, will you?
WESTEN: I just write about brains.
MATTHEWS: Well, tell me what his brain should have been doing.
WESTEN: He—well, you know, what his brain should have been thinking back to was the other Bush, who came out on September 12th with that foghorn because that‘s the Bush who actually captivated the American people...
MATTHEWS: I liked that guy.
WESTEN: ... because he showed the passion. You know, he was right there, and every American stood by him. And the president we saw today...
MATTHEWS: Then he let Cheney eat him up like a Pacman. Cheney and the neocons grabbed that little hero that we loved with the firefighter and turned him into a little agent of their causes.
WESTEN: Let me give you another example...
WESTEN: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: We all know that now.
BUCHANAN: Let me give you another example, Chris, Robert Kennedy. If something had gone wrong and Jack Kennedy calls up and said, Find out, he would have been...
MATTHEWS: He would have kneecapped the guy.
BUCHANAN: ... all over—he would have been all over it. Lyndon Johnson—What happened here? And he would have been right on top of it immediately. But you know, to be out there snorkeling...
MATTHEWS: I think—OK, here‘s the problem. Can a president who‘s naturally dispassionate—I‘ve been accused of being yesterday by saying he‘s Ray Milland because he‘s so calm, he never gets ruffled, he never sweats, like Pat and I do. He never shows the passion of leadership. Can he lead without passion?
WESTEN: No, I mean, you can‘t lead without passion. The reality is that you can‘t be motivated without passion. Passion is what gets us to move. And if he can‘t get that passion, if he can‘t get worked up, he‘s not going to be able to lead and he‘s not going to be able to motivate.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: People don‘t change, though, Drew.
BUCHANAN: Passion...
MATTHEWS: All my life, I keep asking people, women who want their husbands to change, wives—husbands who want their wives—I always say to people, Have you ever met anybody, Drew, who‘s changed?
BUCHANAN: Chris? Chris?
MATTHEWS: I mean, that‘s my question.
BUCHANAN: Passion is a reflection of conviction and belief.
MATTHEWS: Right.
BUCHANAN: I mean, you get passionate because you really care about it. You can‘t keep faking it if you don‘t have it.
MATTHEWS: OK. Ronald Reagan did not lose his temper often, but people knew where he stood.
BUCHANAN: But he was passionate.
MATTHEWS: Right. Well, what‘s the difference?
WESTEN: Well, this is where...
BUCHANAN: When you‘d go into a meeting with Ronald Reagan...
WESTEN: This is where...
BUCHANAN: ... and he‘d start—go ahead. Go ahead, Drew.
MATTHEWS: Go Drew.
WESTEN: I was going to say, Pat, I fully agree with you. This is where I think the real crux of the issue is, which is that no one really knows where Obama stands on virtually anything because he doesn‘t express his passion on anything.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me—let me...
WESTEN: We don‘t know where he stands on...
MATTHEWS: Let me stop you. Let me stop the music here. I know where he stands. He wants national health insurance. I know where he stands, he‘s a Keynesian economic with the cojones to put out a real fiscal and monetary policy to stop the hell that was breaking loose at the end of the Bush administration. I know those things.
I know—I disagree with him about Afghanistan. He‘s somewhere in the middle of Afghanistan. He‘s with me on Iraq.
BUCHANAN: But Chris, let me ask you...
MATTHEWS: It was a mistake. So I do know where he stands.
BUCHANAN: Well, you know, I agree. I know where he stands.
MATTHEWS: And Pat knows all those things.
BUCHANAN: I know where he stands. But again, about his belief. Do you think this is really a war president? We‘re going to go in and take them out the way Petraeus...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: McChrystal and Petraeus believe in the war. I‘m not sure he believes in the war.
MATTHEWS: On the war against al Qaeda, he‘s been clear about from the beginning.
BUCHANAN: OK, he‘s also—we know his position on health care. Does he care deeply enough...
MATTHEWS: OK, Pat, let me tell you a problem. We had—we had Mr. Magoo running us for eight years, by the way. They went over to get al Qaeda. They ended up fighting with Iraq. I mean, they got—they were so off-base. So passion ain‘t enough. Vision, smarts, brains.
BUCHANAN: All right...
MATTHEWS: We should have gone after the guy. I‘m with Michael Smerconish on that, from Philly. We went after to get al Qaeda, we still haven‘t gotten them. We went after to get bin Laden and we went after to get Mullah Omar and the whole rest of them. We still haven‘t gotten them. So we say, Well, we can‘t get them, so let‘s go to war with Saddam Hussein.
BUCHANAN: But look...
MATTHEWS: That‘s what we did do. That was passion.
BUCHANAN: But George W. Bush had passion.
WESTEN: It was idiocy.
BUCHANAN: That‘s why he rolled the Democratic Senate...
MATTHEWS: OK. OK.
BUCHANAN: ... with Daschle and Hillary...
MATTHEWS: OK.
BUCHANAN: ... and Biden and all of them voting for war.
MATTHEWS: OK, a great pollster once said to me—to end up here, Drew—every great leader needs three things—motive—Reagan had it, Thatcher had it, I think this president has it. You know where he‘s going. Big picture, you know where he‘s going. He needs passion and he needs, or she needs, spontaneity, to react quickly to events. The lights are on and somebody‘s home. I think the Obama problem is not passion. It‘s not motive. I know both are there. It‘s spontaneity, the ability to move quick and say, You‘re right, I don‘t like it, let‘s go. You say executive ability. That‘s what I think is missing.
BUCHANAN: Scotty Reston said every journalist needs three things—drive, drive, drive.
MATTHEWS: OK.
BUCHANAN: And that‘s what‘s missing.
MATTHEWS: OK, we all have our list. Pat Buchanan, Drew Westen...
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: ... “The Political Brain.”
WESTEN: Good to see you again.
MATTHEWS: Coming up: The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, takes aim at, well, his own party, saying they‘ve screwed up after Ronald Reagan. Well, we‘ll get to that. He‘s much tougher on the Dems. But can Republicans right their ship by standing against everything? Can the no party get a yes from the American people? Michael Steele coming right here to sell his book on HARDBALL next.
You‘re watching it, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, HOST, “HANNITY”: Do you think you can take over the House? Do you think Republicans...
MICHAEL STEELE, RNC CHAIRMAN: Not this year. And Sean, I‘ll say honestly...
HANNITY: You don‘t think so.
STEELE: Well—well, I don‘t know yet because we don‘t have all the candidates. We still have vacancies that need to get filled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Wow. Welcome back to HARDBALL. That was Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele with Sean Hannity last night. A spokesman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, the NRCC, said, quote, “Independent political analysts and even liberal columnists have stated that Republicans have a very real shot at taking back the majority in 2010. Make no mistake about it, we‘re playing to win.”
Well, Chairman Steele has a new book called “Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda.” He joins us tonight from New York. Do you stick with what you said the other night on Sean, that you don‘t think your party can win back the House this time?
STEELE: Well, Chris, let me—let me just start by saying I gave, I think, an honest analysis of the situation. I‘m not a pundit there. I want to play to win. What—the point I was making, if you go through the rest of that interview, was we‘re in the process of now putting our players on the table. We‘re still building that farm team in some races. We‘ve got primaries that are going to be competitive. We want to see how that turns out. So there are a lot of things to take into consideration.
I agree with the NRCC and the NRSC and others around in the party who believe that we have real shots this November. And I‘m playing to win, as well. But I‘m not going to sit here in January, not knowing where all of my pieces are on this playground, or this chess board, and tell you, Oh, we‘re going to do it absolutely this way or that way.
MATTHEWS: OK...
STEELE: So what I was trying to say is, we‘re now beginning to put a good team in place. Coming off the wins in New Jersey and Virginia, I feel very good about next fall and I‘m excited and ready to rock and roll.
MATTHEWS: Let me restate the question...
STEELE: Sure.
MATTHEWS: ... that Sean put to you. Can you—it isn‘t “Will you,” he said, Can you win the House this year?
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Can you...
STEELE: Yes, we can.
MATTHEWS: ... Mr. Chairman, win the House?
STEELE: I think we can.
MATTHEWS: OK, so you have a different answer. Let me ask you...
STEELE: Yes, we can.
MATTHEWS: Let me—let me—the question—you know, I get the feeling, reading your book—well, not having read it, but looking at the cover and checking my name in it, like everybody else—and thank you for the mention.
STEELE: Hey, look, if you...
MATTHEWS: A lot of...
STEELE: Can I just say real quick...
MATTHEWS: Well, by the way, I‘ve got to ask—sir, go ahead.
STEELE: No, I was just going to say, you know what I appreciate and why I put that in there? Because the one thing I‘ve always appreciated about you is that you don‘t try to hide or color what your perspectives or your views are.
MATTHEWS: Well, thank you. Well...
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: You wear that passion...
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: We know you‘re an unabashed liberal...
MATTHEWS: ... this president, by the way—no, no. I‘ll accept all of that, except I don‘t think unabashed is right, but liberal on a lot of things. But let me tell you this. I‘m also a critic every day of when things go wrong. And I made that comment—I‘ll say it again—I wished him well, like I wished Bush well in the beginning, I wished Clinton well in the beginning. I wish all these presidents well in the beginning. And I have been—I have been rooting for him and I will continue to root for his success because I think I want him to succeed. That‘s clear.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: But I‘m a critic every day.
Here‘s a question for you book—for your book, which I found fascinating. I‘m looking, like all Washingtonians do, at your book, and I look in the back of it under P‘s. And I look at these names, Pacino, Al. We know who he is.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Party of Lincoln, great for a Republican like yourself.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Paterson, David, the under-attack governor of New York.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Pawlenty, Tim, from Minnesota. PBS, that‘s an odd thing for a Republican to quote.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Daniel Pearl, of course, the man, the great heroic journalist who was killed over there.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Pelosi, Nancy. Prejean, the beautiful woman from California who was Miss California.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: And public option.
But there‘s a big P. missing here.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Where is the big P. from Alaska? What—no mention of her?
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: She‘s the most admired woman in the country, next to—alongside Hillary Clinton, and you don‘t even give her the respect of a mention in your book as chairman of the Republican Party?
STEELE: Hey, look, she just wrote a book.
MATTHEWS: Here‘s the book. Sarah, you‘re not even in here.
(LAUGHTER)
STEELE: She just wrote a book.
MATTHEWS: You‘re not even in here.
What do we make of that?
STEELE: Well, you know, there‘s nothing to make of that.
MATTHEWS: Nothing to make of it? She notices it, I‘m sure.
STEELE: Well, no, no, no. Look, first off, the governor and I are good buddies. And I have an enormous amount of respect and gratitude for her run last year and what she‘s done as governor of the state.
MATTHEWS: Well, why are you afraid to speak her name?
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: Oh, come on, Chris. Afraid to speak—Palin, OK? I‘m not afraid to speak her name.
MATTHEWS: Well, what do you go to say about her, since you won‘t write about her?
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: The emphasis of the book—look, the emphasis of the book, the emphasis of the book—and I invite everyone, starting with you, to actually read it cover to cover. And you will understand that this is not about singling out one individual and focusing on one personality.
MATTHEWS: All right. OK.
STEELE: This is about a party that‘s in recovery, a party that‘s about to enter into a renaissance, in which we can begin connecting to the American people on—I think on some foundational principles, whether you‘re talking health care or the war in Iraq or whatever it happens to be. That‘s the focus here. This is the blueprint and the pathway to do that.
MATTHEWS: Can I use some common language? I want to use some street language with you, if you don‘t mind...
STEELE: Sure
MATTHEWS: ... because I think we speak the language of the people of both parties.
STEELE: Absolutely. You hear me. I‘m street.
MATTHEWS: It seems to me that the Democrats have a problem. The economy is terrible, 10 percent unemployment. The president came in with hell on wheels and he‘s done, I think, a good job. But, clearly, there‘s nothing to hand—no roses to hand out yet, no rewards yet politically.
But the Republican Party keeps in all the polling by “The Wall Street Journal” and NBC keeps coming up as a bad brand.
STEELE: Sure, yes.
MATTHEWS: About one in five Americans call themselves Republicans. Even if you‘re a conservative, people aren‘t willing to say, I‘m a Republican.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: If your brand sucks, how can you rebuild the product?
STEELE: Well, that‘s exactly what this blueprint is about.
That‘s what this—this book really focuses on, starting with the mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, which you and I are familiar with, as good little Catholic boys.
MATTHEWS: We are.
STEELE: And the reality of it is, you can‘t begin to make a step forward unless you understand what you‘re stepping away from, or, more importantly, what you have stepped into.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What, Iraq?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Was Iraq...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What were the big mistakes? Was it Katrina? Because you are getting honest here, and I know you‘re going to pull back, because you‘re almost getting honest.
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: No, I‘m not going to pull back.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Not paying attention to Katrina, was that a mistake by the president?
STEELE: It was Katrina. It was the government buildup. It was spending.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Going into Iraq, when we should have been fighting al Qaeda, was that a mistake?
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: No, I don‘t think that was a mistake, because...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Going into Iraq wasn‘t a mistake? The American people think so.
STEELE: Well, look, you have to—you have to look at the—the totality of what the president saw and what the president knew, the information, along with the Democrats, as you noted in the last segment, who stood with the president on the war in Iraq. And, when it became politically expedient for them, they flipped like a jailbird on the issue.
MATTHEWS: OK.
STEELE: But, having said that, the broader point here, more importantly, is that, as a party...
MATTHEWS: Right.
STEELE: ... we stepped away from principle. And this, I think, is a pathway back to regaining that ground.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: OK. You know when you stepped away from principle? When President Bush wouldn‘t veto a single overspending bill the entire time your party ran the Congress, not one.
STEELE: Duly noted in the book. Duly noted in the book.
MATTHEWS: Not one.
Let me ask you a tricky question.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: You know, I get—there‘s a lot of fight. And I may take the Republican side on this fight, whether we should be taking these people, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, up to New York and having them a big trial at the cost of $200 million in a year in New York City. And I would say that just exposes us to all kinds of trouble, including crazy jurors, potentially, who just have all kinds of theories.
STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this.
Is it a reasonable debate or is there a right side and a wrong side to this? Is the right side we have to have military tribunals for these kind of people, and the wrong side we have criminal cases? Is it as simple as that?
STEELE: I think, to a large extent, it is, Chris, because, at the end of the day, you have got to call it what it is. Who are you dealing with here? Who are the—who are the jury of Khalid Mohammed‘s peers? Who are his peers?
I mean, what American or what New York citizen is his peer that can sit in judgment of him?
MATTHEWS: So, that‘s the wrong side of this issue.
STEELE: It‘s the wrong side. And the reason it is...
MATTHEWS: So, then, why did your president, our president at the time, George W. Bush, try the shoe bomber under criminal court in the United States? You said it was the wrong way to go. Well, then why did your president and our president at the time do that?
STEELE: You know, look, again, I wasn‘t in that meeting.
MATTHEWS: Have I tricked you? I have tricked you.
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: You have not tricked me.
MATTHEWS: I have let you give a policy position here which I have now explained to you ran contrary to what the Republican president did.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: You‘re laughing. But you just took a principled position and said it‘s wrong to have a criminal trial.
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: Wait a minute.
MATTHEWS: And I have just reminded you that the shoe bomber got a criminal trial...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... and was convicted of life imprisonment.
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: You haven‘t let me tell answer the question, bro. Let me tell you what the deal is.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You did answer it. I caught you.
STEELE: No, you didn‘t catch me, because you started...
MATTHEWS: I nailed you.
STEELE: I started to tell you that...
MATTHEWS: The tape will show it.
(LAUGHTER)
STEELE: Let‘s go to the videotape.
MATTHEWS: The tape will show, sir, that you said the right position was military tribunals and the wrong position was criminal. And the president of the last instance, George W. Bush, went the criminal route with the shoe bomber. And you cannot explain the contradiction in your thinking.
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: No, I‘m not. OK. Well, you clearly have answered my question for me. So, I guess I will just leave that as the answer...
MATTHEWS: No, I have judged it. I have judged your answer.
STEELE: ... because all I said—my start was, I wasn‘t in the room on that.
But, then, if you let me finish it, I would have gone on to say that I do not think that we should subject our courts, whether it‘s under a Republican administration or a Democrat administration, to—to terrorists who are not about our Constitution. To wrap our Constitution around these imbeciles is not smart. It‘s not smart politics and it‘s not smart national security policy.
And the reality of it is, again, whether you‘re talking then or now, to be consistent, in review...
MATTHEWS: I agree. By the way, that‘s a reasonable position.
STEELE: ... that this—our criminal justice system tries crooks, common criminals. It doesn‘t try terrorists.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: And, by the way, we can disagree, because I could argue that terrorist behavior is criminal.
But let me ask you this. Can you still be a liberal Republican, like the ones we grew up with like Rockefeller, and Henry Cabot Lodge, and Jack Javits, and Bill Scranton? Is it still OK to be a liberal Republican?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Or there‘s no—there‘s not—a liberal Republican, not a moderate, a liberal?
STEELE: Well, I don‘t know what a liberal Republican is, I mean, because I—what I do know, I know Republicans who adhere to certain core principles like, you know, taxes and the amount that we pay, the role of government, free markets and free enterprise, you know, looking at communities and appreciating the ability to create reinvestment and opportunities for people who are trying to move up the ladder of success, if you‘re standing with us on those core principles, if you value, you know, the livelihoods and the lives of individuals to achieve the American dream, then I think this is a party you can stand with.
MATTHEWS: OK. OK. OK. Thank you very much, Michael Steele.
The name of your book is “Right Now: A 12-Step Program For Defeating the Obama Administration.” It sounds like something to do with Alcoholics Anonymous here, a 12-step program.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Anyway, we will talk about that the next time.
STEELE: It‘s all about recovery, my friend.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Oh, God, you‘re open-minded about it.
Up next: How did the underwear bomber get onto an airplane, but comedian Joan Rivers couldn‘t? That‘s coming up next in the “Sideshow.”
There she is.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL. Time for the “Sideshow.”
Well, comedians take vacations, too, but they were back last night working the weird side of that attempted Christmas airline bombing.
Let‘s start with our pal Jay.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “THE JAY LENO SHOW”)
JAY LENO, HOST, “THE JAY LENO SHOW”: You know, it is good to be back. We were off for Christmas. And, apparently, so was the Department of Homeland Security.
(LAUGHTER)
LENO: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN”)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, “THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN”: He wants to blow the plane up. He sets his underpants on fire.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: And thank God the passengers on the plane subdue the guy.
They secure him. They tie him up, and they move him to first class.
And I was...
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: Wow. Are we sending the right message there, really?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART”)
FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: He paid cash for his ticket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TOWNSEND: It was a one-way ticket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Paid nearly $3,000 in cash for his plane ticket and checked no bags.
JON STEWART, HOST, “THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART”: What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED)?
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: It‘s December. He‘s going from Nigeria to Amsterdam to Detroit without a coat?
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: With a one-way ticket? Oh, do you think he‘s going to Detroit to start a better life?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I didn‘t know he didn‘t have a coat. It‘s cold in Detroit.
It was cold everywhere here this Christmas.
Anyway, meanwhile, another comic, Joan Rivers herself, got into this thing firsthand. She was bumped from a U.S.-bound flight out of Costa Rica because of her passport, which, according to “The New York Daily News,” reads Joan Rosenberg, AKA Joan Rivers. Doesn‘t anybody in Costa Rica know who Joan Rivers is? Apparently, nobody there at the security line. She was stranded overnight.
Finally, on “LARRY KING” last night, Republican Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian, who is a hero to many, including a lot of young people out there, took on Dick Cheney‘s constant criticism of President Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “LARRY KING LIVE”)
LARRY KING, HOST, “LARRY KING LIVE”: What about Dick Cheney‘s complaints?
(LAUGHTER)
REP. RON PAUL ®, TEXAS: Well, I think he had his eight years and he‘s caused a lot of trouble for our country, and he perpetuated a war in Iraq that was unnecessary and wrongheaded. So, I would say that it best he not be so critical right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Wow. Well said.
I would add that a vice president whose chief of staff got nailed with four felony convictions shouldn‘t be advising us on how to run things properly.
Up next: The Obama administration orders pat-down searches of all U.S.-bound passengers coming in from 14 countries, and now some groups are crying foul. But when the people who try to attack us come from these countries, isn‘t it better to be safe than worry about hurt feelings? That debate straight ahead.
You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATT NESTO, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I‘m Matt Nesto with your CNBC “Market Wrap.”
Stocks ended the day mixed. A blockbuster sales report from Ford helped lift the S&P. The Dow industrials were down 12 points, the S&P up just about 3 ½, and Nasdaq with a tiny little gain of its own.
Ford shares were up 6.5 percent after reporting a 23 percent jump in December sales. That‘s almost three times what analysts were expecting. The other big U.S. automakers not faring as well—GM sales down almost 13 percent. Chrysler saw a 10.5 percent drop, capping the automaker‘s worst year since 1962.
Kraft Foods at the top of the Dow industrials today, up almost 5 percent, after top shareholder Warren Buffett opposed the company‘s plan to issue millions of new shares to buy British candy-maker Cadbury.
And Continental Airlines up 13 percent, after the new CEO said he will forgo his annual salary and bonus until his airline is back in the black.
That‘s it from CNBC. We‘re first in business worldwide—now back to
HARDBALL.
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL.
In an effort to increase security, obviously, the Transportation—the Transportation Security Administration—that‘s the TSA—the people that check us at the airports, has increased screening measures for airline passengers coming from 14 countries. Look at them around the world there. They‘re all highlighted there.
Alejandro Beutel is with the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He says this is the wrong way to go about safety. David Rivkin, a former Reagan and Justice Department official who has been with us, disagrees.
Let me start with you, David.
Why is it smart to go to these 14 countries, Afghanistan, Algeria—it includes Cuba, by the way, Iran, some on the state terrorism list, all these countries, mostly Islamic countries, except for Cuba, I guess. Why do we have to—and what they are doing in these case is have extra pat-downs, basically extra check of your carry-on luggage. It‘s sort of what they do—I travel all the time, gentlemen—it‘s what they do when you get on that SSS list, when they pull you aside and they say, OK, we‘re going to check out everything. We‘re going to wand you. We‘re going to check your luggage by hand.
They do that to you if you break one of the rules or your—the buzzer goes off too many times.
DAVID RIVKIN, FORMER ASSOCIATE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Let‘s agree.
MATTHEWS: Is that a right or a wrong way to go?
RIVKIN: It‘s a reasonable way to go. Let‘s agree that profiling—let‘s leave aside political correctness—is a way of marshaling scare resources to manage a large threat.
The real question, is this the right way to profile? Let‘s agree that these countries, coming from these countries is a reasonable proxy for the probability, enhanced probability, that you might be a terrorist. I, frankly, think we need to look at other factors. We need to look at age. We need to look at gender. We need to do...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What does that tell you? What are you talking for?
RIVKIN: Well, young males are dis—but, again, we shouldn‘t be blinded by it. We have women terrorist bombers. But, by and large...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask you the bluntest question.
The people that attacked us on 9/11, hard, horrific evidence, they were checked. They were called back out of line again because they—they set off the metal detectors. They‘re carrying box-cutters. They were still allowed to get on the plane. They still killed the 3,000 people.
RIVKIN: Chris, we need to do two things.
MATTHEWS: So, what good does it do to pull a person out of line and do one of these pat-downs...
RIVKIN: Nothing.
MATTHEWS: ... if all it‘s going to do is slow somebody down for 10 minutes?
RIVKIN: Nothing if it‘s ineffective, by itself. But if you combine it with other measures—you have to work the process from beginning to end. Selecting people, checking people and making sure they don‘t get through, if they are carrying something suspicious objects. You need to do all of them. It‘s not either/or.
MATTHEWS: Your thoughts? What do we do? These are countries, not ethnic groups, being identified. These are countries. By the way, just to remind everybody, 9/11, 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two from the union—from the Emirates countries, the UAE. So they come from certain countries so far. They could be coming from Denmark tomorrow, we don‘t know. But their countries of origin correspond to the countries on this list. Your thoughts?
ALEJANDRO BEUTEL, MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL: Exactly. My colleague mentioned we need a layered effect, and that‘s correct. But the sort of ethnic and religious profiling—
MATTHEWS: Where is that taking place right now?
BEUTEL: Right now with the USA standards, by selecting these 14 countries, that‘s just basically telegraphing our strategy. If we decide to profile from these countries, then terrorists are just going to recruit elsewhere. Profiling is not going to help against Richard Reid. It‘s not going to help against Jose Padilla. It‘s not going to help against any of the UK bombers in the 2006 plot.
MATTHEWS: Why not?
BEUTEL: because these are people who don‘t fit profiles. A 2005 study by the Library of Congress found that there is no such thing as a reliable terrorist profile, especially based on ethnic background. But this has been—
MATTHEWS: Country of origin.
BEUTEL: I understand that. Again, even based on country of origin -
-
MATTHEWS: If you only check certain people, because you can‘t check everybody, who should you check?
BEUTEL: Well, again—
MATTHEWS: If you have to—since everybody—have you ever been at the LA airport, LAX, in the morning, 6:00, when there‘s a billion people there? Or out here at Reagan, when there‘s a billion people on a Saturday morning? You can‘t check everybody through exhaustive checks or people will never get on a plane. How do you single out the people you check? That‘s a question I want answered.
BEUTEL: Let‘s go back to what President Obama was saying earlier in his statement about the review. What we need to do is make sure our intelligence actually connects the dots.
MATTHEWS: No, in terms of checking people when they get on airplanes, which people should be checked most thoroughly?
BEUTEL: Actually, what you need to do, in terms of a smart defense, is make sure that in the layers themselves, you need to check people beforehand, by having the proper intelligence.
MATTHEWS: No, how do you check people when you get on an airplane?
I‘m asking a simple question.
BEUTEL: I‘m getting to it. It‘s a nuanced issue. You have stage one beforehand. Then, once you get to the airport itself, then afterwards what you do is you look at certain perhaps behaviors that they‘re doing, behavioral profiling. If they‘re doing something that‘s strange, if you‘re asking basic questions about, you know, where are you going to be going --
MATTHEWS: Who asks these questions? I go to the airport and they don‘t ask any questions.
BEUTEL: Behavioral profiling. For instance, at Logan Airport in Boston, they‘re doing something right now where they have a pilot program, where as a part of airport security itself, as one of the last rings of defense, is that they do this thing where they look for things that are possible suspicious behaviors. It doesn‘t look at ethnicity or race or religion, but looks at the actual behaviors themselves, things that might be dead giveaways --
MATTHEWS: Like what?
BEUTEL: -- to someone who might have something suspicious. For instance, if someone‘s going to be doing something where they‘re going to be a little bit fidgety, or if they‘re not answering questions straight.
MATTHEWS: But there are no questions put to you.
BEUTEL: In some cases, though, there will be questions put to individuals.
MATTHEWS: I‘m all for that. But how do you decide who to ask the questions of?
BEUTEL: It‘s not just about questions either, though. It‘s also making sure to read the body language.
MATTHEWS: Give me a procedure to defend America, quickly. What would be your procedure to defend this country? His procedure is to at least start with this country of origin—
RIVKIN: I‘m not suggesting against --
MATTHEWS: What would be your approach?
BEUTEL: My approach would be a layered defense, starting with smart intelligence, making sure that we share the information. Then from there, making sure that once we get closer to the airport, we have behavioral assessments that don‘t rely on certain profiles that are not going to be—
MATTHEWS: Like country of origin.
BEUTEL: Like country of origin, ethnicity or—
MATTHEWS: OK. I just don‘t know how you would—you said ask questions. They don‘t ask any questions right now.
RIVKIN: We need this kind of profiling. I‘m not against nuanced We don‘t have the resources for behavioral profiling. Let me tell you, if we push al Qaeda to stop recruiting the people they‘ve been recruiting and start looking for Scandinavians—
MATTHEWS: They will.
RIVKIN: They will, but they would trickle down. This is what you do in warfare. You push your enemy to operate in less than optimal ways. I would bet you they‘re not going to be able to recruit enough Scandinavians.
Profiling is just a starting point. You‘re supposed to look at other things. It‘s not a panacea. To deny that it‘s useful as a foundational stone is just silly.
BEUTEL: It only displaces the problem. All it takes is one or two people to do these things. That‘s all it takes.
MATTHEWS: Let‘s get away from race and ethnicity to the simple question. Let‘s get to nationality. If you are looking for IRA, provisional IRA people, back 10 years ago, right, 20 Years ago, wouldn‘t you start with the Irish?
RIVKIN: Of course.
MATTHEWS: Is that unreasonable? Is that prejudicial? I‘m asking, is that prejudicial—no—to look for the IRA among the Irish. Is it prejudicial?
BEUTEL: No.
MATTHEWS: Because they recruit among the Irish.
BEUTEL: But the thing is it‘s very specific. There‘s a difference between the IRA, which was an ethnic-based group—
MATTHEWS: Don‘t you recruit Islamic terrorists among Islamic people?
BEUTEL: How can you tell who is a Muslim?
MATTHEWS: No, I‘m asking you—
(CROSS TALK)
MATTHEWS: They are starting by nation states. Like you would start with Ireland. If the guy‘s got a passport from Northern Ireland—
BEUTEL: Chris, how can you tell.
MATTHEWS: You can‘t tell.
BEUTEL: Exactly.
(CROSS TALK)
MATTHEWS: A thousand people get on the plane. And you can only check ten. Which ten do you check? That‘s what we‘re talking about.
RIVKIN: Not the elderly grandmother. That‘s for sure.
MATTHEWS: Do you check Joan Rivers?
BEUTEL: No.
MATTHEWS: She got bumped off a flight the other day. I get a little heated on this, because I think everybody likes to push aside the issue. You have limited resources. I don‘t think we pay the TSA people enough. I think we need some New York cops, retired cops, with street instinct standing around those airports, who have the sense of these questions. By the way, you can‘t interrogate passengers. You can‘t ask them all these questions right now. We would need—
RIVKIN: My colleague doesn‘t want profiling, let‘s be candid, because you are afraid it would lead to broad stigmatization of the community. This is not what this country is about.
(CROSS TALK)
RIVKIN: All we‘re talking about is allocation of scarce resources.
MATTHEWS: Everybody from those countries knows why this is going on. And it‘s not done by prejudiced people. It‘s done because common sense tells you—by the way, if Americans kept attacking Arab countries, we would be checked.
RIVKIN: Of course. Profiling—
MATTHEWS: I can tell you. If everybody that bombed these countries were from America, we‘d be checked. Please come back. I hate to say it, but this conversation is going to get more heated as time goes on. If we get hit again, this won‘t be a calm conversation.
Up next, is there room in the Republican party for anyone other than these protesters? They seem to be running the party right now, even though they say they‘re not Republicans. They‘re all Republicans. The politics fix is next. This is HARDBALL. They don‘t just have the party label right now. This is HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Back with the politics fix, with “The Daily Beast‘s” Mark McKinnon and “USA Today‘s” Susan Page. What do we think about this fact, Mark—and I go with you—here‘s your “Daily Beast” quote, “tea is the new Kool-Aid for Republicans and a lot of candidates and office holders on the right are drinking from it like a fire hose. The Tea Party crowd is unlikely to become a third party, but their ability to leverage energy behind candidates and policies could be very similar to what MoveOn.org has accomplished on the left. Movements are often identified by a clear leader. The question is who will lead?”
So who will lead the Tea Baggers? Will it be Rick Perry down in Texas? Will it be Michele Bachmann out in Minnesota? Will it be Sarah Palin? You first, Mark. It is your idea. The Tea Baggers are an interesting group to watch. They‘re not far right. They‘re probably center right, in fact some centrists. But they‘re generally Republican voters, right? Is that fair to say? They vote Republican?
MARK MCKINNON, “THE DAILY BEAST”: Yeah, they‘re conservative voters, unquestionably. What‘s happened is the GOP brand is so damaged that when you ask overall voters right now their favorable impressions of the parties, they have a more favorable impression of the Tea Party than they do of the Republican party. And you ask that among the independent voters, and they have a more favorable opinion of the Tea Party than either the Democratic party or the Republican party.
MATTHEWS: That‘s true. Does that mean they end up voting—when they go to the voting booth, there is no Tea Party candidate. So I would argue that‘s good for Republicans, because they will end up voting for a Chris Christie or a McDonnough (ph) or a Tom Coburn from Pennsylvania this year. They will find a Republican that‘s not offensive to them and vote for them. Even if it is Pat Toomey, they‘ll just vote for any Republican because they are steamed up.
MCKINNON: They are the movement—movements are about people that are angry at the institution and the establishment. So, yes, they‘re Republicans. They‘re people who are out of power. They‘re unhappy. And the Tea Party‘s become the vessel through which they‘re fueling their anger.
MATTHEWS: They‘re monochromatic, right?
MCKINNON: I don‘t know that they‘re monochromatic.
MATTHEWS: They‘re not? Every picture I see shows them to be.
MCKINNON: There‘s a lot of people out there that cuts across a lot of demographics who feel disenfranchised.
MATTHEWS: But not that other demographic?
MCKINNON: The other demographic?
MATTHEWS: Meaning they‘re all white, all of them. Every single one of them is white.
MCKINNON: I think that‘s a fair characterization, predominantly.
MATTHEWS: What‘s that about? Let me ask Susan. What‘s that about?
SUSAN PAGE, “THE USA TODAY”: I don‘t think these are really Republican voters. These are the kind of populist—
MATTHEWS: Who do they vote for? McCain or Obama?
PAGE: Well, they vote for McCain over Obama.
MATTHEWS: OK, well, that‘s how we keep score.
PAGE: They vote for Palin over McCain.
MATTHEWS: They‘re both Republicans.
PAGE: They are both Republicans.
MATTHEWS: Why are you resisting this? Tea Baggers are Republicans.
PAGE: I don‘t think that‘s true. I think these are voters who don‘t like either party, and who went for Pat Buchanan and went for Ross Perot.
MATTHEWS: In almost all state elections for governor, senator, congress-people, there is a Republican candidate, Democratic candidate. And this coming election, coming in November, they‘ll vote Republican.
PAGE: The risk for republicans is not so much in the general election but will they be a real force for—in primaries to get Republican candidates who will not fare well.
MATTHEWS: When we come back, Mark and Susan, we are going to have a real full-mooner for you to watch. He is from Minnesota and he thinks the real danger to America are the—what he calls the radicals—wait until you hear his words. It is not the terrorists. It is the Democrats. Wait until you hear this guy. He‘s ready to fight, this guy. We‘ll be right back with Susan and Mark. You‘re watching HARDBALL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: We‘re back with Mark McKinnon and Susan Page for more of the fix. Let‘s watch this right now. Here‘s Republican Congressional Candidate Allen Quist, who is running out in Minnesota. Let‘s listen to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN QUIST ®, MINNESOTA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean this is—every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight, and this is our time.
This is it. Terrorism, yes. But that‘s not the big battle. The big battle is in DC with the radicals. They aren‘t liberals. They‘re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, they‘re not liberals. They‘re radicals. They are destroying our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Wow. You know, I think liberal is an OK word. This guy says liberal‘s not bad enough for Obama. What do you think, Mark McKinnon?
MCKINNON: I think he ought to be running for the border instead of the Republican party nomination.
MATTHEWS: Well, he obviously thinks this will sell, this hard-right
Democrats are all a bunch of radicals and they‘re worse than terrorists.
What a statement.
MCKINNON: That‘s the problem. I think we‘re pushing the extremes to the utter extreme, and we keep lowering the bar. I think a lot of this is about just being as outrageous as you can, to get attention from the media. And here we are providing it. But hopefully, over the long haul, they‘ll pay the penalty at the place that it really counts, in the voting booth.
MATTHEWS: I‘m comfortable with suburban Republicans in the northeast. My whole family fits that category. They‘re nice people. They‘re reasonable. They may and bit more conservative than me. But I have to tell you, they are reasonable people. They must think this guy‘s a barn burner.
PAGE: Welcome to Youtube, Mr. Quist. He may not have thought that this little affair he was talking to in Minnesota was going to get this kind of attention. Good news for Tim Waltz, who is a Democratic congressman from that district. It is pretty liberal for this—
MATTHEWS: He calls him a radical.
PAGE: You can do worse with an opponent.
MATTHEWS: This is the kind of crazy stuff that goes on in the Middle East, where every enemy is evil and the demon and everybody has to go crazy. It‘s tribalism. It‘s run amok.
Anyway, thank you, Mark McKinnon. Thank you. Mark McKinnon is a smart guy, Susan, and so are you.
Join us again tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 Eastern for more HARDBALL. Right now it is time for “THE ED SHOW” with Ed Schultz.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
| [+/-] |
Transcript of Hardball with Chris Matthews for January 5, 2010 |
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
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Transcript of 'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for January 9, 2008 |
Guests: Michael Eric Dyson, Dee Dee Myers, Peter Hart, Larry Sabato, Steve McMahon, Jennifer Donahue, Roger Simon, Jonathan Capehart
Transcript:
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Sex and politics. What the hell happened in New Hampshire?
Let‘s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I‘m Chris Matthews. Welcome to HARDBALL. Well, the amazing race rages with two new frontrunners. Big Mac is back. John McCain captures New Hampshire, beating the daylights out of Mitt Romney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I‘m past the age when I can claim the noun “kid,” no matter what adjective precedes it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAIN: But tonight, we sure showed them what a comeback looks like.
MATTHEWS: And bigger still, Hillary Clinton makes an incredible comeback, stunning pollsters with a big win over Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I want especially to thank New Hampshire. Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process, I found my own voice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: I felt like we all spoke from our hearts, and I am so gratified that you responded. Now, together, let‘s give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me.
MATTHEWS: But what role did race and sex, or gender, I should say, play in the Hillary win up in New Hampshire? We‘ll talk possible deception in the 2008 race in a moment. And was Hillary‘s crying a key factor with women voters? More on this later.
And the biggest losers? Well, Mitt Romney and John Edwards—will they keep running? Will they stay in the running? We‘ll look at the primaries and caucuses just ahead with our “Politics Fix.”
I‘d like to know more about, personally, what went wrong with the polling up in New Hampshire last night, but I don‘t want to take anything away from the guts and moxie of Hillary Clinton. She showed in the last days of the campaign something special about herself. I saw two of her performances, and they showed a tremendous amount of nerve and outright courage on her part. There were people out there dancing for her scalp. She knew it, but she kept on making her case, trying and retrying to find the right words to bring enough voters to her side to win the primary. It was a gutsy, as I said, extremely impressive performance.
Now to our guests and to the debate—debates of which I love to be a part. Dee Dee Myers is the former White House press secretary. She was press secretary for President Bill Clinton. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor at Georgetown University and an Obama supporter. And Patrick J. Buchanan is an MSNBC political analyst and a Pat Buchanan supporter.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Let me start with Michael Eric Dyson. We have seen an astounding upset of the polls.
ERIC MICHAEL DYSON, OBAMA SUPPORTER: Correct.
MATTHEWS: If you look at the polls on the eve of the election, the polls had Obama ahead between 5 and 13 points. He lost to Hillary Clinton by 3. The average of the polls going in was 8 points for him.
DYSON: Right.
MATTHEWS: And people were talking about double digits, if you look at the internal polls. Well, lo and behold, we watched all night long, a consistent lead for Hillary Clinton, about 3 points throughout the evening. There wasn‘t anything tricky about that voter list. They voted about the same throughout the state all night.
DYSON: Right.
MATTHEWS: How do we explain it?
DYSON: Well, several things. First of all, the crying game, as Neil Jordan made a film, may have had an impact. Not the intent of Hillary Clinton. I think that was a sincere expression of her emotion...
MATTHEWS: So you‘re being sarcastic by saying “game,” but you don‘t mean “game.”
DYSON: Well, no, no. It connected to voters in a very serious way. Number two, I think the reality is that she worked her behind off, so to speak, to really get those votes out. And thirdly, we can‘t deny the Tom Bradley effect. As you know, Tom Bradley was the mayor...
MATTHEWS: Explain it. Start at the beginning.
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: Tom Bradley was the mayor of Los Angeles running for national office...
DEE DEE MYERS, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY: Governor of California.
DYSON: Governor...
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: Yes, yes. He was mayor of Los Angeles, running for governor of California. And people said by an overwhelming, you know, majority, Yes, we‘re going to vote for him, yes, he‘s going to—and everybody predicted he would win. And then when they went into the polls, into the booth, they did not vote for him.
So here, I think, with Obama, the possibility—I‘m not saying it‘s a necessity, I‘m not even saying it‘s a probability, but the possibility that New Hampshire voters, after seeing Obama‘s swagger, so to speak, from his confidence because of his Iowa victory, may have rejected him, repudiated him, or at least had second thoughts or become skeptical about pulling the lever, so to speak, for a black man.
MATTHEWS: Last night, Chuck Todd was explaining the fact that only—the only time you really see a complete displacement of numbers, where there‘s a complete lack of connection between what we‘re looking at in scientific polling and the completely different result, there‘s usually an ethnic factor.
And I want to go over that race. In 1992, the California governor‘s race, Tom Bradley—and I‘m sure Dee Dee knew all about it—the African-American mayor of Los Angeles—he had been a pretty conservative, tough police chief, by the way. He was no liberal, by most standards. He was running 7 points ahead of Republican candidate for governor George Deukmejian, 49 to 42, but on election night, Bradley lost by a point.
We saw the same thing down here in ‘89 in the New York mayor‘s race. Actually up in New York, the preelection poll had David Dinkins ahead of Giuliani by 14 points. He won by 2 points. In Virginia—I‘ll never forget this race—Doug Wilder was a favorite of about, God, 11 points. He won by one.
In North Carolina, Harvey Gantt, another favorite to beat Jesse Helms, lost surprisingly.
Pat Buchanan, what do you make—it is the exception when the polls are completely wrong. You‘re in the business. Do you discount race as a factor, where people didn‘t want to tell pollsters they weren‘t going to vote for the African-American candidate?
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I don‘t totally discount it, Chris, but I think there‘s a lot of special pleading here going on right now. All those races you mentioned were general election races. This was a race inside the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton benefited from a surge of women to he candidacy. Edwards collapsed. The Bradley effect cannot explain why Edwards did so poorly when the pollsters said he was going to beat Hillary Clinton.
I think the piling on by the media and the gloating over her tears and all this people (INAUDIBLE) coming out of Iowa that you‘re supposed to coronate Barack Obama...
MATTHEWS: Right.
BUCHANAN: ... caused a tremendous backlash among New Hampshire Democrats and independents, saying, You‘re not going to impose your fellow on us. We‘ll choose our own. And the women said, We‘re going to go in there and pick up Hillary Rodham Clinton and stop what‘s being done to her.
MATTHEWS: Well, you sound like Alan Alda, Pat.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I mean, where‘s this new sensitivity towards women‘s aspirations coming from?
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: Well, that could be true.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Go ahead, Pat.
BUCHANAN: All right. Look, I think that the Obama spinners and the media are trying to explain away why they got egg all over their face. And by doing this, you are tarnishing Hillary‘s victory and you are tarnishing the Democratic...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: That is not what I‘m doing here. That is not what I‘m doing. I‘m trying to explain...
BUCHANAN: Well, whoever is attacking this, Chris, whoever is says it was racism is tarnishing the Democratic Party...
MATTHEWS: Oh, OK.
BUCHANAN: ... and Hillary‘s victory.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... first of all, everything we‘re talking about right now will be tested in future elections because we‘re going to have a lot of these primaries and caucuses. Dee Dee, get in here. Talk about this. You remember the Tom Bradley campaign.
MYERS: I do.
MATTHEWS: Talk. Whatever you think.
MYERS: There‘s no question that people went into the—that they were embarrassed to tell pollsters that they wouldn‘t vote for an African-American, were uncomfortable doing that, and so there was this giant disparity between what the campaign expected and what actually happened. I think Pat makes a good point. This is a Democratic primary. It‘s a different universe. And I don‘t know whether—you know, we hope against hope that that‘s not true in a Democratic primary. I don‘t think we know yet, and I think it‘s something we have to be conscious of.
I think Pat‘s right on the money, though. I think women stood up, and they—even women who weren‘t for her two days ago, who were lukewarm toward her, saw what they saw as a piling on. Just they—people were enjoying dancing prematurely on her political grave, and women said, Enough. Not now, not like this. Fifty-seven percent of voters, Democratic voters, yesterday were women, and 50 percent of them voted for Hillary Clinton. I mean, she got more votes from women than the other three candidates in that primary combined. That‘s what...
DYSON: No, no. I think...
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: But look, it presupposes two things. First of all, God forbid that within the Democratic Party that we all love and admire, certain elements could foster her certain ambitions...
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: ... not yet, but of course...
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: ... but that number two, that women themselves in the competition between race and gender—and God forbid that it should become down to that because life is more complex than that and we live our lives simultaneously and not in serial—in succession.
But here‘s the point, that I think that with that overwhelming lead that Barack Obama took into New Hampshire, all of these other factors are very critical, but I don‘t think race can be discounted. We hope that that‘s not the central defining moment here, but as Pat Buchanan trying to dismiss it is typical reassertion of a kind of perspective that discounts at all the reality that race could play a role.
BUCHANAN: Well, you know, look...
DYSON: He never acknowledges the reality that race could play a role significantly in shaping the viewpoints of people about this great candidate!
BUCHANAN: Professor, you‘re working your theme, and I understand that. I was up in New Hampshire with my wife and sister, who‘s written a very anti-Hillary book, and we talked on Monday about how horrible it was and the beating Hillary was taking and how offensive it was, and Edwards was saying she‘s not tough enough. And that was their reaction, two very conservative women, none of whom would ever vote for Hillary. If they‘re reacting that way, I can imagine how the women who kind of like Hillary in the Democratic Party reaction, and it doesn‘t surprise me.
When you saw that figure on women, that is what did it. And you‘re trying to tarnish her victory and get, frankly, the media off the hook because it‘s got egg all over its face, by attributing it to racism...
DYSON: No. Not at all!
BUCHANAN: ... without any hard evidence whatsoever.
DYSON: I‘m glad—I‘m glad—I‘m glad Pat Buchanan is coming to the defense of those who are battered because enough minorities, women and African-Americans, Latinos, Hispanics...
BUCHANAN: Right.
DYSON: ... and a whole bunch of other Arabs in this country and Jews and Italians and Poles have been battered. The reality is this, that in a particular race for a heated debate over a very powerful victory like the presidency, certainly race comes into play. I‘m not suggesting that it is the central line here. I‘m suggesting that it plays a role and that despite the fact that women—I agree that Hillary was being pounced on in a very serious and severe fashion, and women identify with her. But that doesn‘t mean that women who identify with Hillary Clinton...
BUCHANAN: All right...
DYSON: ... are not also motivated by racial considerations.
BUCHANAN: All right, Professor...
DYSON: It‘s not either/or.
BUCHANAN: Professor, would you not agree that racial considerations have entered the equation to make Barack Obama so beloved and heroic, He‘s our savior, and all this other nonsense...
DYSON: No.
BUCHANAN: ... we‘ve been getting...
DYSON: Not at all.
BUCHANAN: Race had nothing to do with that? Come on!
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: No, no, no!
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: Barack Obama has overcome despite the racial realities.
BUCHANAN: Oh, cut it out!
DYSON: Barack Obama has had to walk into the room, proving that he is highly intelligent, highly literate, capable of transcending any tribal loyalties to articulate a transcendent vision...
BUCHANAN: All right, tell me...
DYSON: ... that speaks to the entire universe of political reality!
BUCHANAN: Tell me why he would get 95 percent of the black vote in a Republican-Democratic election? Is that—race got nothing to do with that?
DYSON: No, no, no. Barack Obama has not been running...
MYERS: We‘re all Democrats.
DYSON: ... as a race man. Barack Obama has been running as a candidate of the Democratic Party who is concerned about the American polity.
BUCHANAN: Look, Professor, you cannot blind yourself to reality. He has not been running as a race man. He‘s done a good job. He‘s stayed away from the Jena nonsense, and he‘s done well. But it is undeniable...
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: ... he‘s not running as a race man?
BUCHANAN: Liberals are supporting him because he‘s a black American.
MATTHEWS: OK, can I—I want to ask something, Pat. You know, we
all tried—Dee Dee, we—let‘s look at the polling and talk about the
women‘s piece of this thing, not just the race but the gender, the sex
part. If you look at all the polling that was taken right through Monday -
and what happen on Monday, of course, was that dramatic moment where Hillary got a bit verklempt, and it was—let‘s take a look at this. A lot of people think this had a lot of impact. Now, this event occurred at the end of most of the polling, so in a way, we could argue the polling is not in conflict with what happened here. Let‘s watch.
BUCHANAN: Right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)CLINTON: ... you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don‘t want to see us fall backwards, you know? So you know, this is very personal for me. It‘s not just political. It‘s not just public. I see what‘s happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game. They think it‘s, like, who‘s up or who‘s down. It‘s about our country. It‘s about our kids‘ futures. And it‘s really about all of us together. You know, some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DYSON: Excuse me for saying this, that maybe that obvious to many, but let‘s just put it on the table. With Bill Clinton saying that Barack Obama is the biggest fairy tale to come along in a long time, saying that you‘re rolling the dice when you vote for him, and now Hillary Clinton, through her noblesse oblige, implying that some people get it right, some people get it wrong, through her tears, she is really expressing a horrendous viewpoint, that is that she has a kind of copyright on what the goodness of the country should be and that therefore, Barack Obama is somehow...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Dee Dee?
MYERS: You‘re conflating two issues here. What happened was people watched that—and one of the realities of technology is that you can go on YouTube, the thing gets repeated—people saw it for themselves and they judged for themselves. And what they judged was that that was a genuine moment of—you know, she‘s tired. She‘s under a lot of pressure. People are beating her up. Women don‘t like watching people being mean to other people. And they said to themselves, I‘m going to—I‘m going to take a stand on this. I am—I‘m going to take a stand and say, This does not end, not like this, not now. And they voted for her. And I don‘t think it was...
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: I don‘t think it was an anti-Obama moment.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Let‘s not argue (INAUDIBLE) You‘re not denying that the last day, a lot of women, maybe older women—just a minute...
DYSON: Not at all.
MATTHEWS: ... decided that this woman was getting beat the heck out of, and they‘re going to do something about it. You don‘t deny that.
DYSON: Not at all.
MATTHEWS: Pat, do you deny that there are men out there or women out there who were embarrassed to tell a pollster they weren‘t going to vote for an African-American?
BUCHANAN: Sure, and there are people who will say, I vote for him, for the same reason. Look, race helps Obama...
MATTHEWS: In other words, you can‘t trust people...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: There‘s no doubt about it.
MATTHEWS: Ethnicity is a hard thing for people to admit.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: I think—I think the expectation—I think the—the sense of fait accompli hurt Obama, in many ways.
MATTHEWS: Yes, that it was over.
MYERS: That it was over. So I think one thing that happened was we saw more independents voting for McCain than might otherwise have done so. And I think a lot of people said, Wait a minute. This is too fast, too soon. We need to take a step back here...
MATTHEWS: OK, let me...
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: ... race needs to go on.
MATTHEWS: ... just because everybody at home has a different point of view. We all do, certainly. We‘re trying to figure out what went wrong with the polling. Obviously, as Pat says, egg on our face because we rely on these polls. By the way, every local TV station does, every candidate does, every marketing company does. We rely on polls. We rely on—decide how much money we make, we decide—we rely on ratings, OK?
Older women showed up in unusually high numbers. Older women tended to vote for Hillary Clinton, unusually high numbers. Now, some people say it was the weather. Dee Dee has a much more poignant point, solidarity and compassion, right?
MYERS: There‘s no question about it.
MATTHEWS: Just a minute...
BUCHANAN: I think, Chris...
MATTHEWS: A lot of this happened—the key event we‘re talking about, Hillary‘s verklempt moment, which I do believe was honest. I don‘t buy it was about the little people. It may have been just about her own predicament...
DYSON: Right.
MATTHEWS: ... which was she‘s facing hell here and humiliation—occurred so late in the polling that the polling didn‘t pick it up. It didn‘t pick up the impact on (INAUDIBLE) Let‘s face it, right before you go to vote, you watch TV that night. You‘d have to be a numbskull not to watch the news the night before an election because you‘re going to vote, so you‘re going to say, What‘s the latest news? The latest news was Hillary got emotional. That obviously struck at the heart of a lot of women and they went out and voted the next day.
DYSON: I agree with all that. Look, I agree with everything you just said. All I‘m suggesting is that—that even through her tears, I‘m saying the sentiment that was being expressed, because of her, you know, tiredness or verklempt moment, as you talk about, was also the articulation of an idea that I find troublesome, that is to suggest that, I am the only person, I‘m going to get it right, he‘s going to get it wrong, and there‘s an implicit racial subtext...
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: There‘s a racial subtext there!
(CROSSTALK)
DYSON: Don‘t let a black man run this country...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You think that‘s what she‘s saying?
DYSON: No, no, not her! I‘m saying—I‘m saying...
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: She would have said the same thing about John Edwards, and it‘s one of the things people do not like about Mrs. Clinton, but I don‘t think that was directed exclusively at Barack.
DYSON: Rolling the dice, playing loose and fast—I‘m suggesting to you those are code words that black people are used to when people are trying to suggest to something to somebody that they are not quite able to step up to the plate.
MATTHEWS: You know what...
DYSON: I‘m not saying it was...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: A lot of people at home are watching this argument, say, Why are you arguing about this? Because in American life, we‘re still arguing over role models for men and women in this country. We‘re talking about a woman being president of the United States for the first time. And race sits on us, OK? If we can get it off our face someday, fine, but it sits on us. I‘m with Michael because I think it‘s a big part of the way we think in this country. You don‘t, Pat, because you‘re—you‘re a liberal kind of guy. You‘re sort of, you know, Alan Alda on women‘s issues...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: I‘m with Dee Dee, the sisterhood beat the brotherhood.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: OK. OK. Thank you, sir. You may well be right. What a great discussion. It is so American, unfortunately. Anyway, Dee Dee Myers, Michael Eric Dyson, Professor...
DYSON: And you‘re crossing ideological lines!
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... Patrick J. Buchanan.
Up next, we‘re going to talk more about this and why the polls got it wrong—look, ladies and gentlemen, we got it wrong—with two experts who know the history and understand the numbers of these kinds of things.
You‘re watching HARDBALL—not that these three don‘t. You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My voice is a little hoarse. My eyes are a little bleary. My back is a little sore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
But my spirit is strong.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: And I am ready to bring about change in America.
How about you?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
So, what accounts for Hillary Clinton‘s victory in New Hampshire? What we don‘t know is why the victory is so much different in fact than the polling ahead of time, including what we call the exit polls were telling us. Obama was ahead in those polls by an average of eight points. And even our own exit polls that were taken as people came out of the voting showed him ahead.
So, what is going on here?
Larry Sabato is the director of the University of Virginia‘s Center For Politics. And Peter Hart is a Democratic pollster, a famous one, I must say, and co-director of NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” survey.
So, both of you gentlemen try to get the facts straight. You are not special pleaders. You try to understand it. And all I can tell you both, in all honesty, if people wonder where I have been coming from, I was up in New Hampshire. I had never seen Barack Obama in person. I had seen him on TV.
I have never, ever heard a speech like he gave. And I walked out of
that room at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, that old movie theater that
is now a theater, I guess, and I got to tell you—start with you, Larry -
I have never heard anything like it. I saw the crowd rising in crescendo emotion. I had never seen anything like it.
So, I did believe the polls. I thought something was happening up there. What went wrong in the polling?
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: I
think there are a lot of reasons, Chris. And I think we‘re going to be studying this for a long time, many factors.
And Peter can talk better than I can about modeling. The turnout models in the polls may have been off and so on. I do think—I listened to your prior discussion—I do think it is very naive, given American history, to just automatically dismiss the racial voting idea or issue or theory before it is investigated.
There is some evidence, some telltale evidence, that it might have been one of several factors involved in this upset.
MATTHEWS: How do you detect that? If you had to do an autopsy on this polling, how would you find out if that is the case?
SABATO: Well, one thing I...
MATTHEWS: I did hear today by one somebody—a reporter who told me there is some precinct out there where you can actually see there is an absolute difference, a wide discrepancy between what people said in the exit polls in a very small voting area and what actually happened. People lied to the pollsters.
SABATO: Well, yes. Remember, there have been a lot of well-documented cases. I documented one of them myself for Doug Wilder‘s campaign for governor of Virginia in 1989, when he was ahead by more than 10 points ahead of the election. And, on Election Day, the exit poll had him ahead by 10 points. He won by a fraction of 1 percent. And it was very clearly racial voting and there was a lot of evidence to support it.
With Barack Obama, you mentioned yourself, the exit poll had Obama up, I believe, five points. He lost by two or three, so that was a swing of seven or eight.
Look, the exit poll was right on the money with the Republican contest. All I am saying is, there is enough superficial, circumstantial evidence to suggest that, among the theories to explain Obama‘s upset loss, you must include racial voting, at least to start out with.
MATTHEWS: Peter?
PETER HART, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Well, I think that you can look at racial voting. I think you can also look at bias against having a Mormon, or bias against an old person, or bias against a woman.
Bias is part of this. But what really comes down, in my estimation, is, they stopped polling too soon. You had the...
MATTHEWS: I am talking about the exit polls.
HART: OK.
But—but my point would be, I don‘t know enough about the exit polls and whether their samples were right in how they had it. So, I don‘t want to...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, it could be—let‘s talk about another possibility...
HART: Yes.
MATTHEWS: ... besides the fact that white people lied, which has happened in the past, in Virginia, in California, in North Carolina. I am sure it has happened in a lot of places, where you have an African-American on the ticket...
SABATO: Chicago.
MATTHEWS: ... and white people just don‘t want to—with Harold Washington maybe—where people just don‘t want to say to pollsters that they are voting for the white guy, when the pollster knows they normally vote for the Democrat, and, in this case, won‘t because they are black. I can understand the embarrassment.
But let‘s talk about women, because there was an interesting thing here where a lot of older women—I don‘t mean old—older women, 45 and older, showed up that normally don‘t show up. Could that have shown that the sample was wrong, even in the exit polls?
HART: Absolutely, because, essentially, it was a huge turnout among women.
And my point would be, it was the Howard Dean scream moment. In this case, it was the Hillary Clinton mist moment. And that was played...
MATTHEWS: Misty-eyed?
HART: Misty-eyed.
And, essentially, that was played 10,000 times. And I think that moved 10,000 women, because it touched people in a lot of different ways. And it is the women‘s vote that really moved the most. And the fact is, they turned out in heavier numbers. And the switch from the late polls that were done all was coming mainly from the women.
MATTHEWS: Well, we have three guys here, not a woman. I wish we could get back to Dee Dee on this. And we will ask a woman later in the show.
It seems to me that older women have put up with a lot more crap than younger women, because there‘s a lot more rules today. There‘s a lot more opportunity because of Title IX and all kind of good things in the workplace, that women don‘t have to take the crap they used to right now.
HART: Hey...
MATTHEWS: Could it be that that is one reason why older women say, I have been treated the way Hillary has been treated; I don‘t like it?
HART: Absolutely.
Any woman who has been passed over for a job promotion, any woman who has earned less than a man, any woman that has been discriminated in any way, when Hillary Clinton stood up and expressed those viewpoints, people can say, I am getting behind her.
And that is what I believe happened. I don‘t want to say race is no part of this.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
HART: But I just think, if you are trying to understand what went on, it is the fact of stopping polling too soon. It is like what happened in 1948.
MATTHEWS: Larry, how about the gender part here?
SABATO: Can I—can I just jump in here, Chris?
MATTHEWS: Talk about the—yes, sure, you are in it.
SABATO: Yes.
No, Chris, I think Peter is absolutely right. I think they stopped polling too quickly. I think women explain part of this. I think young people were overestimated, partly because of the tremendous young turnout in Iowa. All these things are factors.
All I am suggesting is that this is a complicated phenomenon. All of the polls were wrong by a wide margin. And this is going to be a complicated explanation. It is wrong to say, it is just this over here or it is just that over there.
MATTHEWS: Boy, I will tell you, people who are watching and wonder why we‘re doing this, it is because we live by polls. And I think they are getting better all the time.
I mean, I have watched these polls a couple nights before an election, and they are just about on the nail, right, Peter?
HART: Absolutely.
And it is a very difficult thing. As I said to Ann Selzer, who is with the Iowa Poll, you have to have steady hands and a strong stomach to do this business.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: OK, Peter, well, you have got those.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Larry Sabato at the UVA, and Peter Hart with the NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” poll.
Up next: The HARDBALL “Big Number” tonight underscores just how wide open this presidential race remains.
You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
So, what else is new out there?
Well, the big question right now is whether or not Howard Wolfson‘s sweater helped Hillary win last night.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: When I got a look at that sweater, I thought he was wearing a poncho or a blanket.
In the midst of all this exciting presidential stuff, by the way—look at that sweater—let‘s not forget our good friend Senator Larry Craig. In a new appeal‘s brief to the court, Craig‘s lawyers argue that he is not guilty of disorderly conduct because his actions didn‘t involve multiple victims. They say the law specifically requires that the conduct alarm or anger others, plural.
So, let‘s get the arithmetic figured here. To be guilty of disorderly conduct, you have to attempt to interfere, in this case, with someone in the next stall, but there has to be more than one person in the next stall in order to be charged with disorderly conduct. So, I guess the man with the self-proclaimed wide stance walks.
And now it is time for the HARDBALL “Big Number” tonight.
Iowa is behind us. New Hampshire is behind us. And the bottom line is that this presidential race is getting wide open. Anything can happen. So many candidates have at least now some chance of winning the White House, Clinton certainly in the running, up in the lead in fact. Obama, Edwards, Huckabee, McCain, and Romney, and Giuliani, and Thompson as well, we think they are all in the running right now. None of them are out of this race right now.
Eight candidates still in the fight, eight candidates in real contention to replace George W. Bush—tonight‘s “Big Number.”
Up next: With Iowa and New Hampshire out of the way, the race goes national. We talk strategy. What can the second-place finishers last night do to turn things around? We are looking at Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
And we will be back with a special edition of HARDBALL tonight at 11:00 Eastern. That‘s 11:00 tonight, another edition of HARDBALL, brand-new show.
You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELISSA LEE, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I‘m Melissa Lee with your CNBC “Market Wrap.”
A late-day rally pushing stocks higher, after a volatile session—the Dow Jones industrial average gained 146 points, the S&P 500 up almost 19, the Nasdaq up by 34.
After the closing bell, Alcoa reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates. Revenue fell from a year ago, but also topped estimates. In after-hours trading, Alcoa shares are up about 4 percent.
Countrywide Financial, the nation‘s biggest mortgage lender, announced, foreclosures and late payments surged in December. Countrywide shares fell another 6 percent today, after plunging 27 percent yesterday.
And oil prices fell, as a larger-than-expected drop in U.S. stockpiles was offset by an increase in gasoline inventories. Crude fell 66 cents in New York trading, closing at $95.67 a barrel.
And Target announcing CEO Bob Ulrich will retire on May 1, to be replaced by president Gregg Steinhafel.
That‘s the latest from CNBC, America‘s business channel—now back to
HARDBALL.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)JOHN EDWARDS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to be absolutely clear to all of you who have been devoted to this cause, and I want to be clear to the 99 percent of Americans who have not yet had the chance to have their voices heard, that I am in this race to the convention, that I intend to be the nominee of my party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
MITT ROMNEY ®, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will strengthen America as your president. When I come back here next November, I will fight across this nation, on to Michigan, and South Carolina, and Florida, and Nevada, and states after that.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
MATTHEWS: Well, they look right, don‘t they?
Welcome back to HARDBALL. That was John Edwards and, of course, Mitt Romney trying to put a positive spin on a tough night last night.
Do these guys still have a chance in this race? What, if anything, could they do to stage a comeback of their own?
Steve McMahon is a Democratic strategist. And John Feehery is a Republican.
I want you to start on the Republican side. We will flip this a little bit.
Steve, if you are Mitt Romney, he gave a great speech last night.
STEVE MCMAHON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, he did.
MATTHEWS: Is he still alive?
MCMAHON: I think he is.
And the reason I think he is, is because, if you look at—there are there are three paths in the Republican primary. There‘s strength, which Giuliani is dominating, but I‘m not sure he‘s going to be relevant. There‘s experience, which John McCain has and owns.
And then there is change. And what I think you saw in Mitt Romney‘s campaign over the last few days is, he has kind of gone back to the message that he started with, which was: I am the change candidate.
And, clearly, this is a change election. And it is the place where he fits naturally. It‘s the place where he has some authenticity. He is not an authentic conservative. He should be talking about change. He should be inspiring people. He should be offering aspirational visions for the future. And—and I think he would be in a much better place. And he seems to be going back there.
MATTHEWS: Do the American people want a politician to come in who is smarter than the president, or seems to be smarter than the current president, who can fix things, or do they want somebody to take us to a new place? Do they want something more dramatic than a business fixer?
MCMAHON: Well, probably, I think any these candidates are smarter than the president. But that‘s just a partisan comment.
MATTHEWS: No, somebody to do something dramatic.
MCMAHON: No, no, I...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Do they want a...
(CROSSTALK)
MCMAHON: Well, I think what—I think what Barack Obama and, to some degree, Mike Huckabee are offering people is—is an aspirational, positive message that is basically grounded in the fact that America can do anything, if we work together.
And, so—and—and I believe that, when Mitt Romney was on his game earlier in this—in this campaign, that‘s what he was doing. And then he tried to out-conservative Rudy Giuliani and tat didn‘t get him anywhere, just got him into a tangle with Mike Huckabee. If goes back to that, he can regain his strength. If he wins in Michigan, it‘s a new ball game.
MATTHEWS: What amazes me is they all want to be like President Bush and everybody know that—the Republicans are loyal people. They‘re behind him, but they‘re not thrilled by the way things are going with him. Why do you want to be him?
Let me ask you, Terry, this is a question about this other thing. What do you make of the Democrat John Edwards? He looks cute. He looks good. He‘s got a great wife. He has a nice populist campaign going. Is he finished?
FEEHERY: Well, he has a lot of resources. I think what he is hoping is that one of the other two drops out, so he can be the binary choice. Right now, he is splitting the anti-Hillary vote, but he can survive—and he‘s got the resources to do it—and one of those two—he was kind of hoping that Hillary would drop out and then he could be the choice against Obama and come in there as the more reasonable vote.
Now, I don‘t know. I think if he sticks with it, and someone else drops out, he can sneak in. But it is a long shot for him right now.
MATTHEWS: But really, what Barack Obama is hoping is that this guy gets out so he can take on Hillary one-on-one and get all of the anti-Hillary people, right, Steve?
MCMAHON: That‘s exactly right. Right now, if you look at it, John Edwards is Hillary Clinton‘s best friend because he is helping to split the change vote. And he‘s frankly the biggest impediment that Barack Obama has right now to getting the nomination. If he could consolidate the votes that he has with those votes that John Edwards has, it would be a much different race right now. But as long as John Edwards hangs in there—and that speech last night indicated he is going to hang in there for a good long time—that is a real problem for Barack Obama.
MATTHEWS: And keep splitting the anti-Hillary vote.
MCMAHON: Absolutely. John Edwards said change won Iowa and change did win. But as long as John Edwards is standing there, change is going to be split between two candidates and experience and strength and leadership, and all the things that Hillary offers—Senator Clinton offers is going to be right there for her to take.
FEEHERY: Think about it, if Edwards was not in the race last night, Obama would have killed Hillary.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the Republicans. It seems to me that it is very hard for your party to find a leader right now. You have Rudy waiting in the wings. You have Fred Thompson talking about South Carolina as his big chance. You‘ve got McCain who won last night. You‘ve got Romney who comes in second last night and also in Iowa. And then you have Mike Huckabee who won in Iowa. I don‘t see a front-runner in that pack.
FEEHERY: I look at it as a big poker game and Huckabee went all in in Iowa and won. McCain went all in in New Hampshire. Now Romney‘s going all in and I think he will win Michigan. And for Fred Thompson, he has to go all in in South Carolina to keep in. And I think Rudy has the strategy. He‘s the guy who said, listen, I‘m not going to play in these early things, I‘m going to play in Florida. He said it early on and he hasn‘t used a lot of his resources. I think he has the one strategy—
MATTHEWS: You could have five winners in five contests the way you are going.
FEEHERY: Absolutely, and for someone like Rudy Giuliani, who has the target of the big states, he is well positioned. I think Huckabee also is well positioned, because he will get a lot of the southern states. And it could be a convention.
MCMAHON: Rudy has slipped behind in Florida. His Florida strategy was predicated on the fact that he would be in the lead in Florida and he is now not in the lead. So it is going to be hard for him to get any attention over the next three weeks, because Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney and John McCain are going to have all of it.
FEEHERY: I‘ll tell you, I was in Florida for the holidays, and he is running a lot of ads and he has worked hard. The last polls I saw, Rudy is up.
MATTHEWS: Can Romney survive a defeat in Michigan?
FEEHERY: It depends upon how much of his personal fortune he wants to waste.
MATTHEWS: Can he survive a loss?
FEEHERY: I don‘t think he can.
MCMAHON: I think he becomes John Edwards at that point, an attractive candidate with nowhere to go.
MATTHEWS: OK, thank you Steve McMahon and John Feehery.
Up next, one day after New Hampshire and with both races wide open, we have your politics fix on what happened last night, and where things are headed in the next week or so. This is HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Well, Iowa said Obama and Huckabee. Now New Hampshire said Clinton just last night and McCain. Are we in for a long fight now? Let‘s bring in the round table. Roger Simon, one of the top political columnists around is with “Politico.” Jonathan Capehart writes editorials for the “Washington Post” here in town. And Jennifer Donahue is a senior adviser for the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
Jennifer, I want to start with you and try—I‘m wide open on this. I have no pre-conception. Like everyone else, I was stunned at 5:30ish last night. I was passed a piece of paper just for guidance that told me that Barack Obama was going to win a significant victory. This was based upon the polling of people going—sorry, coming out of the booth, having voted.
Everybody says we have egg on our face. Let me tell you something, garbage in, garbage out. If people don‘t give the right answers we aren‘t going to know anything. But there is also the possibility of a mistake here, that they didn‘t estimate correctly the number of older women and other groups. What do make of what went wrong in the predictions last night?
JENNIFER DONAHUE, THE NEW HAMPSHIRE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS: Well, Chris, I think it reflects what happened with the polls taken leading up to Tuesday, you know, done by every, every organization, which is that the bottom line is, in New Hampshire, that vote is taken so seriously—and I‘m not really exaggerating; the responsibility is huge. I saw people I know at my polling place who took an hour or over an hour in that polling place making a final decision.
And if people had looked closely at the final polls leading up to the people‘s vote, they would see that 40 percent of the Democrats were undecided. So people were misreading the polls. They weren‘t looking at that so key number that we know is historically accurate.
MATTHEWS: But what about the number of people—
DONAHUE: We knew that people hadn‘t made the final decision.
MATTHEWS: No. I‘m talking about the poll of people coming out of the booths.
DONAHUE: Yes, I saw the kids polling people coming out of the booth. They were all over the place. They were like people handing out flyers, Chris. They were not organized. They were not disciplined. They were not professionals. They were not experts. I think these exit polls are a bit misleading.
MATTHEWS: Roger?
ROGER SIMON, “THE POLITICO”: I think the take away is that we should stop letting our coverage be driven by polls. They get it wrong more than we like to admit. The fact is, examine what an exit poll is—
MATTHEWS: No, the Republican polling was absolutely on target. The Iowa polling was on target.
SIMON: So why was this off?
MATTHEWS: That is what I am trying to find out from you.
(CROSS TALK)
MATTHEWS: Was it gender? Was there some surprising fact that people were not honest about when they were polled?
SIMON: I‘m not buying the whole race argument. I have been going to New Hampshire for 30 years. It is not a racist state. It‘s not a clan state. It‘s not a skinhead state. The people there are no more racist than the people in Iowa, where Barack Obama won by eight percentage points.
You know, lying, as you say, to a pollster is not a felony. You have waited in line, as Jennifer said, maybe an hour. It is a secret ballot in America and a guy sticks a piece of paper in your face and says, reveal your secret; who did you vote for. Maybe you will tell him the opposite of what you did, because it is none of his business who you voted for.
MATTHEWS: I like this.
DONAHUE: Roger is dead on. People consider it an insult up here. It is considered an insult up her. Chris, it is considered an insult in New Hampshire.
MATTHEWS: Well, we have to learn the social morays of New Hampshire.
(CROSS TALK)
DONAHUE: Well, people don‘t reveal their vote. They don‘t talk about who they voted for. They talk about the process.
MATTHEWS: Why don‘t we just keep the secret who won the primary?
SIMON: Why don‘t we wait for the votes to be counted? Why do we have to—
MATTHEWS: Because the Americans like to know who‘s going to win the Super Bowl, who‘s got to the healthy quarterback.
SIMON: The media likes to know. Americans are willing to wait for the votes to be counted.
MATTHEWS: Have you polled them.
(CROSS TALK)
MATTHEWS: One more round on the factor here. We have seen history—
JONATHAN CAPEHART, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: No, Chris, I don‘t think race was a big issue.
MATTHEWS: It‘s not another Tom Bradley race? It‘s not another Doug Wilder race, not another Harvey Gantt race, right? Why?
CAPEHART: Because I think there are a whole lot of other issues going on. As was said before, when people went into the—I think one of the last polls, 40 percent of the people were undecided before they made—cast their vote. Also, we have found out that women went for Hillary. And that is what put her over the top.
MATTHEWS: But why were the polls taken of people coming out of the booths so off?
CAPEHART: I don‘t know. I think Jill had the answer for that. But I do not buy this snap judgment that race was the issue, that the polls were off. I just don‘t buy it. If we were four or five—if we were—
MATTHEWS: To be fair to those who have made that judgment, I have chatted with people who do this for a living, as early as 1:30 in the morning last night, checking with the people who do these polls, to find out what explains the discrepancy. That was the explanation. I got that again last night before that on the air. I am trying to find out the answer. This is dramatic.
We‘re not going to talk about this after tonight. But I‘ll tell you, if we start seeing problems with polling that we haven‘t seen before I am going to be looking for culprits.
SIMON: One other caveat, if the exit polls got the result wrong, why do we think they got the demographics right. The fact is we don‘t know how many women voted for Hillary. We don‘t know how many late-deciders voted for Barack. We don‘t know how many young people voted for whomever. The fact is we don‘t know. And we will never know.
MATTHEWS: The Republican polling was absolutely dead on because there were no women in the race and there was no African-American in the race. It was, in other words, a typical election. Go ahead, Jennifer.
DONAHUE: You are on to something, and it is very, very valid to question it, Chris. I think what you are poking at here that we have to look at is why are polling organizations over-reaching in the way they reflect their results. I don‘t think there is any vast conspiracy about the exit poll surge or anything except that they looked really young to me.
What is going on with these exit poll folks? I was analyzing for WMUR, the ABC affiliate down the street last night. They were delaying the projected winner from what we saw on AP through what we could get through the exit polling. I was looking at where the college cities would go, because those were the bases for Barack Obama. That was who was supposed to turn out for him. Those kids are still on break, Chris, because the other states forced us to have our primary three days early. They‘re not back yet, and neither are the professors, and neither is the staff, and that affected the outcome for Barack Obama.
So what you have to look at is why did AP do that? Why aren‘t the polling mechanisms themselves being honest.
MATTHEWS: -- Barack might have won. We‘ll be right back with the round table with more of the politics—let‘s talk about the other side, where this discrepancy, the White man Republican party had no such problem, not that there‘s anything wrong with that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: We‘re back with the round table for the politics fix. We only have a minute and a half. I want to talk about the Republicans. John, this is so tough. Can you see, as the grand vizier here of the editorial page—can you see at least a couple front-runners down the road. Who is likely to project themselves into the lead in the next couple of weeks?
CAPEHART: Look, we saw Huckabee win Iowa, we saw McCain win New Hampshire. Maybe we‘ll see Romney win Michigan. Maybe we‘ll see McCain or Thompson win South Carolina. Then Rudy‘s grand strategy of winning Florida and have everyone focus on him, that might work. I don‘t know. Not even the Magic Eight Ball knows. That‘s what makes this so much fun.
SIMON: The winner is going to be the least unacceptable Republican in a field where all of them have major problems with the base vote of the Republican party.
MATTHEWS: Jennifer, does New Hampshire pick a winner?
DONAHUE: I think they believe in John McCain. I think he finally got the voters to trust him again. It took him until six weeks ago to close the deal in New Hampshire. But he took too more than his fair share, for Obama‘s sake. He took too many independents out of the race. And Hillary Clinton won with the base and not many independents left. So if other states do that, you know—look at the other states coming up. Some of those have indies in their races. I think those indies will want to play on the Democratic side, so you‘re going to continue to see a suppressed and low Republican base going one way or the other, but probably with fewer independents than here.
MATTHEWS: He got enough indies last night. That you very much Roger Simon, Jonathan Capehart and Jennifer Donahue. Join us again at 11:00 p.m. tonight for a special edition of HARDBALL. That‘s a live show. Right now, it‘s time for “TUCKER.”
