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Newsmakers

Moderator: Connie Doebele

January 6, 2008

3:00 p.m. ET

Female: This is Newsmakers, and on your screen is former Senator David Boren of Oklahoma. And on Monday, he will be co-hosting a meeting in Norman, Oklahoma that some say could open the door for an independent to run for president of the United States.

Joining us to question Senator Boren on Newsmakers this week, Martin Kady of The Politico, and Bob Cusack, the Managing Editor of The Hill. Mr. Kady, we begin with you.

Martin Kady: Senator, what do you think about the results of the Iowa caucuses first off? I mean, Obama and Huckabee are candidates of change, candidates who would challenge the status quo. Does that make you more hopeful in terms of the tone of your bipartisan forum, you know, breaking through the divisiveness and the polarization that you guys are trying to overcome by having this bipartisan forum?

David Boren: Well, obviously without taking the side of any individual candidate, because that’s not our purpose, it does give me hope in the sense that I think that we had a lot of independents who came into the caucuses this year. We had a lot of young people who came into the caucuses, and these are groups that especially don't want to see politics as usual.

They do want to see change. They’re sick and tired of “Let’s punch the emotional hot buttons and score political points and divide the country,” and our message is we need to do just the opposite. We need to stop the polarization and unite so we can deal with the real problem. So I think – I think the people were trying to express that somehow in the Iowa caucuses.

Bob Cusack: Do you think, Senator, though, that that hurts your initiative because the voters have spoken, that they voted for Senator Obama and Governor Huckabee, who have both stressed change? So the voters have spoken and that may hurt your initiative?

David Boren: Well, really, our initiative is not to try to launch an independent movement. I think that, you know, of course, since Mayor Bloomberg is attending, and he’s certainly an outstanding individual, that’s caused a lot of speculation that our purpose is really to launch an independent movement. That’s not our main purpose. That’s not our first choice.

Our first choice is to see the candidates of the existing two parties step up and present some specific ideas. I think we’ve heard some good general thrust here in the closing days of the Iowa campaign and the beginnings of the New Hampshire campaign, but we haven’t heard specifics yet.

Will the – will the candidates of the major parties, for example, truly appoint a bipartisan candidate, have an American administration with talented people without regard to party in both in key positions and in their administration? Will they work to create working groups that can offset the influence of the (narrow) party caucuses to reach bipartisan consensus?

So I think the next step, our hope is to hear the candidates talk specifically about their strategies for promoting a bipartisan consensus. That’s our first choice.

I mean, personally, I like our two-party system. It works – it has worked most of our history. I believe in it. I would far rather see our two parties work than to have to have an independent movement. But I think the possibility of an independent movement helps move that process forward, because if the two parties don't rise to the occasion, then we do need a temporary timeout, not a three-party system, but a temporary timeout as a shock therapy to the two-party system.

Martin Kady: But at the same time, third parties have rarely played a significant role in, you know, winning votes in the electoral college. They’ve really been spoilers, you know, taking away from one candidate or the other, whether it’s Ralph Nader or Ross Perot.

Have you spoken to Bloomberg about this? I mean, so much of the attention that your confidence is going to be on Bloomberg, I mean, what role do you think he would play should he decide to run?

David Boren: Well, I think he certainly wouldn’t run to be a spoiler. I think he would only run if he felt that, really, with the two ultimate choices of the two parties we were back in the polarization, politics.

You know, when you look at it, Perot received 19 percent of the vote. And that was at a period of time in which frustrations were much less than they are today with the two parties, and I think that’s really a base. I think a person who was well-financed who did not have to go to the special interest groups, for example, for support, would be very strong. But it depends on what the two parties do.

And as I say, my first choice is to see the two parties respond. And I hope they will. I hope what we’ll see in the – in the days ahead is the candidates of both of the parties beginning to talk about specifics for bipartisan strategies for getting bipartisan consensus.

You know, you go back, people come up to me on the street and they’re worried. And part of what caused me to pick up the phone and call Senator Nunn and see if we could bring a group of people together who would work together historically and who believe in bipartisanship was a poling data that indicated, I think it was the Pew and Zogby polls, that for the first time in memory, the American people, a majority, are pessimistic about our future. They believe our greatest days are behind us. That is a – that’s a terrible thing.

The health of the society is measured by how we feel about the prospects for our future. And I think – I think under that – underlying that feeling – that pessimism, that cynicism – is really anger over what people see as continued party bickering instead of pulling us together, uniting us to solve the problems.

Bob Cusack: Senator, as far as you said that an independent bid is not your first choice, a two-part question here. Will you seek to meet with the candidates on both sides of the aisle to talk about these issues about the bipartisan cabinet?

And number two, you’ve been around a while, an accomplished politician, you know how Washington works. You say an independent bid is not your first choice. But what are the chances of an independent bid? Are we talking 30 percent? Are we talking 40 percent? Or is it more like 5?

David Boren: Oh, I think it’s very hard to say. I would say it’s not as negligible as 5 percent, but I wouldn’t say it’s as high as 50 percent. But I think it’s out there.

And you know, sometimes the possibility of that happening helps cause the two-party system to operate in a different way. I can't help but believe that a lot of the candidates in this election would like to be talking about the real issues that are going to shape our future.

Why is our standing in the world at an all-time low? Why has approval for this country dropped by three – 400 percent in just the last six years? What in the world are we going to do to get some budgetary discipline back, reform the entitlement system that threatens to consume all of our tax revenues within the next two decades, and stop the selling off of all the assets of this country to those in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere?

People are really worried, and they know that as long as we’re divided so sharply, one party is automatically going to criticize the proposed solution of the other, that nothing will ever happen.

I think about World War II afterwards the Marshall Plan. Can you imagine if we had had the partisan polarization then that we have now that we could have ever taxed ourselves to rebuild the countries that have just been fighting against us? No, it took a Vandenberg, a Republican, and it took a Truman and a Marshall Democrat working together.

And historically, we’ve done that. We’ve been able to do it at critical moments. This is a critical moment.

Our strength’s eroding. People are frightened. People are pessimistic about our future.

And so, that’s a – I don’t think these are normal times. I don’t think these are the kinds of times that would make it impossible for an independent movement to succeed.

Bob Cusack: But will you look to meet with the candidates before you make that final decision on an independent bid?

David Boren: Oh, absolutely. And I want to point out, I certainly wouldn’t be the one making that decision. I think that’ll be made by other people and a lot of other people.

But what we hope to do is issue an appeal at the end of our meetings, like Monday morning in a press conference, an appeal to the candidates – a bipartisan appeal. And then it’ll be up to all of us, the citizens. The media is going to play an important role tying the candidates down.

What are your specifics for a bipartisan strategy? Are you going to set up bipartisan working groups to counterbalance the party caucuses? Are you going to appoint a bipartisan candidate? What are you going to do? What are you going to do on some of these important issues? You know, what’s your – what’s your plan for entitlement reform?

You know, it’s not only citizens, it’s also the media. All of us, I think, have a responsibility to really cause the candidates to address these issues. And I think that maybe many of the candidates have been wanting to have a catalyst that would push them in those directions and instead of keeping them on what I would call the more hot-button divisive issues, the social questions and others.

They’re not irrelevant, and I'm not saying they shouldn’t be addressed, but not to the exclusion of the things that are really going to determine what kind of country our children are going to inherit.

Female: Senator Boren, before we go any further, could you walk through the Monday meeting? Tell us what it’s going to look like or what people will see.

David Boren: Well, we’ll actually start gathering on Sunday evening in a private setting; in fact, in our home on the University of Oklahoma campus. We’ll all be coming in that evening. We’ll have dinner together.

We’re going to listen to – David Abshire, for example, is in our group, who heads the center for the study of the presidency – an analysis of the kinds of qualities that are needed, the issues that the next president must face. And we’ll also have before us a draft that Senator Nunn and I have put together – a draft of a joint statement that we hope we can fine-tune in the course of our meetings and issue at the press conference at 11 o’clock on Monday morning an appeal to the candidates – an appeal to all of us as Americans to really refocus this presidential contest and make it a contest that will end up with a bipartisan ability to govern instead of seeing a country more divided.

You know, we’ve ended up so many of our recent presidential elections with a country more divided than when we began, and we hope we can help to refocus the campaign so we’ll end up with an ability to become more unified. So that’s how it will play out.

We’ve been exchanging ideas by e-mail, all the participants. And now we’re going to sit down together and see if we can reach an appeal, a consensus on a statement ourselves.

Bob Cusack: Well, Senator, can you give us maybe a sneak preview of some of the specific principles or ideas we might see in this joint statement? I mean, are you going to focus on issues or more qualities that you'd like to see in a political debate?

David Boren: No, we’re going to focus on issues and of course beginning with “What’s your strategy?” not just a general statement of “I believe in bipartisanship. I believe in bringing us together,” but “How are you going to do it? Are you really going to form a unity cabinet like the British form, for example during World War II, when then had all the parties very strongly represented not just in a token way but in a real unified way? Are you – how are you going to set up a structure that will hammer out a bipartisan consensus?”

I've always believed you should put working groups together, that Republican and Democratic leaders are the key committees. Let’s take national security. Senator Nunn chaired Armed Services when I was chairing Intelligence. Put those groups together, Democratic and Republican leaders are the key committees, and the President really sit down with them.

And the leaders of the administration really sit down and have an executive congressional bipartisan working group so that then you come out with your proposals. You find consensus first instead of just letting the two-party caucuses come out with two diametrically opposing points of view.

But then we’re going to say, “OK, what’s your plan for entitlement reform to bring about budgetary constraint? What is your plan to reengage with the rest of the world? How do we dust off diplomacy and learn how to use it again?”

I was just shocked the other day when I read a poll. I can't remember whether it was Pew or Zogby that indicated that in Canada, Britain, France and Germany, close friends of the United States, our neighboring country, that the public at large, for example, had a more positive view of the Russian government and its role in the world than they did of the American. I'm talking about the general public. That has to change.

What are the strategies that the candidates have for doing that? What are they going to do about energy independence not 20 years from now but with a Manhattan-like project that’ll get it sooner? So, I would say, yes, it’s going to be issue-focused.

Bob Cusack: Senator, what is – regardless of what you come up with at this meeting, it’s going to be incumbent on the president, but also congress. Are you going to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid about changing the tone in Washington? What is the role of Capitol Hill in this whole initiative?

David Boren: Well, the role of Capitol Hill of course is vitally important, and we’re not a, you know, a self-appointed group of some kind that feels we have the right to go out and act on behalf of the American people. We’re just trying to express what we think the American people are feeling.

The people have come up to me on the sidewalk and say, “Whatever happened to statesmanship? Is it just gone? Is it forever something of the past?” But this is a group, and many members of congress, of course, are in this group, former members of congress. These are people who did reach across the aisle.

Many of those that are meeting together have worked together on an ongoing basis for years when we were in congress, and I don’t think we’re going around as a committee to sit down and make demands upon the leaders in congress, for example, or even on the presidential candidates. We hope this is really an appeal to the citizens of the country.

And if bipartisanship is espoused as a really important goal, and if not only citizens but the media start to ask the candidates, “What’s your strategy? How are you going to implement this? What are you really going to do to change things?” I think that, obviously, the congressional leaders will be responding to this as well.

And people have said to me, “Do you think people will do this while they’re running for their party’s nomination?” Yes, I do, because all you need to do is look at the impact that the independents and the younger people coming into the caucuses that Iowa had. I think they’re trying to send a message, and I – there are a lot of people who are Democrats and a lot of people who are Republicans proud of their party affiliation, but they want to see bipartisanship first. They want to put the country first.

And so, I think – Sam Rayburn used to say years and years ago, “To be a good Democrat, you have to first be a good American.” And I think there are a lot of people who feel that way. I think it’s not only right, I think it’s good politics right now.

Martin Kady: Senators covering Capitol Hill, so much of the focus is on winning legislative battles, you know, and you look at who the chairman are and how they come from such opposite sides. We barely saw any conference committees this year with both sides together in a room and hash things out. I mean, how can you expect to change the culture of congress here when there’s so much focus on winning as opposed to actually governing their way through legislation?

David Boren: Well, it’s not going to be easy, and certainly, I'm not any Pollyanna about that. I realize how difficult it was, and frankly, it’s one of the reasons I decided to come home and become the president of the University of Oklahoma, where I felt I could have an impact on the next generation.

Frustration with what I saw is increasing partisanship, as you described it, and not getting together with the leaders of both parties and committees, not working in conference committees like we’re used to. But I think that can be done, and it did exist for many years.

We’ve always had our party differences, but you think about Lyndon Johnson and Everett Dirksen, you think about the way they handled out – hammered out civil rights legislation, for example. They’d fight on the floor of the senate, go off have dinner together, a glass of wine, and before you know it, there was a consensus worked out if the nation really needed a consensus. So, we’ve proven we can do it.

And I think the main thing is that those in political leadership in the congress and the executive branch need to really hear a message strongly from the American people about it. It needs to be really spelled out and there need – there needs to be participation by the media as well, so citizens can hold those accountable who refuse to reach bipartisan compromise.

Bob Cusack: Senator, what is going to be this initiative’s role throughout 2008 and into 2009? In 2000, President Bush won the White House with the promise of being a uniter, not a divider, and he acknowledged that he did not succeed in that. So campaign promises are campaign promises. How will you keep their feet to the fire?

David Boren: Like we’ll have to do that. And, you know, that’s been frankly a big disappointment about it.

I think one of the reasons why President Bush received the votes that he did was that people looked at what he did in Texas, which was very different than what he’s done as president, where he really did have a much more bipartisan approach. The Democratic lieutenant governor was one of his strong supporters, and then it didn’t continue because I think he unfortunately started to listen to those that said, “Build up your own base, (play the more) extreme supporters you have, energize them, that’s the way to win politically,” and unfortunately, that happened. That’s the direction the administration went.

So I think it’s – but it can happen. And I really think that a lot of his appeal initially, when he was running for president, was his pledge to be bipartisan.

So it’s not – the job’s not over when the election’s over. I just hope that this time we can have the kind of campaign that will allow someone to govern in a bipartisan fashion, that with every passing presidential campaign it seems that we end it even more divided, more polarized, red and blue and all the rest of it, that we play up all of our divisions and the social issues and other issues get emphasized, and we don’t spend enough time really thinking about what we could unite about. So it has to be continuing.

And it can't just be us. It can't be some 16 people who are coming out here, half Democrats and half Republicans, to meet in Oklahoma. But I think what our voice does show – and from our own personal histories, many of these people having worked together – I think it shows it can happen and in fact, it did happen, and the culture did exist in our own country, and it wasn’t 100 years ago or 50 years ago.

Sam Nunn, when he chaired Armed Services and I chaired Intelligence, used to go down to the White House, talked to Ronald Reagan, talked to General Powell, who was his national security adviser; talked to Bush Sr. when he was president. And we even wrote documents, letters back and forth that the president could use in negotiations with the Soviets in arms control.

We worked hand and glove. We worked on a national strategy, and we sought work for many, many years during the Cold War, the basics. Yes, there were times it broke down.

There were times when there were fights, but the basics of the Marshall Plan, containment, NATO and forming real alliances and partnerships so we didn’t have to bear all the burden ourselves. Those things happen. Those things work, and history proves that they can work, and we just need to create the movement to do it again.

(Martin Kady): I'd like to get back to the Bloomberg phenomena again because that is going to be a dominant theme at your conference on Monday, and he would naturally have to pull from one base or another. He’s got a conservative record on fiscal management in New York City, but on social issues almost across the board he’s fairly liberal. He’s in line with mainstream Democrats, if not a more liberal Democrat.

What base do you think he would pull from? Would he hurt the Democrats more? Would he – would he take any Republican votes? Could he win seriously red states?

David Boren: Well, I think that’s hard to say right now. And, you know, again, I go back to what I said a while ago, that’s not our first choice. If you have to have a timeout from the two-party system, I'd hate to ever have a third party or a three-party system, maybe just a temporary timeout, a shock therapy to the two parties that might be necessary. I hope it won't be.

I truly think he hopes it won't be necessary. But I don’t think he’d run if he thought he was just going to be a spoiler, take more votes away from one party or another. I don’t think he would run if this campaign works as it should and if the nominees of the parties seem ready to govern in a bipartisan fashion.

But I think it’s – I think that, undoubtedly, he would form a ticket, a sort of fusion ticket. He’s a former, most immediately, a Republican office holder, maybe a conservative southern Democrat, and they like Senator Nunn, for example, who’s my co-host in this conference who’s been a conservative on social issues, for example. Again, that would show you don’t have to agree two people running together don’t have to have identical positions. They’re balanced.

That’s what we’re trying to do, create a consensus, unified government where people learn how to reach consensus, make compromises with each other and work together. I would – I would expect that if you were going to run at all, you would form that kind of ticket that would have a broad appeal.

And so I think it’d be very, very difficult as we sit here today. One, it’s far less than 50/50 chance I would say. I have no idea what the chances are that that would ever happen that there will be such a candidacy. But if there did – if it did develop, I think it’s impossible to say today which party it would draw more votes from.

And I don’t think that the mayor would ever run unless he thought he could really win, and I don’t think he would run unless he thought it was really necessary, so I take him at his word that he’s happy where he is.

But the very possibility of him running and not having to raise money, not having to be obligated to special interest groups, being able to tell it like he sees it and perhaps have a running mate that balances him on social issues and geographically, just that possibility, I think, helps make the two parties more honest and perhaps more ready to embrace the kind of bipartisan unity the country needs.

Bob Cusack: Senator, the mayor has been a bit coy on whether he is going to launch a bid. Do you think that he is the only one with his wealth that could actually be viable, if he decided to go that route and launch an independent bid, that he will be the only one, or perhaps, could he maybe bankroll somebody else?

David Boren: Well, you know, bankrolling someone else is pretty difficult in the sense that you’re very limited in terms of what kind of contributions you can receive and what volume of contributions from an outside source. You have the right to spend your own funds.

But, for example, if he decided not to run, it still doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have a Sam Nunn or Chuck Hagel or someone else really jump into this thing. Because as we saw in this campaign, and beginning of course last time was the Howard Dean phenomenon with the Internet and the ways of reaching people directly, if the timing were really right for something this to happen – like this to happen. And we don’t know.

The next two months, I think, will really tell us what happens on the campaign trail. It will tell us whether we’re in a polarized situation that people are saying, “Oh, we’re going to have more of the same unless we have another choice.” We don’t know that yet.

The two parties may rise to the occasion, and the two nominees may rise to the occasion.

But I think, still, you would have the possibility to do it pretty quickly because the law says that you start the process of getting on the ballot close to 900,000 signatures in all 50 states put together. It starts, I believe, in Texas in early March. It goes on for three or four months. You would have to raise money very, very quickly. But with the ability through the Internet and otherwise – other ways, I think it still could be done even if Bloomberg decided not to be a candidate.

Female: Gentlemen, we have time for one more quick question from either of you.

(Bob Cusack): Senator, you’re a Democrat, right?

David Boren: Yes.

(Bob Cusack): I mean, is there a Democrat in this race who could cross that red/blue divide and win a state like Oklahoma? Could Hillary Clinton win Oklahoma? Could Barack Obama win Oklahoma in the presidential race? Or is that an impossibility?

David Boren: No, I don’t think it’s an impossibility. I think it really depends. I think it depends on what we hear from them, and not just in generalities, but what we hear from them specifically on the issues and in terms of their determination to have an American administration as opposed to just a purely Democratic administration or Republican administration.

People in a state like my home state are independent-thinking and they want to put the country first, and many of them are bipartisan. In the most recent years, our state has tended to vote Republican, but many of those people voting Republican are former Democrats. And so I think they’re going to weigh the issues. I'd say, right now, too early to say.

I'm going to be watching. I hope all citizens are going to be watching the candidates and their answers to these challenges that we’re bringing forth, and I hope the media, because after all, most of us only learn from what we see and what we hear and what we read brought to us through the media. You really are our channel of education, and this is a challenge, I think, also quite honestly, for the media to make sure that we don’t just focus on shallow things, but on the questions and the issues that really matter. And the media can do an awful lot to hold the candidate’s feet to the fire and help educate us citizens so that we can respond.

Female: Senator, we’re almost out of time. One last question. You said that on Sunday night, you are going to have a private gathering. I presume that means no cameras, no reporters allowed.

David Boren: No, that’s right, just going to be the 16 of us and the same over breakfast the next morning. Then, we’re going over to the – an auditorium on the campus. We’ll have an open press conference. It’ll also be open to the public to attend and we’ll then, all of us, be talking about the things that we agree about, issuing this bipartisan appeal and sharing it with American people.

Female: Senator David Boren was United States senator from Oklahoma from 1979 to ’94, and prior that, from ’74 to ’78, the governor of Oklahoma.

Thank you very much for joining us today from Norman.

David Boren: Thank you very much.

Female: Appreciate it very much.

And back to you, gentlemen, your reaction to what you heard.

Bob Cusack: I thought it was very interesting when he put the numbers of the chances, and that’s what we’re interested in mostly, whether Bloomberg will launch a bid not as low as 5 percent but less than 50 percent, and then later he said far less than 50 percent. But that’s what’s got us intrigued. They played a good media PR game here, and he continued that in this interview, I think.

Female: What kind of PR game did you – have you all seen coming out of this?

Martin Kady: Well, you know, they want the maximum amount of exposure for this event and they’re getting it with Bloomberg, yet the Bloomberg phenomena has a potential to overrun the sort of nice bipartisan unity, blue sky stuff that they’re promoting, and then there’s going to be a lot of media there camping out, you know.

Female: So it might come back to be of a detriment to them?

Martin Kady: Well, I mean, it’ll draw attention to the message, but everyone will leave saying, “Is Bloomberg in or out?” and it’s going to be hard to, you know, get this bipartisan unity message to resonate. We’re going to be, you know – the next day, we’re going to be back on the campaign trail saying, you know, “With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton going at each other, what’s ((inaudible)) going to do back to the horserace but (to the attack ads)?” I mean, as a member of the media, I'm still skeptical about whether this sort of feel-good stuff is going to resonate throughout this campaign.

Female: You’re going to go out for this meeting. You’ll be in Norman, Oklahoma.

Martin Kady: Yes, I'm (going to go to) Oklahoma.

Female: What are you going to be looking for?

Martin Kady: Well, I'm going to be looking for Mike Bloomberg first to see if he’ll talk to us. He told Ryan Seacrest on New Year’s Eve that he’s not running. Then, he told Meredith Vieira on the Today’s show he’s not running, but you know, we can keep asking the questions and keep speculating about what impact he’d have.

I mean, like I said earlier, he’s got a fairly liberal record in New York City on social issues. It’s hard to imagine mainstream Republican voters turning around and, you know, in sync.

Well, I'm going to vote for the guy who’s pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, sue the gunmakers, had a tax increase in New York City. So I think that at first blush, Bloomberg could draw some disaffected Democrats.

Female: Bob Cusack, you questioned the senator about the whole issue of Capitol Hill and Capitol Hill’s reaction on whether he is talking to people on Capitol Hill. What do you think of his response?

Bob Cusack: It’s very hard to actually carry out bipartisanship. Democratic leaders on a campaign trail in 2006 promised that the congress would be more bipartisan, but it was really as partisan as ever. And I think (that’s the real), and he acknowledged that today.

He acknowledged it’s so difficult to change the culture on Capitol Hill, where campaigns never stop. So that’s going to be their biggest challenge. I think they can make more headway with the candidates – presidential candidates than they can with lawmakers.

Martin Kady: I mean, they have to change the culture of Capitol Hill if they’re going to, you know, get this bipartisan unity cooperation thing going again. I mean, (I’ve said) we haven’t seen conference committees. That’s sort of one of those fundamental things you learn about how a bill becomes a law while they get together in a room and the House and Senate conferees work out their differences.

They don't even have conference committees hardly at all anymore. Both sides battle it up behind the scenes and then one side tries to – the Democrats at this point tries to shove it through the House and then, you know, break a filibuster in the Senate, and often, they fail to break any of the filibusters, so gridlock is (reigning free) down at Capitol Hill.

Bob Cusack: There’s another element, that argument of “What’s wrong with partisanship? We’ve had it since the founding fathers. It’s been around. That legislation doesn’t get through the senate because it’s not bipartisan.” So some people, I don’t think that partisanship is such a bad thing after all.

Female: Did either of you take anything away from his – from him talking about the fact that some of this will be closed, that basically the dinner will be closed, their breakfast will be closed, and then they’re going to come out and talk?

(Bob Cusack): I think it is interesting. I mean, it’s – of course, as a representative of the media, we like to see everything transparent and out in the open.

But if they’re going to have a strategy – and these guys are smart. I mean, they have put this meeting between Iowa and New Hampshire, and they’re getting a lot of media attention. That’s smart. I do think that they do need to talk privately and (what) is interesting ...

Female: And how specific do you think this joint statement is going to be?

Martin Kady: They’re not going to take stands on controversial issues. They’re not going to say, “Here’s what we think should happen on Iraq, immigration, and national health care.” Don’t expect that, even though those are the top three issues that are being talked about on the campaign trail.

They’ll say, “You need to tackle entitlements.” It’s kind of, you know, generic, vague thing. They’ll say, “You need to be bipartisan. We’d like to see a bipartisan candidate.”

I don’t expect either the candidates in any – on either side of the presidential campaign to pick up their statement and run with it and start talking about it in New Hampshire. It’ll be a nice chin-scratching exercise that will make them feel good about pushing this. But will it lead to any significant change in the campaign trail? I'm skeptical.

Bob Cusack: I think they may have to put some meat on the bones for this statement because that’s what people are going to be looking for – the media, the public – what are you going to say that’s not generic? And if it’s some generic, and Martin said, just (pursue) entitlement reforms and they don’t have anything original or unique in it, I think this whole process could be subject to mockery.

Female: You’ve mentioned the fact that they’re a bit – they would push the possibility of a bipartisan cabinet, (about) something you could take to a candidate – to a presidential candidate.

Martin Kady: Yes, though it depends on what bipartisan is. I (remember) Norman Mineta was part of the “bipartisan cabinet” for President Bush’s first term. So are we talking half and half? Will the candidates actually commit to that? Or will they commit to (share)? (We’ll) do a bipartisan one and then, well, maybe pick kind of a token Republican, a token Democrat?

Female: Thank you both for joining us today. Bob Cusack is with The Hill newspaper. He’s managing editor. Martin Kady is a reporter for The Politico.

(Martin Kady): Thank you.

END