2:00 EDT 
Real Audio of Briefing
MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. We are very excited to have Mike Allen joining us today. He's the chief political correspondent with Politico. He is here to share some of his years of wisdom on the campaign trail. So what we'll do is we'll listen to Mike for a few minutes and then we'll have plenty of time to ask all your questions. And if you would when you're asking questions, remember to identify yourself and your organization.
Thanks so much for joining us. Mike.
MR. ALLEN: Good afternoon. Thank you all so much for taking a break from O.J. and from the fed. With all the news going on today, I thought that maybe Babs and I would be interviewing each other here. But it's super nice of you to come out and I want to thank the State Department and the Foreign Press Center for having us. This is a great organization, the center really cares about their reporters, so I thank Jim and Babs and all the people who work here. I've been reading these briefings online for years and years, because even though I'm not technically a foreign reporter, the briefings that they have here are so fascinating that U.S. reporters read them, too.
Now, just so I can get a sense of the audience, how many of you guys covered the 2004 election in the United States -- so maybe half. So we have some veterans here, so maybe I should sit down and let you guys brief. I'm going to save most of the time for questions. I'm just going to make a couple points as we start here.
And the first is that you and I are unbelievable fortunate, because we get to cover the best serial novella, soap opera in the world that has the amazing combination of, you know, normally in news, whether it's at Politico.com or at your publication or organization, you have to choose between, okay, today am I going to do something that's important or am I going to do something that's interesting. And with the election, we get to do both and you throw in the pack that this year the outcome is truly unknown. Anybody who guesses is doing just that. Because although you could look at polls and some if the economic statistics and think, okay, historically this is going to be a tough year for Republicans, and you remember that people aren't going to be voting for an R or a D. They're going to be voting for two people who are going to duke it out for six months or more, and that's a very different dynamic than just voting for a Republican or a Democrat in theory. So be sure to tell your audiences that there's no way to know what's going to happen because that's certainly true.
As you have probably read, this is the first time since 1952 that there's not a president or a vice president who's running. So usually even if they're not going to win, there's sort of an incumbent, like when Al Gore was running in 2000, he traveled around on Air Force Two and was basically the White House running for a third term. This year it is, in fact, a truly -- an open field.
The other curiosity here is that we don't have a national contest even though it's covered that way. At first we have these early states that you guys know about and many of you have visited. And those states have their own particular curiosities. For instance, some of you guys have the seen story this week about Senator John McCain of Arizona talking in South Carolina about how even though on his biography it says he's a Episcopal, in fact, he goes to another type of Protestant church -- Baptist. Well, that probably would have passed unnoticed if that had come up in Arizona or maybe even in New Hampshire where Senator McCain, because of his "Straight Talk Express" and his availability to the press, talks for hours and hours and hours of the time, and so nobody really knows all the things that he says, including his staff. But this got picked up on because South Carolina is such a big Baptist place and so they're very sensitive. So you have these unusual sensibilities in these early states.
Then add on to them, and this is great for you all because it makes for a very interesting coverage, you have these important states in the national election, where, because as you guys know, it's not a popular contest where the states count individually, a state can and certainly has made a difference. So you guys all know about Florida and Ohio, but I think a big story that you're going to see more and more about in coming months, are the sort of new swing states that reporters are going to pay attention to, the cactus states: Arizona, New Hampshire, Nevada and -- did I say New Hampshire -- Arizona and New Mexico and Colorado, down there that area. That's the fastest growing part of the country and it's one that people think that either the Republicans or the Democrats could pull-off, so you're going to see the candidate putting a lot of time in there. So that adds a little twist to the usual Florida, Ohio that so many of you are familiar with, whether you were following the elections from right here or from other countries where you usually work.
A quick point about the way that it's covered and then I can take your questions. Would you guys be interested in hearing, like a sentence about each candidate or do you want to just go right into questions? Would you be interested in a quick pro and con on the candidate? Yeah, just a quick -- for people who haven't been here, just to tell you about the candidates real quick and I'm going to do this alphabetically. And Ds come before R, so I'm going to do the Ds first.
And Senator Clinton is running on experience, pointing out to people the time that she spent in, literally, the Oval Office and in the West Wing when her husband was President. I think her experience there helps her alot in polls because people remember the Clintons, and especially voters who don't pay a lot of attention to politics to day to day because they're working and raising families, they remember the Clintons. And so I think that that helps her polls a lot.
Her drawback is the same thing -- that people are familiar with her. You hear a lot about how the polls show the country wants change. So can she be familiar and yet offer policies, programs, a personality that people would take as change. That's Senator Clinton's challenge.
Some of you know Senator John Edwards, who was a senator from North Carolina, and now he's out of office. He's been pushing a message of -- what we call here, popularism. That is the economy for working people, a sort of blue collar approach, the people who work in maybe factory jobs or the people who work in some of the medium-income jobs in the country. He's been talking about that all the time since the last election when he was John Kerry's vice president. And that's a great message for him because that's turning out to be a big issue here because of what's coming up with mortgages. So John Edwards's message looks better all the time. The challenge for him is to connect with people. He's a very successful, and therefore very wealthy, lawyer. Can he put on the blue jeans that he wears and go out and makes this pitch in a convincing way?
And finally, a lot of you know about Senator Obama, who draws amazing crowds. Even for an election that started early and that has (inaudible) like Senator Clinton, Senator Obama draws tens of thousands more people at events than you might think otherwise. But when you ask people about Senator Clinton -- oh, Senator Obama -- they say, is he ready? That's, of course, his challenge. And he has a good answer to that, which is that some of the people who were very, very ready, made decisions about the war that maybe in his view didn't bear out their experience. So he has an answer to it, but that's the challenge for him.
On the Republican side, the -- that would be Rudy Giuliani. A lot of you know they call him America's mayor. Mayor Giuliani, who's always had a reputation for being tough even before 9/11, go back -- I urge you if your writing about the race -- go back in one of the archive facilities and look at how Mayor Giuliani was covered when he was cleaning up Times Square, which now is a safe place to visit. Central Park is now a place where you can take kids. That's something physical that he can point to that he accomplished. That's a big advantage in any kind of election, whether it's in your countries or here.
The challenge for him -- some of his personal issues. Everybody knows that between him and his wife they have six marriages. There's been some stories about his kids supporting other candidates or not supporting him. That's tough because when Americans vote it's a very personal thing. We often say that Americans vote for the person that they'd want to have in their living room. We used to say we vote for the person we'd want to have a beer with. But now, with Mitt Romney, a Mormon, we can't say that. Maybe the person we'd want to have a lemonade with, right? And can he pass that test?
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, running an excellent physical campaign -- the Bush-Cheney political organization, a very powerful, successful organization at finding voters, turning them out, he's replicated their model most closely. And his -- part of getting elected is a job, putting together the mechanics of a campaign. Governor Romney has excelled at that. He has excellent organizations in the first two states of New Hampshire and Iowa. His challenge is, again, the genuineness. Is he too perfect? Is he too polished? And also as you know he's in the view of many people changed, or certainly his position, on some issues as he has evolved. And he will say to you, I've learned and I've grown. Why wouldn't you want a leader who would do that? But of course, that is going to be what he's going to have to overcome, that people really know what he's standing for and they know what they're getting when they vote for him.
The last candidate I'm going to mention very quickly, Fred Thompson, who you all know. Some of you know him from when he was a senator from Tennessee. All of you know him as an actor in movies and on Law and Order. I think -- in the view of a lot of people, he did the voters a favor by getting in late, right? His theory was, as Newt Gingrich once said, by the end of the summer people are going to be tired of these candidates. They're just going to want to vote them off the island.
And so Senator Thompson's idea was that he would come in as a fresh face. But does that mean that he skipped his spring training? Does that mean that he's rusty when the others have been out there working on their answers, working on their message? I think he starts with a great appeal that people will recognize his face, they'll listen to his voice -- he has a distinctive voice, he doesn't sound like the others.
Do people like the folksy thing? Sometimes in America people do, sometimes they don't. But that's -- he's going to have to convince people that he isn't trying to take a shortcut to the most important job in the world, that he's going to do the work that he needs to do.
I'm going to make a quick point about the information flow in this race, and then we'll do questions. Even since 2004, and roughly half of you covered that, the amount of data, information, blogs, video that are available about the race, have just exploded. You could sped all day doing nothing but reading very, very well-written and informative and insightful dispatches about this race. We only have one life to live. We only have a year and a half, or whatever it is, until the election. So I'm going to share with you the advice that I give new U.S. reporters when they come on the political beat. And that is, sure, keep up with the news. It's fun to read and you need to sort of know what's going on. But don't spend time reading blogs, reading news articles when you could be out talking to people, experiencing some -- if you have a choice between talking to someone who knows about politics, anything about politics, and reading what someone else has written, talk to them because you want to do something fresh. You want to bring -- every one of you has an advantage over the people in the U.S. press corps, which is that you bring a different perspective, a different set of experiences, a different audience to this.
And a lot of us -- if we'd stop and think, okay, how would I cover this race if I was from the organization, we might do a better job because we would bring a fresh eye. So there's going to be a handout, so don't write this down, but I'm going to mention real quick, when you want to spend a little time on the Web, I just want to give you a sense of one way to sort of managed the incredible information flow that there is and we'll also give to this the transcribers so they don't have write it down. Like in the morning, my news agency, it's called Politico.com. This is the first time we've covered a campaign. We started in January. Politico.com covers Congress, lobbying, 2008. We have reporters out with all the candidates. It's an easy, quick way to find out what's going on because we cover all the different elements of the race. We don't also have to cover sports and the fed and O.J. and we're able to concentrate on the race.
In the morning, I do something that's called Playbook. It's emailed out from 8 o'clock in the morning and it catches you up on a lot of the other reading that you could do here. It's basically a quick sense of what people are going to be talking about that day, what news is going to be driving that day. And on our website you can sign up and get it automatically.
If you guys are not turned on to RealClearPolitics.com, a fantastic site, is the best place to get polls. They also are very, very, very adept at finding non-obvious articles that will be interesting to you about that race. It's something -- the best political minds in America happen to -- in the morning. And also on Slate.com you can sign up for an email called Today's Paper that gives you a quick snap look at the LA Times and the New York Times, the Washington Post, other good papers. For reading the wires, in fact, the ones you might get into your own computer -- Breitbart.com. It's amazing. They subscribe to everything from press associations in Britain to Kyoto. It's all there and searchable and it's free. It's a very amazing resource. And the last thing I'm going to mention is a couple of campaign news blogs, and then on your handout there will also be some conservative and liberal ones, but I won't go through here now.
But as far as news that's breaking during the day on the campaign, people who spend all day just keeping up with what's happening. Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post writes a blog called the Fix. It's very easily Googleable. Everybody in politics reads it.
Similarly, Marc Ambinder, M-A-R-C, Ambinder, A-M-B-I-N-D-E-R, at the Atlantic.com, he writes extremely well-read blog and on Politico, there's a pair of blogs: one for Republicans, Jonathan Martin; one for the Democrats, Ben Smith. So you can tap into those and just get a feel for quickly what people are talking about.
So thank for you listening to my opening ideas and I'd love to take your questions. Ma'am?
QUESTION: Yes. My name is Joyce Karam. I'm with Al Hayat newspaper, Arabic daily. Actually I have two questions for you, and I read Politico every day.
MR. ALLEN: Thank you very much. Part of a good breakfast.
QUESTION: Do you think Iraq would be as big of an issue as it was in 2004, as we get closer, you know, next summer maybe?
MR. ALLEN: Uh-huh.
QUESTION: And my next question, I mean between Giuliani's family problems and McCain, his size was, you know, the serge and the strategy and Mitt Romney being a Mormon -- I mean which of these issue will most affect, you know, the Republican voter on the primaries?
MR. ALLEN: Well, the second one is a great question, and if you could ask it -- if you could answer it, you'd be a highly-paid political consultant. I just remind my Republican friends, someone has to win. And you point out the drawbacks that all of them have, nothing unique. That's one aspect of this race. The Democracts feel they can't lose, that whoever their nominee is, they're going to be strong. The Republicans are trying to search for who is going to be their strong nominee.
Joyce, to take your Iraq question, if Iraq improves dramatically, clear that would help Republicans would take it somewhat off the table as an issue, it's still going to be an essential drop -- background for the race. I think when the new president is inaugurated in June of 2009, it could be somewhere around a hundred-thousand troops still in Iraq if things are going well. And so it's still going to be a huge issue.
Just to talk real quickly about some of the -- about the issue that you brought back, it's going to be very important for you guys to remember, John McCain and the serge, that could help him in a Republican primary. Because remember there's 35 percent or whatever it is of people who still support George Bush, those are people who vote in a Republican primary, and they mostly support the President's policies and they'll appreciate somebody who's got the President's back.
It's clearly Iraq could be a harder issue for Senator McCain in a general election if he gets there, but for now don't assume Iraq is bad for McCain, which a lot of the coverage erroneously does. Mayor Giuliani -- we know about those issues.
I will mention with Mitt Romney, I'm not sure yet. I think some of the coverage assumes that his faith -- as you all know, he's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is known as the Mormons -- some people assume that it could -- that it's a hurdle for him in some southern states, especially the bigger hurdle. I'm not convinced that that's an issue that people are going to vote on in the end. I think there's a lot of people who -- because Christian faith is extremely important to them, and they will vote for somebody whose Christianity is extremely important to them, which is a key with Governor Romney.
But you're right. It is an "X" factor out there. And that reminds me of something I can say about Mayor Giuliani is if you go back, and it's funny to read the coverage from six months or a year ago which is a good exercise for you guys to see how quickly things change and also it shows you not to listen to people like me, because we're always wrong about what we say.
But Mayor Giuliani, I think because his views on social issues are different from many people in the Republican Party, people assume that would really hurt him. It doesn't seem to be people like either Mayor Giuliani's strength as a person, or they're voting on the security issue and those other issues aren't as important as they might be. It's still something that is going to come up again and again. But it's clear already that it's not a qualifying issue because if it were, Mayor Giuliani wouldn't have come as far as he has and be doing as well as he is.
Sir?
QUESTION: My name is Daniel Anyz with the Czech Daily paper, Financial News. Could you highlight some points which we shouldn't measure as reporters and during the primaries and as well the general election? Where should we be really? It's a long campaign, but I see five places to be.
MR. ALLEN: Oh, physical places to be?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MR. ALLEN: Oh. As you guys know, the -- going sort of order, the candidates -- a good way to look at it is where the candidate is spending time. So I would -- I think we can sort of predict it, but I would urge you to watch that as you go on. There's various places where you can see every day where the candidates are, including I think both ABC news and NBC news have places, all of the networks, I think, on their site where you can look at where the candidates are. So follow their lead because they know where the action is.
But for Democrats -- have an extra state in addition to the New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, where both Republicans and Democrats are going to be. A lot of Democrats will spend time in Nevada and you'll early on see the candidates start to pay attention to states that would make a difference down the road.
I think if it's possible that California will be a place that candidates spend more time and money than they normally would. You guys have probably seen the story that the calendar in Florida is a little up in the air, so Democrats may spend less time there.
But there's no secret places that there's action. The places are clear and the places also are going to be the places that you will have read about if you read accounts of some of the early elections. If you only have time to read one book, if you're covering the campaign, if you have only time for one thing, go back and pick up -- it could be from almost any year -- a campaign book about one of the previous cycles, because that will help you sort of get your -- even if you live here and know a lot about U.S. politics, it's the same advice that I would give to a U.S. reporter. That will sort of get your head in this game.
So my colleague at the Politico, Roger Simon, S-I-M-O-N, has written very well-received books about each of the campaigns. Bob Woodward wrote a book about one of President's Clinton's campaigns called The Choice, so there's a lot of good campaign books out there. I would just pick -- the classic remains the book, What it Takes, which I believe is about '88. Does that sound right? So dive into one of those and that will also give you a sense of play.
Sir?
QUESTION: Strader Payton, TV Tokyo. What advice could you give us if we, say, want to be on the ground in one of these early primary states and conduct some research or talk to some people with some of the key constituencies, you know, different demographic groups? How would you recommend going about building contacts before we get there?
MR. ALLEN: That is a good point. The state parties in each of the state capitals are very nice about helping with this. And just going on your website, you may figure this, but if you call -- and they're all listed -- but if you call the state Democratic Party or the state Republican Party in the capital of each state, ask for their press person, they will -- and say, "I need help finding a Baptist minister," or "I need help finding a union leader," I think that they will be happy to help you do that.
Also, just coverage in the local paper there would give you a place to start. And you're not going to want to quote the same union leader they do, but you could talk to their friends or their organization.
So in each of these cases where there are key constituencies or key politicians, they want to talk to you. They want to get their message out. So it's just a matter of making that connection, so local parties, state parties, also local officials. That might be more hit or miss, but they probably would help you.
When I go into a town, I just call the mayor and surprisingly often, they're helpful.
QUESTION: Misolsalv Kovalina, Czech Public Radio. In the final days of the campaign, basically Democrats or Republicans don't talk to foreign press. So we are --
MR. ALLEN: They don't talk to U.S. press either.
QUESTION: Yeah. So we realized it the last time. So what would be your advice for the last couple of months like --
MR. ALLEN: No, it's an excellent question that -- what I -- at first when I thought of it, I was joking, but it's literally true that in the closing months of the campaign, the candidates rarely do media availabilities or media interviews. And so the -- whether you're a U.S. reporter or covering for one of your organizations, the secret to bringing your insight, your experiences to bear on what's going on here, is not having one-on-one time with the candidate or riding in the their van. Like, that can be helpful and that can give a sense of the person.
But because U.S. candidates, just like the candidates in many of your countries, like to spend a lot of time out and about, you can get a very good sense of them. I just came from an event that Senator Obama did at a Washington hotel. It's on his public schedule. It was about his tax fairness campaign, and he went in and gave his speech and it was an overflow room. And he -- they had some trouble with their sound, and so he went by to say hi to them. I didn't stay because I wanted to come and say hi to you, but that was a chance to see one of the most important American candidates in a completely unscripted moment that was available to all press.
So all of these candidates have long schedules and a lot of their -- and it's rare that they don't have one event a day that isn't open to all press, including the foreign press. There are events that close, as you know, fundraisers and certain events. But we have a lot of opportunities to see our -- to see U.S. candidates publicly that don't depend on some sort of special cooperation.
Does that address your question, or -- well, ask me another question because I want to answer it.
QUESTION: It's the same experience what we had, so we have to (inaudible) around -- a lot of stories about minor races and about the major issues. But the problem is that our readers expect that we are the correspondents in the U.S., so we are in touch, you know.
MR. ALLEN: I hear your point, and it's something that U.S. reporters deal with as well. Well, why don't you have an interview, you know, with Senator Clinton? But would you will be able to go is give your editor -- your editors will be excited when they see your unique view of what this person is like through the many other resources that they make available and when you tell them the exciting and surprising things that are going on here.
Like I found over the years that editors -- editors' ideas are great, but if you have something better to give them, in most cases, your editors, producers, bosses will be happy to have that as opposed to one-on-one interview with Senator Clinton, which is probably not in the cards for any of us.
QUESTION: Sure.
QUESTION: Reymer Kluever from the Germany newspapers, Suddeutsche Zeitung. You mentioned the cactus states. What role could they play in the election?
MR. ALLEN: That's a great question. Those are the places where a Republican state could turn Democrat or a Democratic state could turn Republican. And I'm going to give you one more website to mention. It's not on your handout. It's a Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball. Have any of guys looked on that site? A lot of you have. Because if you hadn't, he's a professor at the University of Richmond. And it's Larry Sabato, "S" like Sam, "A," "B" like boy, "A," "T" like Tom, "O" -- Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball. And he puts analytical pieces up there, and they recently posted a piece that talked about which ten states Republicans had opportunities and which ten states Democrats had opportunities. And so the reason that I mentioned the cactus states, are those are places that either because of the way they've grown or the way their population have changed. They're one of the few places that the American political parties look at one or the other as an opportunity as far as a place where they really have to defend.
I think in this Crystal Ball article, it had maybe 20 states that might be in play which means there's 30 states that really aren't going to get a lot of love from these candidates especially when the primaries are over.
If you live in Nebraska, which is very dependably Republican or if you live in Vermont, which is very dependably Democrat, but you can expect to see a lot of candidates. So check out Sabato's Crystal Ball is a good place in general.
One more website I want to mention -- this isn't on the handout -- if you go to Gallup.com It posts a lot of very interesting analyses for their polls. If you read USA Today, you'll see the sort of top-line numbers. They do almost every day, or several times a week, there's something very fascinating up there. And if you read a lot of those articles, you would have a good sense of what's happening in America.
QUESTION: My name is Martin Kinglot from the German weekly, Die Zeit. All parties are local, so apart from the Iraq war, what do you suggest which local issues -- which domestic issues will rule the campaign? Will it be immigration or will it be healthcare?
MR. ALLEN: A very good question, Martin. An easy way to see the answer to this is to see what the candidates talk about because they have the most extensive research on this and if you go to their websites, every one of them has a section called issues. And what I've done and what I would suggest to you is to look at those and just look at the topics and see the ones that are in common. You'll see that both Republicans and Democrats, they're quite similar. Health care is an issue, especially on the Democratic side, where they think that -- or the candidates think that they could have an advantage that by having a persuasive program, it could help them get votes.
Similarly on the Republican side, you have the candidates there will be talking about, you know, how about their foreign policies. AARP, which used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons, I think the members are 50 and older -- 60 and older -- 50 and older. They did some very interesting polling recently that showed that economic issues which include savings, pensions, health care, are issues where a lot of people didn't know the candidates' positions and they were willing to change their mind based on that subject.
So I think this is something that you might see some stories about in coming days, that these are places that because of the mortgage crisis and other things there, as I suggested when discussing John Edwards, these are becoming bigger issues than you or I might have predicted six months or a year ago. And then after that the issues are pretty clear.
Now what you will have, and I'm not going to try and do this now because I don't want to leave out something important, but in the individual state, and the example I'm going to give in Nevada, they have a nuclear -- there's been an issue about where nuclear waste is going to be stored. And in the 2000-2004 campaign, the candidates each took positions about that. That's a question that candidates will be certainly be asked when they go into that state.
Similarly in Florida, the candidates are probably going to be asked what they would have done about the Terry Schiavo case, the person where they were trying to decide whether they would continue to maintain her as she was, in South Carolina a question about the Confederate flag from the Civil War. So there's issues like that and I'm not going to give you a catalog of them, but as you go into a state, you'll pick up some of them from the coverage.
But that's the questions to just ask. Like if you talk to someone from a local paper or talk to someone from a local party and say what are the hot-button issues here. And just give the example, what is this South Carolina flag issue in your state, and they'll know exactly what you're talking about.
QUESTION: Thank you. Andreas Ruesch with Neue Zurcher Zeitung. What is your prediction for when the primaries will actually start and --
MR. ALLEN: Oh, of course --
QUESTION: It will be earlier than in 2004.
MR. ALLEN: Yes.
QUESTION: But is it, for example, conceivable that there will be Republican primary in New Hampshire, is that correct, from Democratic one at the same caucus --
MR. ALLEN: Right. No, that's an excellent question, a very good question. People who know a lot more about this than I do, including Roger Simon of Politico, say that it's not going -- it will not be before January of 2008. You've seen stories that says that it might come into like December 15th or something. That's not going to occur. And I think if they try to do that, I think the candidates might -- because they would not participate in that.
So I think probably starting a few days after New Year's Day, in the first week or two of January, you might well have something that early. I do not know the answer to whether the New Hampshire primary might split. But I would encourage you to check with the party there, because they, especially if they were speaking to you off the record, I think that they would tell you the answer to that, or maybe a journalist in that state. There are just some people are expert on that and I'm not.
QUESTION: Ben Bangoura with Africa Guinea News. I would appreciate if you could keep me your -- about the current election system which include the primary compared to what used to be small potato system. And then can you elaborate on the (inaudible)?
MR. ALLEN: Of course.
QUESTION: Okay.
MR. ALLEN: Yes, sir. As -- and some of you have lived through this and covered it and experienced it, but in the U.S., we have this system where because of tradition, you know, a few states come before others. People have talked about how that isn't a rational system. The political scientists that I mentioned to you earlier, Larry Sabato, has projected this system, or has offered a system of regional primaries, where you would do the Northeast and then you would do the South, and then you would do the Mountain States. And that would be a way that ensured that every candidate spent some time there. Because right now candidates spend a year in Iowa, and then they rush to campaign in these much bigger states, but then have their elections a few years later -- a few weeks later.
So the question, I think you will hear a lot of about, is do these early states have too big a voice. The answer to that is that's just the way it is. The candidates are not going to support any departure from that system because these candidates -- these states are so important to them, they can't risk alienating them. And so they're not going to talk about any of their system. That's why, in fact, the Democratic candidates have said that because of Florida's differences with the national party, they aren't even going to campaign there. So the candidates are very like attuned to those states.
Now one difference this year, one theory that no one knows whether this theory is right or not, but I think a lot of the candidates are operating under the assumption, as you guys know the way the calendar's stacked, is you have South Carolina and you have New Hampshire and you have another state or two, and then you have this huge block of big states on February 5th, and people are calling it -- it used to be that if -- that if a group of like 12 states all had their primaries on the same day, you would call it Super Tuesday.
But this is so much bigger than that, both in number of states and their weight, that (inaudible) in the U.S. are struggling for a name for that. So you'll hear it called
Super Duper Tuesday. I called it Tsunami Tuesday, which has been picked up by some people. Some people call it Mongo Tuesday. I think there will be some -- one of those will come into the (inaudible) but it's not clear which one it is yet.
Now the theory that I think some of the campaigns may test is it possible to not do well in Iowa or New Hampshire but do very well in those big states on February 5th? Can you make up for a slow start by doing very well in the big states? I don't think anybody knows the answer to that. It's risky strategy because a candidate who wins Iowa and/or New Hampshire is going to get so much attention. That's how you get on the cover of Time magazine and the evening news and big coverage and excitement and a big donation.
And like that momentum, and this is again why I'd encourage you to look back at the coverage of 1988 or 1992 or another very -- or another competitive year. And you'll see that that coverage in that week or two is so overwhelming. There's already so much coverage in this race, right? Imagine how much there's going to be, you know, when the voting is on.
And so no candidate is going to say that they will depend on those states. They all say we're playing in Iowa and New Hampshire. But some of them clearly are looking at a plan B. Okay, if I don't do well in those early states, if I stumble is what the news stories will say, you know, can I make up for that?
Does that address what you were asking?
QUESTION: A follow-up on these to talk about the college system, what did the Founding Father have in mind when elaborating on that system, which is unique?
MR. ALLEN: Yes. The gentleman asked about the electoral college system, which is how different states have different weights when the votes are counted. So there is, as you guys know, the popular vote total -- what's the percentage of votes that you have, but more importantly how many electoral votes do I have. California has 47 because in each state, it's the number of House members plus the number of Senators.
And the Founding Fathers' theory about that was that they wanted every state in the Union to have a voice and to have some weight. And if you didn't have it set up that way, if you got all the votes in California, in New York and Florida, you would never have to campaign anywhere else.
So the theory of the electoral college system is it spreads out the voice of the country. It spreads out the weight. And you'll hear talk about this -- it's not going to change. We can talk another time about what the system would be to change it, and people can talk about pros and cons, but in the time that you and I are going to be covering this race, it's not going to change.
Yes, sir.
QUESTION: Thank you. Bjorn Malmquist from Icelandic Radio. I sometimes think that the voters who vote in the primaries are not representative of the whole population that votes in the general elections.
MR. ALLEN: Uh-huh.
QUESTION: So given that, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on, you know, the rhetorics -- I mean the rhetoric of the candidates now as opposed to when they enter the general election phase. Does it change -- I mean do they move to the middle? You know, what happens in that regard
MR. ALLEN: No, that's a very good question. And it is a fact that the people who participate in the early nominating contest, whether it's a caucus where you go to an event and sit in a room and do it, or whether it's a primary where you just go to a voting booth, people who vote in those early contests are people who are much more tuned in to issues and are much more likely to care about a single issue whether it's abortion or environment or the war on terror or whatever, to care about one particular issue and come out at a time when a lot of their neighbors aren't coming out.
So historically you've had candidates, who Democrats talk more to the liberal wing of their party. Republicans talk more to the conservative wing of their party. You see some of that, but less of that this year. The candidates are already thinking about, okay, what's my message going to be if I get to the -- if I'm lucky enough to get to the general election. And because of the rapid availability of video and all that, you can't say something in the primaries or even in one particular state that's not going to live with you in a general election. So what you say now will be used by your opponent in commercials in the general election. And so the candidates are extremely aware of that and that keeps them a little more toward the middle.
Now in the Democratic race, because Don Edwards took more liberal positions on some of these issues that seems to have pulled Senator Clinton maybe a little bit more in that direction than maybe her original game plan was. But you'll see the gravitational force of the general election keeping the candidates -- the candidates know that they can't afford to run as a liberal candidate now because they need to be a candidate for a fifty-fifty roughly nation.
QUESTION: Anne Davies from the Sydney Morning Herald. Hi. Will we know the outcome of the primaries after Super Tuesday or whatever it's now called? And what -- if we do, what's the purpose of the convention and will we will get out of that?
And the other question I wanted to ask you is at -- what's the latest point at which an independent could enter the race and is Michael Bloomberg now out of it as he seems to keep saying he is
MR. ALLEN: Candidates -- an independent candidate could get in the race very late next year, certainly after the nominating contest. There is an issue of when they would be in to qualify for federal funds and I'm not an authority on that. But I know that that window is sometime away. If Michael Bloomberg wanted to do it, he has some period of time where he still could do it. Political reporters do not expect that that will occur. But they expect that he would get in if he saw the opportunity to win, but that he would not get in just to -- in a way that would hurt one of the other candidates and you can debate who he would hurt.
I don't know if -- and some of you all have used the term "spoiler" and that just means that he doesn't win himself, but he keeps the Republican nominee or the Democratic nominee from getting in. And I think if you were making more moves to get in, he's already made a lot. As you all know, he registered as an independent. He has a website mikebloomberg.com, you can sign up to their e-mail. I get an e-mail, like almost every day from mikebloomberg.com, telling me about the great things that Mike Bloomberg is doing in New York. So certainly he's keeping that option open. But as you guys know, history means that's a very high hill to climb.
The question about when will it be over? I think I have not added up the numbers. I think -- some people think that the nominee could be clear or pretty clear after February 5th, but not necessarily. And I know the campaign is certainly are planning to continue that process for some time after that. I think -- reporters think it's possibly that it be known October 5th, but I think they don't assume that it will be.
Now, a very different, separate and good question is your question, okay, what's the convention for? As you all know, originally, it was the convention where the delegates came and cast their ballots and whoever was going to be the nominee in the party became clear. In every race for many decades, the nominee has been cleared before they went into convention. That's when they make it official. So the delegates that you picked up by winning the Iowa caucuses, the delegates that you pick up by winning the New Hampshire primary, we know what those numbers are. We can add them up ourselves, but totaling them up is actually done at the convention.
So since the result is known, as some of you know and many of you perhaps as many as half of you have covered conventions before that's the time that the parties use to get across a message, their image, just by tradition. There's a lot of news coverage of it. There are usually four days, Monday till Thursday and I believe that's the schedule again this year, and so the parties see that as a time to say to the American people, okay, this is what we stand for. Now, this is our candidate. This is who -- the candidates have an interest in -- the campaigns have an interest in keeping that coverage up and news organizations do as well, because it makes for great coverage and it's fascinating. It's a way to focus people on issues that you might otherwise overlook -- as the parties debate their platforms and whatever. But at least for some time, there's not been, as a lot of you know, any drama at the convention.
QUESTION: Hi. My name is Sonia Schott with Radio Valera, Venezuela. I don't know if you already answer this question. If it's related, what kind of difference do you see when you cover a primary or a general election, if you see any other aspects, besides the number of candidates -- if you see any really difference on that? Thank you.
MR. ALLEN: That's a good point. The two are converging a little bit this year because as you guys already know, you've had Rudy Giuliani taking shots at Hillary Clinton, which is the sort of thing you might see in a general election if one of them were the nominee. In the past, the candidates have sort of -- Republican shot at Republicans and Democrats shot at Democrats and then you wait until the fall and the Republicans choose Democrats. This year, part of the reason that they're attacking the other side is they want to show that they would win in a general election.
And this is where you hear discussion of the electability issue. That is Rudy Giuliani wants Republicans to be thinking about, okay, if it comes to a general election, if I'm running against a Democrat in California or New Jersey or New York, who would the party do better with? And just today, Mayor Giuliani put up a radio ad where he called himself "liberal," which is used synonymously, not always accurately. But obviously, he was referring to Democrats and you can parse the difference between liberals and progressive and Democrats and they are different. But he uses it as sort of a catchall term. And the worst nightmare was the term. He's the liberals' worst nightmare. And by that, he's clearly trying to get the idea across, you know, if I were on a ballot against Hillary Clinton, I would win. And to support that statement, his candidate appointed as -- his campaign point is to the polling on RealClearPolitics and they do averages and they showed that in three polls where Rudy Giuliani was put head-to-head against Hillary Clinton, he only lost by four points, whereas Thompson and Romney were not as close in this averaged polls. So that's the little preview that we're getting in the general election conversation and that's not as distinct as it might have been in other years.
And by the way, anybody, if I didn't answer your question, be sure to tell me, because I mean to so stop me, if I didn't answer your question.
QUESTION: Hi. Thanks. I'm Felicia Sonmez from the Asahi Shimbun.
MR. ALLEN: Hi, Felicia.
QUESTION: And I have a question about your perceptions of media coverage for this election. As you know, this election is very different from 2004 and 2000 and already so much attention has been regarded by all of the nominees -- all of the candidates. So I'd just like to know how do you perceive media coverage being different this year and if you have any comments towards foreign media especially?
MR. ALLEN: Yes. Felicia, that's a great point. And this is one place where you all have an advantage because you have some perspective. You're able to pull the camera lens back a little bit. The biggest change this year and a lot of you are experiencing is how fast things occur, whereas in the past candidates might have put out a policy or made a charge and it was in The New York Times the next day and the next guy answered.
Like, during one day, you can have a candidate saying one thing on TV and another person answering back at an event. And by nightfall, there's a radio ad and The New York Times writes a drama review of all that's occurred during the day. And it can -- you can lose your bearing, you can lose your focus. Most voters don't follow all that. And that's where you're able to offer something great to your audience because you're able to get some elevation and you're sort of able to see through all of the chaff. We cover the chaff, that's our job. But you have a real advantage by being able to see it further back.
I think news coverage this time is a little different, in part, because you have these celebrity candidates. People in your country, as I know, because I've talked to you guys about this, are very interested in Senator Clinton, Mayor Giuliani, Senator Obama,less so. But definitely there's a lot of interest in foreign media of at least one candidate on each side. And I think that's created -- only four years ago, certainly eight years ago, during the candidates' trips to New Hampshire, Iowa, they were much more leisurely affairs and you could follow them in a minivan and go in the stores with them or go into diners with them. This year there's so much press so early that already the press is, you know, behind the velvet rope and you don't have the opportunity certainly to walk up to a candidate the way you did in past years or to maybe watch them or at least follow them around in all their events. You have to be more selective this time and say, okay, where is the best place to follow them to see the candidate today, because I'm not going to be able to follow them to all their events.
On the question of media, was there anything else like more specific that you had on your mind?
QUESTION: Well, the foreign media in covering these elections?
MR. ALLEN: Oh, yeah, the foreign media's point of view is very important. I go on and look at foreign media frequently and now I know that some of your publications I can go on and look at yours. But America's role in the world is a huge issue in this election. And Senator Obama is making that one of his key points that because he's good with people, because he's charismatic, that because he was less involved in some of the things that have gone on in recent years and that's an advantage for him and that that will help him in relations with other countries. But it's something that's going to be very interesting for U.S. reporters and I think you're going to see a lot of stories specifically on that topic is how the candidates are perceived abroad. So a good, like, strain of coverage for you guys is how are they trying to shape their image for abroad? What are they telling American audiences about either how they're viewed abroad now or how they would be viewed abroad, how they would handle relations with other countries and it's a good specific type of coverage that will be actually interesting to your people and the U.S. reporters will be trying to do the same thing, just looking in through the other end of the telescope.
Okay. Ma'am.
QUESTION: Mio Yamada, NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Just a question about, there has been so may televised debates so far. There's, you know, a good opportunity for the candidates to differentiate themselves from their rivals. But there's also been criticism that the lower-tiered candidates take away airtime from the top three candidates. And when do you expect the lower-tiered type candidates to start dropping out? Is McCain still considered a major player since he's lost his -- one of his (inaudible)?
MR. ALLEN: Yes. Senator McCain. He is, as you saw, he's out this week. What used to be called the Straight Talk Express now he has the No Surrender Express, and that obviously refers both to Iraq and to his campaign. But both because of who he is, like his potential, the unsettled nature of the Republicans feel Senator McCain may not get as much coverage that he used to, but he's certainly -- he'll still get a lot of coverage. He was on World News Tonight the other night.
When there'll be fewer candidates in debate -- very good question. A lot of these candidates don't really have an incentive to drop out, right, because as along as they're in they can keep raising money and they get more attention. So like, Jim Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia, he wants to run for another office. And so he didn't want to stay around and really get hammered, so he could see that he was not going to raise the amount of money he needed and so he got out early. But a number of the candidates on both sides have specific reasons to be in. These aren't set in stone. The primaries have vulnerabilities that we've talked about and so that gives the other guys hope and I think they'll be in for a while. Politico, which sponsored the debate at the Reagan Library early in the race, has another one coming in January. And the invitation the Reagan Library has issued to that is that it will be frontrunners, but they haven't defined what frontrunners mean and so you'll see a lot of debate about that.
And I can take your question now.
QUESTION: Thanks. I'm Wei Wang from Xin Hua News Agency from China. As the foreign media we really care about the foreign policies of the candidates and since they now focus on the domestic affairs, so when do you think -- which phase or what time they are going to speak out their foreign policies? And since the 2008 elections is dominated by Iraqi war and how do you think the foreign policies about relations between America and China and Japan and Europe, Russia can make a difference in these elections? Thank you.
MR. ALLEN: Yes. I think that's a great question. Foreign policy is being covered as one track or one channel of what the candidates are talking about. Like, I think all of them on both sides have talked about Iraq or they may be talking in detail about their approach to foreign policy that some of them have. I think all of them will. And so I think the candidates tend to do -- they do a week where they focus on healthcare and then they do a week where they focus on foreign policy and they sort of -- there's a cumulative effect of those that in their later speeches then they're able to refer back to healthcare or foreign policy. And so like, any given day, they may not be giving a big speech about one of them, but they probably have or they probably will over time, for instance. Today Mitt Romney put out a 67-page book of his -- all his policy ideas that he's put out, covering various topics.
And your last question was about with Iraq dominating it, how do other issues play in? The candidates -- one of the like central themes of this campaign is that the candidates try to convince voters that they would have the judgment, that they would have the approach to best deal with these issues. There have been times in American history where the economy was the biggest issue and we talked about how that's coming up, it was a little sleeper but it's coming back. But with 100,000 troops in Iraq, even if things get fantastically better in Iraq, foreign policy is going to dominate a lot of the conversation and it may even be (inaudible).
You guys were so nice to listen to me. I enjoyed your questions very much. I'm going to stay around and I look forward to getting to know you and reading your publications. Enjoy the election.
