3:00 P.M., EST
MODERATOR: All right. Welcome to the Foreign Press Center. This afternoon, we are very pleased to have with us Mr. Ari Fleischer, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and later on for the White House. And he is here today to give us the last in our series of briefings on the 2008 presidential campaign before the first voting begins in February in Iowa. So he is here to give us some of his analysis of that race and then take your questions.
Mr. Fleischer.
MR. FLEISCHER: Thank you, Eric, and thank you to everybody here for having me. It feels very interesting for me to retake the podium. I have not done it for quite a little while, especially in such an organized, formal session. But it makes me very happy to be here and share with you my thoughts about the upcoming race and campaign. It's not so upcoming anymore; it's very close. We are now in the final moments and everything starts to really take on a much greater life as Americans start to make decisions.
The United States will shortly know who its nominees are. The United States will know this, in my estimation, no later than the end of February and very likely early February, possibly February 5th will be the day that both parties know who the nominee is.
To put it in some type of perspective for you, this election in 2008 is the first time since 1952 that there is not a sitting President or Vice President on the ticket for both parties. Every single election, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, all the way up through 2004, there was either a sitting President or Vice President on the ticket for one of the two parties. This is the first election since 1952 without a sitting President or Vice President. Before that, you have to go back to 1928.
This is a very unusual, open ticket -- a very unusual open season in American politics. And it's one of the reasons you are seeing so much change, so much churning, so much who's up, who's down. When you have an incumbent President or a Vice President on the ticket, there is a lot more stability, a lot more knowledge about the candidates. This time, it's wide open for both parties and that's led to this turbulence in both political camps.
It's also tricky in the United States today because the mood of the American public is quite sour. Most Americans view the nation is on the wrong track. Most Americans are very dissatisfied. President Bush's job approval rating is historically low; it's in the mid-30s. Congress's approval rating is abysmally low; it's in the low 20s. President Bush, of course, a Republican, the Congress, of course, a Democrat. The American people are fed up and tired with both political parties.
That makes it even more volatile. This again is why I think you're seeing some success by Governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Barack Obama. There is a real desire among the American people for something new, something different, something unlike that which we have seen before. All of it adds up to unusual volatility in American politics and American government.
The other interesting factor that's different in 2008 compared to previous elections is when I was the spokesman on the campaign and I worked with Mr. Terrell in Austin, Texas, 2000, and Eric got to the campaign in May of 1999, I got to the Bush campaign in November of 1999, we knew that George Bush was the nominee on March 7, 2000. The New Hampshire primary took place on February 1, 2000. The Iowa caucuses took place on January 24, 2000. We were able to enjoy the holidays with our families. This year, it's not like that.
The Iowa caucus is January 3, not January 24. The New Hampshire primary is January 8, not February 1. The South Carolina primary, where George Bush was able to make his comeback, was on February 19, 2000. This year, it's on January 19th. And as I began by saying, George Bush was the nominee on March 7th, after he won the California primary and John McCain dropped out immediately thereafter, March 7th was the date the Republicans knew who the nominee was.
This year, it will probably be February 5th. Everything has moved forward a month. That's a big movement in American politics, one month earlier in the presidential year. So that again puts it into some type of perspective for you about what's different.
Let me give you my assessment about the candidates in both parties. And I want to emphasize that my views are my personal views. I'm speaking only for myself. Of course, I don't speak for the White House anymore, and please don't interpret what I'm saying as a nudge and a wink from the White House. This is my views, my personal views, and I don't speak for the State Department either, of course.
So with that as a caveat, let me start on the Democrat side, where Iowa is a three-way race, very close among Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. Do not forget John Edwards in Iowa.
If you want to find the best source of polling data in American politics so you can quickly go out and look at all the polls and take an average of all the most recent polls, go to realclearpolitics.com, realclearpolitics -- one word -- dot com. Every day, you can click on there and it's an independent website, neutral and very reputable. And they will take the latest Iowa poll, the Gallup poll, the USA Today poll, all the best polls in the country, they'll average them together for you. So you can click on Iowa, you can click on New Hampshire, you can click on South Carolina, you can click on the national average and add it up. I did that just before I came out here today.
There's the latest numbers. Six points separates Hillary Clinton from Barack Obama from John Edwards in Iowa. That's how close it is among those three in Iowa. When you average it all up, Obama is up by 3.5 percentage points in Iowa over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards is three points behind Hillary Clinton of all the averages in Iowa.
In New Hampshire, Senator Clinton is up by an average of three percentage points over Barack Obama. John Edwards is a distant candidate in New Hampshire. Anybody can take Iowa.
In my personal view, if John Edwards does not win in Iowa, it will be very hard for John Edwards to win anywhere else. All his eggs are in the Iowa basket. Right now, he's in a close third in Iowa.
Keep in mind one crucial factor about New Hampshire. George Bush lost New Hampshire by 18 points to John McCain in 2000, when Eric and I were on the campaign. It was a punch in the gut. None of us ever thought, as much as we saw John McCain moving up, that it could be that close a race -- that decisive a win for John McCain.
The reason is because independent voters can vote in the New Hampshire primary, unlike in almost every other state in the country. It makes New Hampshire almost unique. But it does make it unique in terms of the power of independent voters early on to decide who wins a Democrat or a Republican primary. But here is how it gets tricky and one party will play off of the other party.
If Barack Obama, who is the new candidate, has this passion, this excitement, this message of hope, he is not the status quo Democrat, not the candidate that comes from the Democrat power base such as Mrs. Clinton, if Barack Obama wins in Iowa or comes in a very close second in Iowa, in my opinion, independent voters in New Hampshire will come out in heavy numbers in the Democrat primary.
Keep in mind what I said about George Bush in 2000. One of the reasons that George Bush lost by so much in New Hampshire was because John McCain was the new, exciting candidate and independent voters in New Hampshire came out overwhelmingly for John McCain. So think about if Obama does well in Iowa, it will excite the independents in New Hampshire who will come out in large numbers for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, which could tip New Hampshire to Obama.
Here is the flip side of that, and why New Hampshire is so fascinating. If most of the independents vote in the Democrat primary, it strengthens Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. So if Barack Obama wins in Iowa or comes in a close second in Iowa, it's good for Mitt Romney.
If Hillary Clinton wins in Iowa, and most of the independents in New Hampshire think it's over from the Democrat side and they think the Republican race is the more interesting race, it hurts Mitt Romney and probably helps Rudy Giuliani. Again, the point is, these independents are a wild card and there's only one state where they get to show up on election day and say, I think I'll vote Democrat or I think I'll vote Republican. In most states, they simply can't vote, because they're not registered to the Democrat or the Republican party; they're independent so they cannot vote in anybody else's primary. New Hampshire is different and it puts a fascinating play into the primary where the Democrats and the Republicans are actually going to compete for the same voters in the state of New Hampshire.
Ultimately, on the Democrat side, even if Barack Obama is able to win Iowa or come in a close second in Iowa, and win New Hampshire, I still think that Hillary Clinton is the odds-on favorite to win the Democrat nomination, even if Obama has that strong a start. Again, these are my personal views. This is just based on my time in politics and in government. I am neutral in the Republican race. And, of course, I'm even more than neutral in the Democrat race.
But I think Hillary Clinton is too strong for Barack Obama to ultimately defeat her. In some ways, I see it almost as a replay of 2000 where Barack Obama will be the John McCain of 2000. Excitement, passion, the press will love this story because here's the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, being brought to her knees. And that's exciting when a frontrunner drops like that.
But just as George Bush was institutionally too strong and too popular among the base of the party, I believe Hillary Clinton will be too strong and too popular among the base of her party for Barack Obama to successfully take the nomination away from her down the road.
On the Republican side, the latest numbers show that Mike Huckabee is up by 10.7 percentage points in Iowa. What a surge. From nowhere to 10.7 percent, 10.7 percentage points above all the other contenders and Mitt Romney has fallen into a now distant second place in Iowa.
In New Hampshire, however, Mitt Romney is up by 13.5 percentage points. He's maintained his strength in his neighboring state of New Hampshire.
Mike Huckabee has risen to such high heights because of the lack of satisfaction among Republican primary voters with almost all the Republican candidates. Since the spring, there's been an unease among most Republicans about all the Republican candidates. There was no George Bush on the ballot who really everybody turned to and loved who was so able to dominate the way George Bush dominated 2000 right up to the time John McCain almost caught him.
This year is too wide open. No one candidate was able to get the party energized. Fred Thompson, Senator Thompson, was supposed to be the beneficiary of this unease that Republicans had. Fred Thompson has failed to capitalize on that. That left the opening for Mike Huckabee, as a conservative, as a social conservative, as somebody that the powerful conservative bloc of the Republican primary voters was looking for. So Fred Thompson's stumbles led to Mike Huckabee's opening and Mike Huckabee has seized it.
I think Mike Huckabee should be seen as the likely winner of Iowa. He's that strong. Mitt Romney's task will be to come in a close enough second if he can't win it, but a close enough second that the press doesn't say, is it over for Romney.
Then, because New Hampshire is just five days later, Mitt Romney has a nice lead in New Hampshire. Mike Huckabee is not very popular in New Hampshire. He is not playing well or selling well in New Hampshire. And many of the tactics that Mike Huckabee is using in Iowa will hurt him in New Hampshire, such as a very strong advertising campaign that focuses on his faith. That will work nicely in the Iowa caucuses, it will not work nicely -- it will not work well in the New Hampshire primary because the electorate is very different.
So from there, in the Republican campaign, you go to Michigan on January 15th, a strong state for Mitt Romney. Then you go to South Carolina on January 19th, a strong state for Mike Huckabee. And then you go to January 29th, Rudy Giuliani's first chance to win a campaign. It's important for Rudy Giuliani to come in a close second or a decent second in New Hampshire. If he comes in a distant third, it's going to start to hurt Rudy Giuliani.
His next chance to recover will be January 29th in Florida and he knows it. He has a very interesting strategy, Rudy Giuliani does, acknowledging almost that he won't do well in the early primary states, saving his resources for Florida on January 29th and then the crucial mega day, February 5th, when more than 20 states, including California, New York and New Jersey, will go to the polls. That's where Rudy still has a chance.
So when you add it up in my personal judgment, I think it is a two-person race on the Democrat side, because I think John Edwards, despite having -- being close in Iowa, he still has the burden of coming in first in Iowa. He is close, but I have a hard time of seeing him get it. So I still think it's a two-way race on the Democrat side. Ultimately, Senator Clinton is stronger.
And on the Republican side, it is likely a three-person race that could go any which direction, involving Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee.
The final word I'll say, and this is about John McCain. Senator McCain is having a good week, particularly in the press. He had a series of endorsements and then -- endorsements by newspapers and then an endorsement by Senator Joe Lieberman. It's a good week for him to get stories. But those endorsements will not have a great impact on the votes of Republican primary voters.
Republican primary voters, especially, aren't driven by what an editorial page says. And as much as Republicans are fond of Joe Lieberman because of his independence and his courage and his support for what President Bush has done in Iraq, Joe Lieberman's endorsement doesn't really drive a lot of Republican primary voters for how they'll make up their minds.
So he's has a good week in the press. But I think John McCain would have been in a much better position if he had run as an independent for President in 2007 into 2008. Because the American people really are tired of two-party government, Democrats and Republicans. John McCain had a chance to capture that magic, that maverick, that independent spirit that he planted so deeply in 2000 when he almost beat George Bush. I think if he had run as an independent for President, he actually might have become President of the United States. I think it's going to be very hard for John McCain to break out of the pack, given the realities of Republican presidential primary politics here in 2007 heading into 2008.
Add it all up, you cannot be in the United States to cover a more exciting, wide open, almost-anything-could-happen election. It's a wonderful time to be a journalist. Because you're just going to have a constantly changing, exciting tableau in front of you to cover.
A quick word about the general election and then I'm going to turn it over to questions. I reserve the right to come back and talk about the general when it gets closer.
The atmosphere and the mood favor the Democrats for the general election. The desire for change, the sense that America is on the wrong track. The generic ballot, which tests if the election were held today would you prefer a Democrat or a Republican candidate, no names, just the parties, labels, overwhelmingly favors the Democrats. It's a pro-Democrat environment. The Democrat problem, however, is once you start to fill in the names, especially Mrs. Clinton's name, it brings the race right back to 50/50.
So whatever advantage the Democrats have in the general election, because of the anti-Bush, anti-Republican environment, it is almost all squandered by the Democrats if Mrs. Clinton becomes their nominee. She brings it right back to an evenly divided 50/50 America. And that means, if she is the nominee, either Rudy Giuliani or whoever the nominee is, will have a 50/50 chance of winning the election and we'll again be back into a very exciting, close race.
Those are my thoughts. That's how I view the landscape. And I'll be more than happy to take anybody's questions.
QUESTION: Hi, I'm Juergen Schoenstien from the German news magazine Focus. I would like to pick up what you said about McCain running as an independent. Do you think the era of the two-party system in the United States is seeing an end? Will independent candidates be viable in the future after this race?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, one, it's too late for John McCain to do that as an independent. He would have had to have done that really in January of 2007, spent this whole year working up toward that.
No, I don't think it's the end of the two-party system by any stretch. This is just a low moment for both parties. And in that low moment would have been the opportunity for a real bona fide independent. But America still is essentially a two-party country with a significant independent swing bloc in the middle. The two parties are both going through difficult times. But my view is it's temporary for either party. And since nobody ran as an independent, certainly somebody will get elected as a Republican or as a Democrat. That will create its own momentum if they are successful after 2008.
QUESTION: Kahraman Haliscelik of Kanaturk TV of Turkey. In 2000 elections and then actually in the last elections, America was divided by only politics of being Republican or Democrat. In this race, we have religion, we have race, African American, woman, a Mormon, an evangelical. How do you think this will affect the elections?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think it's wonderful and it's welcome. When you look around the world, when you look at how many decades ago other nations had women prime ministers, when you look at -- the United States has always had white male Presidents. The fact of the matter is, America has been ready to elect somebody else, somebody other than a white male for quite some time. It's just the first time, people have now gotten to the point they're running for President.
That's not a guarantee that somebody will win based on their ethnicity or their religion, because still people should vote for whoever is best qualified. But America has the potential to assume its place among the other nations of the world that have had candidates of different backgrounds and religions or race.
I think the issue of race is hardly an issue at all in America on the presidential level. It's imperceptible. I think people are 100 percent ready and prepared. I people are 99.99 percent ready and prepared to vote for somebody regardless of race.
The issue of religion is a little bit different, and I do think particularly in a Republican primary, Mitt Romney does have a bit of an unfair issue that he has to contend with because of his faith. And I wish it wasn't so. Again, I am neutral. But I don't, from my personal point of view, see that religion should be an issue for anybody. But there are, I think, particularly in the Republican primary, evangelical Christians who do view the Mormon faith as something that would give them pause before they voted for a candidate.
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR. FLEISCHER: Gender? I don't think the issue of gender is an issue. I think the American people are perfectly ready, prepared and able to vote for a woman if they like the woman. Remember, Geraldine Ferraro ran as Vice President in 1984, and I don't think it was an issue then other than she was the first major candidate. I worked for Elizabeth Dole when Elizabeth Dole ran for President in 1999 before I moved to Austin, Texas, to work for George Bush. And she did -- she failed to win not because she was a woman, but because George Bush was so strong.
So I don't really think that gender is the issue. I think Mrs. Clinton has her own unique set of difficulties, which hinders her ability to win middle America -- not because she is a woman but because she is so polarizing regardless of gender.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) I'm on TV Asahi. If you think if Senator Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee, the chance for her to win at the general election is 50/50. But do you think that the Democrats will still choose her as a nominee?
And if the nominee will be Obama or Edwards, what do you think are the chances for them to win against a Republican?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, as I explained earlier, I think Mrs. Clinton is still the odds-on favorite to win the Democrat nomination over Barack Obama or over John Edwards. If she does not win, Republicans would much rather run against Hillary Clinton than against John Edwards or Barack Obama. Because Mrs. Clinton just has negatives that will be very hard for her to overcome.
Almost all Americans have an opinion about her already, and many of them are locked in stone, they won't support her, particularly in the swing vote Midwestern states. And that is why Republicans would prefer to run against her. The trick now is, can Barack Obama or John Edwards turn that to their advantage and say, we have the best chance of winning, not Mrs. Clinton. They haven't been able to make that case yet.
QUESTION: Hi, I am Christine Mattauch. I am here for (inaudible) today.
MR. FLEISCHER: You're here for who?
QUESTION: (Inaudible), a German weekly.
I have two questions. One is, who do you work for today? And the other question is, of course there are a lot of issues in this election. I got the impression that the issue of free trade is kind of an upcoming issue. Could you comment on that?
MR. FLEISCHER: I work for myself. I have my own company; I have a very mean boss. Ari Fleischer Communications is the name of my company and I work for corporations and sports organizations on how to handle different communications issues.
Free trade is almost always an issue. And interestingly, Mike Huckabee has a different position on trade than most Republicans. Mike Huckabee is really running on an economic platform of a much more populist champion of the middle class than typically you hear from Republicans.
The Democrats from John Edwards, principally, are very anti-free trade. And trade always is a very controversial issue in American politics. It's seldom the number one, two or three issue. But it can be an important number four or five issue, and it is one factor in contributing to people's sense of economic well-being or economic difficulty, trade plays into that. It has, my judgment, more implication for governing than campaigning, because it is such a serious governmental issue, and it's one of the hardest issues to get through the Congress.
I remember President Clinton, to his credit, tried valiantly to pass free trade agreements with a Republican Congress and he couldn't convince his own party and the Congress to go along. President Bush had a Republican Congress and he was only able to pass free trade negotiations through the House by one vote, and so it's a much more difficult governmental issue. But it remains one of several important political issues, but not at the top.
QUESTION: Jan Emmer of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. Two questions. What do you think of the possibilities of Mike Bloomberg entering the race in the next coming weeks? And what are the three main topics in your opinion in regard to this election?
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't think Mike Bloomberg will run. I think that he's too smart to do that. He's too wealthy to do that. He doesn't want to have to spend as much as it would take for him to get hardly any votes. And he just doesn't have a chance to win. So I don't think he would do that.
The three major issues in the campaign of 2008, I think number one, the issue almost always in American politics is the economy and American sense of are they doing well and is the future bright. And two, who will keep us safe -- foreign policy and defense.
And on that score, September 11th has dramatically changed America. And it's also one of the reasons why Rudy Giuliani is doing as well as he's doing in the Republican primary. September 11th has brought home to the American people in a vivid way how important it is to be strong and to be tough and to not get attacked again.
And throughout the '90s, after the Cold War, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, foreign policy really fell off the map. Strong pro-defense, pro-intelligence positions fell off the map. It's one of the factors that allowed Bill Clinton to be as successful and as popular as he was. The Republican Party, which historically had a very active pro-defense wing, that wing got clipped throughout the '90s. And September 11th reminded everybody about how vulnerable we are and that's made foreign policy and defense an important issue again.
Yeah, I think you would have to put immigration in there. Immigration is almost more -- I look at it as an economic issue. But there is a moral overtone to the immigration debate as well on both sides. On the one side is the morality of the law and one side says, as much as we are a nation of immigrants and we welcome people who come here legally, a nation of laws cannot allow people to come here illegally and reward them for doing so.
The other moral side is, America is the land of opportunity. We want people to come here for opportunity. The reason they are coming here, even if they come here illegally, isn't to be lawbreakers, but to have a chance to feed their children and to have a good life. That's an important moral message, too.
There's the economic message as well, which is, am I losing my job to somebody who took it from me who is illegal? Or am I not being paid as much because illegal immigrants are keeping the wages down? And those issues cut in both parties. The AFL/CIO on the Democrat side has difficulties with immigration because they see that it keeps their wages down.
It will be interesting for me to see in a general election if immigration is as important, because it's terribly important in a Republican primary. In the Democrat debates, you hardly see any discussion of immigration. You see a lot more discussion of health care. Immigration is much more a Republican issue now than a Democrat issue. It will be interesting to see if that becomes a substantial issue in 2008. Republicans will likely try to make it one. But there's a backlash to that as well, because the Hispanic vote is the fastest growing vote in the United States and Republicans can hurt themselves with the Hispanic vote if you look at it just from a voting calculus alone, not a policy calculus about right and wrong.
QUESTION: Jean Luis-Turlin, Le Figaro.
MR. FLEISCHER: Hello.
QUESTION: Hello.
MR. FLEISCHER: If there's anybody Hungarian in here, I can throw out a couple words. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: You quoted as an important factor as far as picking the Democratic nominee electability. If Barack Obama does well in Iowa and New Hampshire, the black vote is going to become another factor in South Carolina. How big a factor is it going to be in the end?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, South Carolina is interesting, because as soon as you get to any of the southern states, particularly, the African American vote is a much larger percentage of the Democrat vote than, say, in Iowa or in New Hampshire, certainly. So there is that possibility that Barack Obama can develop a strong head of steam, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, which in some ways makes -- does make it such a fascinating race to observe, because this frontrunner, this person who has been in power, could fall. And that's why I said, I listed the analogy between Bush 2000 and McCain 2000 and what's happening today.
Still, my sense tells me, in large part because Barack Obama did not catch on until about two weeks ago, that there was just something missing about him and his candidacy, that Hillary Clinton has the strength to prevail. The fact that he has caught fire so late tells me that the Democrats thought there was something lacking in him, otherwise he would have caught fire earlier.
Because remember, when he announced his candidacy earlier this year, it was a meteoric rise. Everybody was focused on Barack Obama. What a captivating message, what a captivating speaker, what a new voice, what a new face. But it didn't go anywhere until now. So something wasn't there that grabbed the Democrats for all this time. And that tells me that Barack Obama may come up a bit short against somebody as strong and entrenched as Mrs. Clinton.
And Mrs. Clinton's problem is going to be is if the reason that she is popular and powerful is because she is powerful, then she has a long way to fall. If the reason people are voting for you is because you're number one, as soon as you stop being number one, they lose a very important reason to be for you. And that's the risk for her frontrunner status.
But the scenario could be there for Barack Obama. My view, again, is that Hillary Clinton will be too strong.
QUESTION: My name is (inaudible) from Helsinki, Finland. You mentioned that Mrs. Clinton might have some handicaps. So what might those be?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, one, let me start with her strengths. I think her strength is that the -- she is among the Democrat movers and shakers and primary voters, seen as strong, as one of them, as somebody who has taken on George Bush. And Democrat voters like that. Her husband is quite popular, particularly to Democrat primary voters. The Democrat primary voter welcomes a return of Bill Clinton to the White House. It brings them a sense of comfort that they could return to the Clinton era so to speak.
Her downsides are, in large ways, still driven by her image from the campaign in 1992, her health care reform plan in 1993, her perception as being a staunch liberal. And then it's further hurt by, I think, a sense among independent voters and ticket splitters in the key Midwestern and Western states that she's too calculating, that she will take whatever position works today to win whatever is important tomorrow, and it won't bind her to the day after tomorrow.
Those are the strengths and weaknesses that I think she has. This is why I think that the Democrats with a 15 point generic advantage in the presidential are reduced to a zero point advantage when you use her name as opposed to "Democrat candidate" and it's also why Republicans would like her to be the nominee.
QUESTION: Matthew Price, BBC. Can I pick up on that point? I simply don't understand, because the polls have been saying all along that Hillary Clinton gets 50 percent of the vote and the Republicans would love her to win.
As a former strategist, why don't the polls reflect that? Why do Democrat caucus and primary voters, who urgently want to win the White House, why do they simply not say, maybe she can't win it and maybe there's a better candidate? And, as an addition to that, why haven't the Obama and Edwards campaigns sought to capitalize on that or been able to capitalize on that?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, number one is because she still is a 50/50 candidate; it's not as if she's losing. So it's not that clear a picture. It's not as if it's the anvil that fell off the top of the building in the cartoon and landed on somebody's head and they got the message. It's 50/50. She could still win.
Now, if she was losing in every poll by 10 points or so, then I think you would see that very strongly in the Democrat party. But that's not the case.
That was the case against Howard Dean in 2004. And that's one of the reasons John Kerry was able to emerge at the last minute to beat Howard Dean. Remember at this time eight years ago in Iowa, Howard Dean was the overwhelming frontrunner. I cited a bunch of polling statistics in this room. If somebody cited polling statistics from December 18, 2003, Howard Dean would have been way in first place in Iowa. John Kerry didn't really start to make his march until January. And that was driven in large part by the perception that Howard Dean couldn't win. With Hillary, it's still 50/50 and that deprives Barack Obama and John Edwards of that type of clear, she-can't-win message. She is underperforming the Democrat generic ballot, but she is underperforming it to 50/50, not worse.
QUESTION: Lennart Pehrson, I'm with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. I wonder if you could go a little bit further into explaining why you think the public mood is so sour. The economy has been growing and -- for a long time and it's still not a recession. Is this is a particularly bad time for the American people? And also do you see the Democrats, that they are set to capitalize on this discontent?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think the public mood is so sour driven largely by Iraq. I think the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the fact that our troops have been there so long, has hurt and hurt badly President Bush and the Republican Party. Add that now to an economy that had been going strong for six years -- not six years, but for four years, 8.3 million new jobs created since August of 2003, low inflation, sustained strong GDP growth, high productivity -- all until about two or three months ago when GDP started to decline, productivity started to decline. That fitting into a sour, surly mood of the country, made everybody think the economy was terrible and getting worse anyway. Even though it had been good, Iraq has largely cast a pall over the President's administration, and it has taken its toll on those who would follow him. And I would say that obviously as a supporter of the President. But I think that's the reality of America.
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, it's interesting, because the Democrats capitalized on it nicely. Now that things are getting calmer in Iraq, it has the potential to change the dialogue in a way that's not helpful to the Democrats. It's also tripped up the Democrats. Because on the one hand, they were all trying to explain who was the most anti-Bush, who made the biggest mistake in supporting President Bush in Iraq. And now, as things seem to be getting better in Iraq, those who were saying I'm the most anti-Bush risk losing the independent voters. So it's become a very tricky calculus.
It has also created a bit of an opening for Barack Obama because he has the most principled, steady story to tell on the Democratic side about what he was against and how long he has been against it.
QUESTION: Emmanuel St. Martin, France 24. Do you see any scenario in which the independent voters in New Hampshire would go mainly Republican and not Democrat? Most people say now they are going to be to vote on the Democratic side. But is there any scenario that it will go on the other side?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think if Senator Clinton has a strong win in Iowa over Barack Obama, the independent vote will largely then split almost evenly between the two parties. Independents in New Hampshire make up I think about 40 percent of the electorate. It's a large, large bloc, bigger than the Republican bloc, bigger than the Democrat bloc. So there are -- both -- but -- Obama, if he pulls off the upset, has the chance -- independents more to -- if Hillary wins -- more -- Republican -- that probably helps -- in New Hampshire, because he has the ability then -- in South Carolina or somewhere else. Even New Hampshire conservatives are a little more moderate than conservatives in the rest of the Republican -- constellation.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Fuji TV, Japanese TV. My question is, what do you think about the celebrity impact on candidates? Recently, the newspaper the Monitor and Boston Globe, how do you think those are going to shape the candidates' future?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, as I said earlier, the endorsements I really don't think carry much weight in Republican primary politics. They make for good stories, good headlines, but at the end of the day, I don't think they deliver very many voters at all. The celebrity issue, similar. The biggest difference is for outsiders, insurgency, new type of candidacy like Barack Obama's, having somebody like Oprah Winfrey does carry some impact. She's unique. She is perceived by her followers in such a lofty way, she has already proved that she can operate outside the celebrity bubble.
Look what she does when she endorses a book? She has proven that she can actually change people's buying behaviors. Can that carry over to their political buying behavior? She is probably one of the few people, especially for an insurgency candidacy like Obama -- can make an impact. And certainly when you look at the crowds that Barack Obama had when he had her campaign for him, politicians -- so I think she has modest effect, not no effect, modest effect.
And the only reason I say modest is I think one of the things that's striking about elections in America, and I think it's good -- this might be the case in elections around the world, I don't know enough -- but people largely cast their vote on the basis of who is running for President, who it is who is before them. They have a pretty good way of filtering out all the extraneous noise that this person endorsed, that person endorsed, there is this little mini-scandal, that little mini-scandal. The American people have a pretty good sense of center. And they form their judgment about do I like that candidate, do I trust that candidate? Will I empower that candidate with my judgment? That's very driven by the individuals themselves, a lot less than their advertising or their endorsements or any other factors, and I think that's all well and good. You stand or you fall in this business on your own merits, your own weight and your own abilities.
QUESTION: Ian Munro of Fairfax Newspapers Australia. That sourness of mood, that disenchantment you talk about, is there a candidate on either side who would stand to overcome that and perhaps get an extra kick from denying that sense of disenchantment -- confirm it and might --
MR. FLEISCHER: The trick for a candidate to take advantage of the everything-is-going-wrong, we're-on-the-wrong-track mood is for a Democrat to emerge who doesn't sound like a typical, traditional Democrat, or for a Republican to emerge who doesn't sound like a typical, traditional Republican. After all, if people are sick and tired and fed up with both parties, if either party offers the same old, the American people will say, that's just what I told you I don't want.
This is what's created this opening for Barack Obama. This is what's created an opening for Mike Huckabee. They are the two who have the most to gain as a result of this foul mood.
Now, what compensates against that in the Democrat party, a large part of the foul mood is directed directly at George Bush and Republicans. And here, there is a reward for Mrs. Clinton for being so tough, so anti-Bush.
The Democrat party will make a decision about whether they are drawn toward a hopeful, optimistic, bring-people-together, do-something-different message, or that George Bush is wrong, George Bush made mistakes, I'm-the-toughest-one-who-can-point-them-out message, Hillary Clinton's. And there's a lot of anger in the Democrat party about George Bush and Republicans. She can capture that.
Barack Obama is trying to capture the hopeful new direction message. And I think it's a very close battle within the Democrat party about whether they want to be the party of hope or the party that just wants to be anything but George Bush. And we're seeing that play out in the passions of the Democrat voters.
QUESTION: Can you throw forward to the general election then and say what impact it -- election -- atypical, how that were to play out?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think particularly if -- that will take a lot away from -- in a general election, people are typically less angry and are more hopeful -- Obama. Republicans -- Republicans are just such an interesting amalgam of -- Mike Huckabee's talk about middle class first, his talk about the corporate chieftains -- make too much money -- type of talk for Republicans. It's rather exciting on some levels. But he has other down sides that make it harder for him in a primary. And his question of George Bush's foreign policy, for example, won't -- very well among the conservative base of the Republican -- his focus on religion won't sell very well among independents in America -- comfortable.
So on the Republican side, there's almost as if you could take a piece of one, a piece of another, a piece of a third and put them together, and you'd have the ideal candidate. But you can't do that. And that's why we have primaries. And that's why it's so wide open because there are so many -- candidate on both sides. And on the Republican side, that's really, really unusual. Republicans are elephants. They are very hierarchical. They almost always -- George W. Bush, my old boss, he was the frontrunner from the very first day, never relinquished it. Son of a President. Before him, Bob Dole, Senate majority leader, ran previously and lost. He was in the undef circle. Before that, George H.W. Bush, former Vice President to Ronald Regan. He was next. Before that, Ronald Regan. Ronald Regan ran a primary against Gerald Ford and lost, so he was next. Almost always in the Republican modern politics, the history of the Republican party in recent times, Republicans know who's next and they appoint whoever was second in the last campaign. Not this time.
That's why the Republican race is so unusual, so wide open, so mixed up. Republicans are behaving like Democrats. Democrats are almost divided -- very unusual for Republicans.
MODERATOR: (Inaudible.)
MR. FLEISCHER: Thank you. (Applause.)
