© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Nov. 30, 2007

National Journal's Ronald Brownstein sat down with Mark Mellman and Ken Mehlman for the ninth edition of "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation. Audio of the full show is also available.

Ken Mehlman: Well, I think that the 2008 election is likely to be very hard fought. Certainly the Republicans start with a disadvantage, and the disadvantage is a combination of, one, we've had the White House for eight years in a row. You look historically since World War II only once has there been three times in a row and that was with President Reagan, who had very high approval numbers. We don't have that today. And that's a challenge we face. And clearly, the voters want change.

To me, though, what's interesting is another historical pattern and that is that the country is at war. And if you look at the elections when we've been at war, 1952 Korea, 1968 Vietnam, 1980 with the hostages in Iran, 2004, the country has typically opted for the candidate that they see is more realistic and more effective in dealing with a serious foreign policy threat, and that's typically favored Republicans. So I think you've got these two kind of mega-trends. On the one hand, the country wants change which would tend to favor the out party. And on the other hand, the country is at war and they're going to want to find a leader who they feel is realistic about the threat and has a real strategy to deal with it. So how those two play out will be key to this election.

Mark Mellman: You know I think that's one of the things that has changed dramatically, very dramatically, over the last couple of years. For fifty years republicans have had a 20-, 25-, 35-point advantage on national security. That once-yawning advantage for the Republicans has dwindled to essentially nothing. Nothing. It was lost in the deserts of Iraq and the flood waters of Katrina and in the ports of Dubai. All of those episodes had a tremendously negative effect on people's association of national security with the Republicans and the gap has closed. So you can't -- Republicans can't rely on national security.

If you go back to the initial question, Ron, the reality is that historically, those trends, those underlying structural dynamics have been much more accurate predictors than have the polls at this stage of the game. And the reality is all the underlying numbers, all the underlying structural dynamics point to the Democrats. As Ken rightly said, people want change. It's very hard to get a third or fourth party term and that's what the Republicans are looking for. But it's not just that. We have the second most unpopular president going into a new election than we've had in polling history, an unpopular president. We have an economy that is not likely to be performing well, if you look at the forecast for the economy for next year it ranks probably as the thirteenth worst of the last sixteen presidential year economies. We are at war as Ken said, but it's the most unpopular war in the nation's history. So you put all those facts together -- war, bad economy, Republicans looking for a third party term, unpopularity of this president -- very hard to see how the Republicans can pull out this election.

Ken Mehlman: Well, the president is not on the ballot in 2008 and I actually think one of the great dangers the Democrats will do is they will run against George W. Bush. I think Republicans make the mistake of simply running against "the Clintons." I think those are the paths of least resistance for both candidates and I think they'd both be wrong. I think what our nominee needs to do, whoever that person is, is to explain what his vision is for the future, what he wants to do on the big issues that we face, what he wants to do to keep the country safe. Clearly the public is not asking for four more years; at the same time they're asking for what your vision is and what your answer is. I also think the Republican nominee will also be helped by the fact that you've had a new Congress whose approval ratings are even lower than the president's are now. And I think as people see things like big tax increases and other proposals that they're not necessarily comfortable with, that may not be the direction they want to head.

Mark Mellman: You know, honestly, I think Ken is right. I think Republicans should try and differentiate but I think that's going to be awfully hard. The reality is these folks are joined at the hip with George W. Bush on Iraq and on a host of other issues, so it's going to be hard for them to do. And frankly, our nominee is going to have to run against their nominee -- that's the way it works. But the reality is, I think it's virtually impossible for the Republicans to win this race against a credible Democratic candidate.

Mark Mellman: I think there's a whole host of those states. Start with Ohio -- that was the key state in the last election. Democrats are doing extremely well in Ohio -- won a gubernatorial race, won a Senate seat in the state -- but also if you look at the numbers in Ohio, tend to favor Democrats across the board. The Democratic governor is quite popular there today. Ohio is certainly one. But then you look at a whole range of smaller states, from Iowa to Nevada to New Mexico, states that John Kerry lost, that very likely a Democrat will win this time. Other states in the West like Colorado, potentially Arizona, I think Florida will be in play again this time as well. There really are a number of states with significant numbers of electoral votes that Democrats could win this time that we didn't win last time.

Ken Mehlman: I think there are. In the last election, both New Hampshire and Wisconsin were two states where in fact if you looked at voter ID on Election Day, voters identified themselves as more Republican than Democrat, yet John Kerry won those states. They'd have to be at the top of our list of states we could I think do well in. Minnesota is another state where recently Republicans have done well, and a reform-minded Republican could do very well there. I think that depending on who our nominee is, Pennsylvania and Michigan are states that could potentially be in play as well. Again, a lot depends on who the two nominees are, a lot depends on how that all plays out, but I do think that in both cases the number of truly competitive additional states is likely to be relatively smaller than larger.

Ken Mehlman: It is a problem and it's something we have to work hard to address, and we ought to be able to address the support of young people. A lot of the folks listening to this show are often younger, because this technology appeals to younger people. If you think about it, folks who are younger today, the 9-11 generation and their older brothers and sisters have grown up in a world of ipods, have grown up in a world where expedia.com helps make reservations for planes, of WebMD. It's a world where there is a real infrastructure of independence. The political party that wants to enhance that independence ought to do better than one that has a more paternalistic model of how government ought to deliver services. As long as we get back to that vision -- the Reagan vision, the Goldwater vision of giving people independence and respecting that independence -- I think we can do well.

Mark Mellman: Well, the reality is John Kerry, as you noted, did better among younger people than any candidate in the history of polling. The reason for that is pretty simple. Increasingly we are seeing a political alignment that is based on culture rather than on class. Young people are cultural progressives. They are the vanguard of cultural progressivism in this country on issues like choice and abortion, on issues like stem cell research, on a whole variety of cultural issues -- the environment, critically important to voters -- young people are cultural progressives. The Republican Party has stood for cultural conservatism for 50 years or more, a hundred years, and that's not going to change in the course of the next year.

Mark Mellman: Well, I think it's the 30 percent or less. You know, we've seen this issue play out before. Pete Wilson in California tried to scapegoat the Latino community for the immigration issue, drove Latinos into the welcoming and open arms of the Democratic Party. And the truth is, if you want to create a negative among Latinos in California you just say Pete Wilson's name -- that's enough to sink almost anybody in that community. I think that's what the Republican Party has done. Ken, to his credit, and his president, to his credit, has really made an effort to try to bring the Latino community into the Republican Party -- very smart politics. But the majority of the Republican Party has really destroyed that effort in the course of this immigration debate and driven the Latino community out of the Republican Party and again, into the welcoming arms of the Democrats.

Ken Mehlman:Look, I think that the immigration issue is obviously one both parties have to deal with in a very careful way, as we recently learned with Senator Clinton and Governor Spitzer. In my opinion, as one who strongly believes in comprehensive reform and tried to push it unsuccessfully twice, let me tell you the lessons I got out of it. I think those of us who believe in comprehensive reform have to do two things: We have to, one, give the American people assurance that there will be border security, which they don't have now, and, two, we all need to embrace assimilation, which is an incredible American tradition. Assimilation is why no one thinks of St. Patrick's Day as a foreign holiday. It's why kosher hot dogs are served at baseball games and we don't think of it as foreign food. And what we all need to do is say, America is an incredibly welcoming country, and part of welcoming people is helping them achieve their God-given potential, helping them do the best they can.

Mark Mellman: Well it's not going to be as salient, perhaps as people would have expected coming out of 2006, if the security situation improves. But the reality is, people have already concluded that this war was not a success. I'm not talking about whether it's been won or lost -- that's a separate argument -- but it has not been a success. There are very few people who are going to judge it a success. That's true today, it's going to be true if the security situation improves in a year from now, and that's the fundamental problem. This war will remain incredibly unpopular, and Democrats I think have been very careful and very clear in saying we want to bring troops home but we want to do so responsibly.

And what's amazing about the Republicans in this race is that each and every one of them has endorsed a continuation of the present policy. George Bush is farther ahead of some of the Republican candidates on change in Iraq, and that's remarkable. Most of these Republicans, in order to satisfy a relatively narrow constituency of Republican primary voters, have staked out positions that will make it impossible for them to do well with the mass of voters in November.

Ken Mehlman: Again, I think it's going to be fundamentally prospective in its vision, and what Americans are going to look to, is not, who was right in '03 or '05 or '06. They are going to say, who in '09 has a realistic view of how things really are in order to keep us safe in the future.

Mark Mellman: The economy, clearly. The economy has re-emerged as an issue as Iraq has faded a bit. There's no question the economy is central, but importantly, it's the economy as it's lived. How can I, as a citizen, afford the necessities of life? Health care is a critical issue, but it's an economic issue for many people. Energy security -- it's a national security issue, but it's also an economic issue -- how can I afford to keep my car running, my gas tank full?

Ken Mehlman: I agree. The Mellmans both agree on the issues, I just think it will be viewed a little differently by the American people. One thing we know, you'll be able to afford less if Washington takes more, and what's unique about this field is, across the board, Democratic candidates are running for president with the Walter Mondale line: We're going to raise your taxes. Democratic Congress proposes a huge tax increase that they are looking forward. I don't think people are looking for higher taxes when they are worried about both the economy overall and they are worried about what they can afford. You talk about health care. I think we as a party ought to be in a place, and I think we will be in a place, if you look at what our candidates are proposing, where we say, we want increased access to health care, but health care that you own and control, and health care not that the government controls or that a corporate bureaucrat controls.

I agree finally on energy security, which brings a whole bunch of issues together -- it brings the climate change issue, it brings national security -- Iran last year got $45 billion in oil revenues. Both parties need to say what are you going to do about working over a long period to make America energy independent and energy reliant and I think generally reduce the importance of not just foreign oil, but oil generally.

Ken Mehlman: I would give it an incomplete, and I think it's mixed. Anyone who says "we are inherently a stronger party" I think is obviously reading talking points. At the same time anybody that says it's been an entire failure is also similarly wrong and trying to make a political point.

Mark Mellman: Whether it's party identification, whether it's favorability toward the parties, whether it's votes in Congress, on a whole range of these indicators there has been a tremendous movement away from Republicans and toward Democrats, but I will tell you it goes even deeper than that. What we are seeing in the data today is not just a repudiation of George W. Bush personally. It's not just a repudiation of the Republican Party, it is in fact a repudiation of the ideals that the Republican Party has tried to focus on.

Mark Mellman: Well, it certainly opened the way to a Democratic plurality. And I think it's no doubt opened the door to a Democratic majority in the Congress and I think control of the White House in '08. So I think when we sit here in '08, we'll be looking at Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

Ken Mehlman: I think he just scared a lot of people into voting Republican in the next election…

[ Insider Interview Archives ]

Advertisement