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Monday, March 5, 2007

John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum, Littauer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts


B E F O R E:

JEANNE SHAHEEN Director Institute of Politics Kennedy School of Government

MARK HALPERIN Fellow Institute of Politics & Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy


P A R T I C I P A N T S:

For Mayor Giuliani: Chris Hennick
For Senator McCain: Rick Davis
For Governor Romney: Alex Castellanos


E V E N I N G  S E S S I O N

(10:11 a.m.)

MS. SHAHEEN: Good evening, everyone. welcome to the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum.  This program is sponsored by the Institute of Politics and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.  I’m Jeanne Shaheen, I’m the Director here at the Institute of Politics

We think the program tonight is going to be very unique, it’s part of a series that we are doing on the Campaign 2008: Looking Ahead.  Some of you are familiar with what we do every four years after a presidential campaign where the campaign managers get together and look back at the campaigns and at what happened during the campaigns.

Well this year we are doing it a little bit different, we want to start by looking ahead at how the campaign managers and top strategists see the 2008 campaign unveiled as we go forward.  So tonight we have top strategists from the McCain, Giuliani and Romney campaigns here to talk to us about what they think this campaign is going to look like.  And we are especially pleased to see so many students in the audience here tonight because what we do at the Institute of Politics is work very hard at trying to get young people engaged in politics and public service.  We believe that politics matters, and we appreciate the work of people like our guests here tonight and what they have done to make a difference in the political arena.

This is the first in a series.  On the 19th, we hope you will come back, where we give equal time to the top strategists from the Democratic campaigns of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, and then come back again in April where the remaining candidates who will be running will be featured, their top strategists, that is.

Tonight, to moderate this session is someone who is well known I think to all of us who are political junkies, Mark Halperin is the Political Editor at ABC News, he is also the founder and editor of The Note which most of us start out reading in the morning, but more important for us here at the Institute of Politics, he was a Harvard student who was active at the IOP when he was here and he is now a visiting fellow with the Institute of Politics and the Shorenstein Center.

So, Mark, we are delighted that you are here to moderate tonight’s discussion.

MR. HALPERIN: Thank you, Governor.

(Applause)

MR. HALPERIN: Thank you.

I want to go as quick as we can to questioning these three excellent men who I’ll introduce in a moment.  As Governor Shaheen said, in two weeks we’ll have leading strategists for the leading Democratic presidential candidates.  Its good for once Harvard to give equal time, as she said, to the democrats—

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: --in two weeks, but tonight we are talking about the Republican race and it is already a very competitive race.  When we started to talk about doing this series, we thought, well, if we do these in March or April it will be after the campaigns are sort of formally up and running but before things get hot, and heavy and very intense.  And obviously, as all of you know because you are here tonight, that this has already started out very fast, not as early, not any earlier than usual because campaigns tend to start, these days, pretty early, but it’s more intense than it’s been and these gentlemen have been good enough to come up here and talk to all of us at a time when they are already involved in lots of meetings, conference calls, I would imagine.

And in the case of, I would say, tonight, as a snapshot in the case of two campaigns, what we might call, even in February the year before, a crises in the campaigns and having to deal with problems of controlling their public image and dealing with the campaign’s current status, so it’s great for them to be here.  I will quickly introduce them.  Hopefully you all were given, as you came in, these programs that tell you, biographically, who they are.  But I will just say simply they are three of the leading strategists in either party in the country today with broad experience in Republican presidential politics.

And we are going to get some conversation going with them and then we’ll start to take your questions.  I’ll remind you now, as I will later, that we do mean questions and not speeches, and we’ll talk about where the mics are and all that in a bit.

Sitting right here, Alex Castellanos works for Mitt Romney.  Again, he has worked in a variety of presidential campaigns over the years, including Bill Graham’s less than successful one and President Bush’s more successful one.  Rick Davis, who works for Senator McCain and also worked for him in 2000.  I believe you were primarily in charge of winning the New Hampshire primary in that race.

MR. DAVIS: That’s right.

MR. HALPERIN: Congratulations on that.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: And Chris Hennick, who works for Mayor Giuliani, who has worked also, again, in many campaigns, including for President Bush and of course these days in Republican politics, if you have had success any time lately in presidential politics, you got it working for President Bush and all of them, again, have long experience in that.

So let me just get started by talking about what for now at least appears to be the biggest issue in this race and maybe will be the biggest issue all the way through, Iraq. All of your candidates have taken positions largely the same, largely supportive of President Bush’s new policies and largely supportive of a continued

U.S. military involvement there.  Now some people believe that that may be dangerous for the general election and all of your, whoever emerges, assuming it’s one of your three candidates, all your candidates will be tied to a policy which is unpopular and which may be decisive in the general election. 

So, Chris Hennick, let me start with you, is there a danger politically in clinging to the President’s policy and being supportive of the President’s policy?  And might that change even before there is a Republican nominee?

MR. HENNICK: Nothing has been dangerous, so long as the American mission in Iraq succeeds, and that’s the clear sense, I believe, that all three candidates, I can’t speak for the other two, but I’ve pretty much seen that we are all identical in that first accountable goal. I think that’s what Mayor Giuliani has been talking about is we need accountable governments and governments there in Iraq, and as well, as you probably saw in January 12th, I believe, in an opinion page in the Wall Street Journal, with former Speaker Newt Gingrich where he outlined not only do we need military success, we need a civilian success, so to speak, in jobs, that roughly unemployment is anywhere between 30 and 50 percent in Iraq.

And even in the report that was released even with the troop advancement and how people look at the, where that reinforces the troops, there needs to be a civilian answer to this as well too.  So I think it’s, first and foremost, certainly important.  I think what we also saw though was from the 2006 elections, the Democratic Party and candidates were successful in attempting to decouple Iraq from the overall War on Terror. And I believe that’s where you see Mayor Giuliani not only focusing on the importance of Iraq but moving beyond the threats and where we need to move the next commander-in-chief and threats that he deals with are not Iraq but beyond.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, I read all the time and hear on cable television chattering class shows on which you sometimes appear that, while all three candidates have roughly the same position on Iraq, that John McCain has become the face of Iraq, of the surge, and that that is hurting him.  Do you accept that he has become, more than the other two represented here, the face of the surge?  And if so, how did you let that happen?

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: It’s all part of the master strategy.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: Yeah, sure. I mean I think it’s kind of interesting how we got here and that is that John felt strongly, even as far back as 2004, that Iraq would be the transcendent issue of our time.  He said so many times, he campaigned heavily with George Bush because he truly felt that George Bush would have a better chance of solving the riddle of this Islamic extremism and Iraq War.  Since then, he has not, I don’t think, spent a day in the public domain not talking about Iraq because he still, to this day, believes that it’s the transcendent issue of our time and that if we don’t get this right, the consequences of failure in Iraq are so far beyond what we want to envision as a country that we have to win.

It’s not whether we want to or not, not even really if we can or not, it’s that we need the national will to succeed and I think he sees that as part of his charge is to create national will, to create the backing within the public to do so.  And there is some polling data that reinforces his position on this, not that people aren’t dissatisfied with the failures of the war, there is no question about that and John has talked about that for years. He was the very first guy I think three years ago to say we need more troops to succeed and so what has happened is I think the public has realized that it is an important equation.

There have been some polls done by, the New York Post recently had one that showed a majority of the people want success in Iraq.  They don’t know how to spell success, they don’t know what it means to succeed but they want it to succeed, and so these are indications that maybe it’s not as bleak as some people think, maybe it’s not as bad politically for John if he actually is able to generate the public will to succeed and rely upon the Bush Administration to actually get the job done.

MR. HALPERIN: Well, Rick, do you accept the premise that he is somehow, in the public’s mind, looking at polling data and, just based on your political gut, do you accept the premise that the public or the Republican nominating electorate more closely associates him with this policy than the other two?

MR. DAVIS: Oh, absolutely. I have a candidate who makes public statements like I would rather win a war than win the nomination, I mean that kills me.  I mean my job is to win a nomination, I don’t know anything about fighting wars and so, sure, I mean but I think it shouldn’t be diminished.  In other words, this is what part of this election is going to be all about.  The idea that somehow people who go out and win the Republican nomination by talking about other issues and not addressing this head on and not making it the central theme of this debate is naive.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, your candidate does not have broad foreign policy experience and he is cleverly biding his time, saving his surge in the polls until later—

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: --while Chris’s candidate is foolishly rushing ahead too soon.

(Laughter)

MR. CASTELLANOS: We’ve got him right where we want him.

MR. HALPERIN: I understand and I’m not a cynical reporter, I think all three candidates take their positions on the surge, based on looking at it and what they believe. But do you think it’s possible that, as the year unfolds, depending on what happens on the ground, that this could be an issue that will be a political bonanza for Governor Romney in competition with other Republican candidates or is it best neutral for him?

MR. CASTELLANOS: I don’t think anything other than success Iraq is a bonanza for any Republican candidate.

MR. HALPERIN: What about in the nomination contest though?

MR. CASTELLANOS: I think we are all basically in the same boat and that is that we all want change, the President wants change, we all want success in Iraq, that’s what we want to see. We’ve got troops in the field and I think anybody who talks about it in political terms, other than do you want America to succeed here, is doing something incredibly wrong and that it would be seen as such.  So, no, I don’t think, there are some things you just don’t want to look at that way.

MR. HALPERIN: What do you say inside your secret, private, not to be shared Romney strategy meetings about what’s happening to Senator McCain on the Iraq issue?

MR. CASTELLANOS: We admire his political courage.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN:  Almost as if we worked that out in advance.

MR. HALPERIN: I want to move to a different issue, and you know, Iraq, a serious issue, a substantive issue but one obviously playing a huge role in this race and will. Another which is, on some level, process and inside baseball but I think political professionals believe will play a huge role in determining their nominees which is the calendar, the nominating calendar.  Iowa and New Hampshire seem to, in line to play a very big role in this campaign.

Let me ask you to just give a yes or no answer, to set up here before we talk about the overall calendar, starting with Rick, will the winners of Iowa and New

Hampshire have a leg up, a significant leg up, as they have had in the past this cycle, or does the changes in the calendar de-emphasize Iowa and New Hampshire do you think?

MR. DAVIS: No, I think the winners of Iowa and New Hampshire have a leg up.

MR. HALPERIN:  As much as always?

MR. DAVIS: Especially if it’s one person named John McCain in Iowa and New Hampshire.

MR. HALPERIN: Now it’s more of an influence.  Chris, your candidate has not spent as much time in Iowa as some of the others, do you think that those two states are as important, will be as important in 2008 as they have been in the past?

MR. HENNICK: I do and it’s simply because it is a process question but this front loading advance of states moving up to February 5th that follow that sequence of, still it’s yet to be set, even in New Hampshire and Iowa, and you leave out an important state such as South Carolina too.  But all of these states used to be, particularly in South Carolina, used to be more of a defensive mode where they were firewalls that were set up. I think with this advancing and I think, strategically, it looks as if these early states will be an accelerator that you can take advantage of, as well as too politically, with those larger states because you’ve got anywhere between, when the votes are cast in those Iowa Caucuses, you probably have 18 to 17 states moving up their primaries of roughly 700 Republican delegates, just that time table between January and February the 5th.

MR. HALPERIN: Right. We don’t know all the states, of course, that are going to be on February 5th but there are some real big ones, including California, that are talking about moving to that day.  In the past, candidates who have done well in Iowa and New Hampshire have done well in subsequent contests, largely off of the momentum.  Is it possible, Chris, for a candidate who doesn’t do well there to have conditioned the media and other people who play a role in the expectations game to say, look, we may have finished third in Iowa or third in South Carolina but look at all the delegates that are available to us in California and New York, Illinois, wherever, we are going to do well on that day and we are going to wake up on February 6th with the most delegates and you should not drive us out of the race after Iowa and New Hampshire if we don’t do well; is that a plausible scenario for a campaign?

MR. HENNICK: It could be and still it’s an assumption, we won’t know until they vote. But there is still the questions of where voters, could they still remain parked or waiting after these early contests, but all the history points to the importance in the past and it probably will be more important because of the front loading.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, your candidate skipped the Iowa Caucuses in 2000--

MR. DAVIS: Skipped through New Hampshire.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: Skipped through New Hampshire.  And he is, but he is competing, as best we can tell, in Iowa, spending time there, planning to make an investment there.  What has the reaction been of the good people of Iowa to a candidate who spurned them eight years ago but is now coming back and asking for their vote?

MR. DAVIS:  Well he has been drinking a lot of ethanol lately, that was the one remark that he made in his first town hall there.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: It doesn’t taste very good but it’s very effective, it gets you up in the morning right away.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: I think it’s been okay. I mean it’s obviously a bit of a hurdle, no one has ever skipped Iowa, done well and then come back and said, hey, I want to, you know, do well in Iowa. It’s a caucus state, as you all know, and that poses its own organizational issues for the Senator. But look, I mean I think that he wants to lead the party, he wants to be the nominee of the party, that means he has to be the nominee of our party in every state and it’s more difficult as a non-insurgent to pick and choose. So I think that he has made a brave choice of going to Iowa and we’ll see what comes out of it.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, none of the three candidates you represent I suspect will take the, enter into the federal system where you get matching funds.  If you don’t take the matching funds, you can spend unlimited money in every state, the matching funds limit how much you can spend overall in an individual state.  So one of the things people talk about in terms of front loading is the importance of raising money. Now you work for a candidate who is the most personally wealthy of the three, have there been any discussions in Romney’s strategy meetings, I keep going back to your strategy meetings because they fascinate me, of the Governor opening up his checkbook and maybe putting personal millions into this race in order to be better positioned to compete on expensive television in those February 5th states?

MR. CASTELLANOS: It’s a great country where a person can work hard and succeed and build a little nest egg.

MR. HALPERIN: Has that been discussed those, him spending his personal wealth?

MR. CASTELLANOS: No. Right now, the campaign has been successful, I think. Governor Romney has found an audience, as a matter of fact from in the top tier of the three candidates and then having a lot of fund raising success, as I think as a lot of the Republican candidates are, so there is no need to consider that at this point.

MR. HALPERIN: I want to move to the question of the youth vote but I want to ask one more fund raising question and it’s sort of an unorthodox style.  I’m going to tell you what we are going to do, don’t freak out.  You are all going to close your eyes and I’m going to ask you to point at the person whose campaign you think will raise the most money in the first quarter and—

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: --you can point to yourself, all right? So close your eyes, no peeking, close your eyes, gentlemen, close them.

MR. DAVIS:  I’m not going to play your stupid game.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: I was afraid of that.  All right, well, we’ll do it in a more conventional way.  Whose campaign will raise the most money in the first quarter of these three?

MR. CASTELLANOS: Of these three? Well it should be John McCain, he has been out there the longest.

MR. HALPERIN: All right, Rick?

MR. DAVIS: Well, you know, I hope we do, but it’s very, it’s difficult to raise money in the environment we are in and with the competition that we have.

MR. HALPERIN: So you don’t know or you are not saying?

MR. DAVIS: If I knew, I would say so.

MR. HALPERIN: Chris, who is going to raise the most in the first quarter?

MR. HENNICK: This will be my vote for John McCain.

MR. HALPERIN: Let me—

MR. HENNICK: Are we raising expectations?  Is that the name of the game?

MR. HALPERIN: Let me ask you, Chris, your candidate right now is, I think without dispute, although he has had some bad press in the last few days, has had a lot of very good press and the public opinion polls have certainly created the impression, which was pretty unanimous in a lot of circles before, that he couldn’t be the Republican nominee to people saying he could be.  And you know, in some polls he is above 50-60 percent in terms of the nomination fight, so is that likely to help Mayor Giuliani raise money?  Everyone has, in this panel, has events almost every night between now and the end of the quarter, March 31st. So is that likely to help Mayor Giuliani raise more money in the next couple of weeks?

MR. HENNICK: It should, but it’s not just about money, I think it’s more a reflection about the attributes where, what Republican primary caucus goers and voters are looking for right now, and they are looking at a set of attributes where he is very credible on leadership as well as his focus of competency, it’s a trait that they are looking for.  There is a doer image from the New York accomplishments that is what Republican primary voters are looking for, so I think that’s obviously certainly a premise that the Giuliani campaign is based on, but it looks as if the numbers are reflective as well too. 

But on money, there is no question money support is a good indication of people support, but we are just now starting, so this is the first quarter of the first FEC cycle so—

MR. HALPERIN: Going up against this behemoth of the McCain people too. 

Alex, young people, we talked about this earlier today, have a chance to be involved in this campaign increasingly through the Web-based activities which are something the campaigns are all paying close attention to.  How much of a quantum leap will there be in do you think the youth vote in the Republican nominating process, in the general election in November, 2008?  And how much, in terms of youth participation, through all manners on the Web?

MR. CASTELLANOS: That’s something we have seen that’s different this election than anything we have seen before.  There is a wise, old advertising fellow who said once that the amazing thing about most trends is they don’t happen, you know, the decline of television, of radio when TV came in, when something new comes in.  So we still have the old, established media out there and which is very important for some of us, especially those in journalism who cover both new media and old participated in both.

But something that has changed now is that there are so many more vehicles and channels which to communicate with voters, and the Internet and cable, and it’s so fragmented out there but it’s not just more channels, it’s the velocity of it.  It is consuming information from campaigns at a pace we have never seen.  And of course maybe it’s the youngest, most energetically, most technologically savvy generation that we’ve seen participate in politics.  I mean for them the medium is the message.  If the campaign uses new media, if the campaign purchases new media, that’s message for them, that shows you understand the way the world is moving.

So, yeah, it’s something that’s, there is still old media, there is still going to be, but this election, I think more than any other we have ever seen, you know, it’s not really our campaign, it’s your campaign.  This campaign will be fought out in the earned media and on the Internet and it’s a new world out there.

MR. HALPERIN: Chris Hennick, does Mayor Giuliani use the Internet?  If so, for what and what will your campaign do to take advantage of his appeal to young people?

(Laughter)

MR. HENNICK: Well let’s answer first the campaign to the young people.

MR. HALPERIN: And hope we forget the second.

MR. HENNICK: Right.  I think clearly, I think this campaign will largely, this 2008 campaign, a lot will be driven from outside the campaign from what was within campaigns, particularly on social networking, where we are seeing the Web take us. Certainly there is, from where political campaigns have gone in the past, this is a whole new venue but I think, from where I know what tools we are going to use, we are going to be reaching out to more of the social side of networking.  And you’ll see a whole host of, in fact I can say that he is, that e-mailable in his personal life and I think he appreciates the political context of where this will take us, and where we can reach voters and particularly young voters as well too.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, when something happens to one of the campaigns, frequently my colleagues and I will analyze it and say the campaign intended to do this, they intended to do that, as if all the things that happen inside the campaigns is actually well planned when in fact, I gather, sometimes it’s happenstance and chaos.  So take us behind the decision to put one of the older candidates in the race, shall I say, Senator McCain on the “Letterman Show” and to announce his candidacy there.  Was that some, as some said, an effort to appeal to young voters in a new media format and make a big splash there or did he just blurt that out?

MR. DAVIS: Well, you know, we wanted to put him on the Internet but he wouldn’t do that so, no. Let me just say though if you are interested in John McCain on the Internet, it’s JohnMcCain.com, okay?  And we do take contributions because we have to be ahead of these guys come the end of March, so please feel free.

No, I think that, I think sometimes it’s sort of over thinking that happens in the media when it comes to those kinds of things.  I mean if you think about John McCain and this sort of pseudo announcement, how many of you really believe John McCain wasn’t already running for president?

So it’s more declaring the obvious and he is very much a declare the obvious kind of guy and, if he sits through a meeting where he said, oh, you know, when should we announce this campaign formally?  He is the kind of guy like how about tonight, I’m on the “Letterman Show”?  The only trouble we got into though was that he promised Jay Leno he would announce on his show, so now we’ve got a little West Coast issue, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he is out there some time soon, but I think it’s much ado about nothing.  John McCain is the kind of guy, he has only been on Letterman 25 times in the last five years. 

I’m just happy it didn’t happen on Comedy Central because then nobody would have taken it seriously and we would have had to do it all over again, so I—

MR. HALPERIN: Not really as high brow as Letterman.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: Yeah. I think, look, John is a very practical guy and he likes to have fun. And I think part of what sometimes is missing in presidential contests is

the enjoyment of this great experiment we get to do every cycle, and this is fun and it ought to be fun.

MR. HALPERIN: Can he, as the oldest candidate in the race, be the most successful candidate with young voters?

MR. DAVIS: Can we just come to an agreement as to how many times you are going to say the oldest candidate in the race?

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: Okay, he is the most experienced candidate in the race.

MR. DAVIS: I like that better.

MR. HALPERIN: Can he be the it candidate amongst young voters? Is there a barrier because of—

MR. DAVIS: Yeah. Look, I mean it wasn’t that along ago he was the it candidate amongst young voters and he still holds the same attitudes that he had.  So I assume it wasn’t because he was the young man at 63 that he was last time he ran, that was certainly not the it candidate thing. So I think it’s your ideas, I think it’s your energy and he has got the best of both of those.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, a lot of attention in the national press to the two leading Democratic candidates, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, and I want to talk about the impact that that’s having on your race but, at this point, would you hazard a guess at who the likely Democratic nominee is?

MR. CASTELLANOS: No, and I wish them as much contention as possible in figuring that out.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: Do either of you have a strong opinion about who the democrats are likely to nominate?

MR. DAVIS: Is Howard Dean running again?

MR. HALPERIN: Do you have a strong opinion of who—

MR. HENNICK: I think we are just earning the Republican nomination and getting started and anybody who is trying to at least juxtapose general election expectations right now is a little too premature.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, go ahead.

MR. CASTELLANOS: It is interesting though that, on the Democratic side, I think on both sides you are seeing a hunger for something new, for something fresh and change, and I think who would have thought Barak Obama half a year ago?

And so I think that is, on the Republican side, we don’t have that problem of running against the establishment, but on the Democratic side, that’s going to be a tough thing for them to resolve out there and unify that party afterwards.

MR. HALPERIN: What does it say about the country, the media or whatever else you want to attribute it to that it appears to me that the notion of the first potential female president is treated like a big, exciting story in the media, the notion of the first potential African American president is treated like a big, exciting story and the notion of the first Mormon American to be president is treated like we are going to turn the country over to a cultist?  What does, that’s how it’s treated, I’m not saying that’s my opinion.  Why is, what accounts for the discrepancy?

MR. CASTELLANOS: Mitt Romney is a Mormon?

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: What accounts for the—

MR. CASTELLANOS: I wish somebody had told me that.

MR. HALPERIN: What accounts for the lack of equal coverage on the notion of an historic, exciting first?

MR. CASTELLANOS: Well I think there is very little known about the Governor’s faith, it is something new.  We have had minority candidates and female candidates for public office, but I think, at the end of the day, it’s just the unfamiliar.  As folks get to learn about the Governor, his family and his values, and they understand, you know, you can be a Mormon and end up like Harry Reid, so it doesn’t necessarily seem to compel your political views.  I think it’s just a question mark that folks are right to ask about.

MR. HALPERIN: Chris Hennick, do you think that being a Mormon is a problem for Governor Romney in the nominating process and does Mayor Giuliani have a comparable problem, something you would consider analogous, that he has got to address?

MR. HENNICK: No and no.

(Laughter)

MR. CASTELLANOS: Is Mayor Giuliani a Mormon?

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, do you think it will be a problem?

MR. DAVIS: No.

MR. HALPERIN: That settles that.

Let me ask you about the attention the democrats are getting, is that a problem, Rick, for your candidates in any way that the democrats seem to and I think likely to continue to get a lot of attention?

MR. DAVIS: No. Look, this is a very long process, I mean we are, what, 11 months away from a lot of the delegates being chosen in either primary’s field and I think that there will be plenty of time for everybody to make their pitch and punch through whatever kind of noise in the political system.  And the American public is uniquely deferential to all the views that these candidates have and usually gives at least everybody one shot at convincing them that they are the guy that ought to be, the person that ought to be in the White House, so I think it’s just time will tell.

MR. HALPERIN: Chris, this is the first post 9/11 election without an incumbent, what impact will that have on the selection of the Republican nominee do you think, as I lob a softball your way?

(Laughter)

MR. HENNICK: It is an historic election, I think it’s still very much unknown, but it does set the sense of security, safety, protecting the United States, it sets a larger frame, and I think what’s really fascinating is people, a couple of us just finished going to CPAC in Washington, D.C. and there was a sense of Ronald Reagan was mentioned quite often.

But what’s largely missed about Ronald Reagan, which was what was said all throughout his career until he was elected President in 1980, that he couldn’t get elected for various reasons. He was too conservative, he was the first President, first candidate to be divorced at that time he would create a war, what have you.  Well all voters put that aside and they put those, they voted for a larger set of attributes. And despite having the sense of where they were internationally.  So I think you are seeing a lot of similarities in this, similarities between the 2008 election where you talk about an open seat. There is that set of attributes that are driving it internationally, as well as domestically.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, you’ve got Mayor Giuliani whose national reputation was built on a national security situation, Senator McCain, a war hero who has got broad military and national security credentials, how does Governor Romney compete in a post 9/11 era on those kinds of issues against those kinds of credentials?

MR. CASTELLANOS: Well I think one of the things that we learned on 9/11 and beyond is that America is no longer safe and secure behind these oceans, not just militarily, but that it’s a completely new global frontier out there.  We have economic challenges, we have security challenges, we have diplomatic challenges and they are all tied together.  We can’t remain a military superpower unless we remain an economic superpower and we have economic challenges from China, Asia, developing countries that can be great markets but could also be fierce competitors.

And America has to remain a leader in the world, a force for peace and security, not just a military decision, you don’t hire just a policeman.  I mean who is going to lead a stronger country into the future? And if this election is about that, I think Mitt Romney has a pretty good case to make that he is the fellow who can go to Washington and change things the way he has done in Massachusetts, the way he has done in business, the way he has done in every arena of his life, and so you can unleash the American people to build a stronger country.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, you mentioned, somewhat jokingly, that Senator McCain regularly says if I have to lose the election over Iraq, I will.  Senator McCain, like Senator Clinton, is frequently criticized on cable TV, on talk radio, on the blogosphere for being both too accommodating to the Republican Party and too much out of line with the Republican Party.  And of late, I think, on any given day, it’s hard to tell from which direction more of the incoming is headed his way.  Is that something the campaign thinks about? Is that something the campaign thinks is a problem of is John McCain going to rise or fall on what he believes and not try to accommodate one side or the other the rest of the way?

MR. DAVIS: Yes. That’s a hard one to answer.  He is going to rise above and stand on principle, as he always has, which is why he gets various sides attacking him from time to time, and let the chips fall where they may—

MR. HALPERIN: What do you say to the—

MR. DAVIS: --based on putting the national interest ahead of his political interest.

MR. HALPERIN: What do you say to those critics who say when he ran for president in 2000, he was much more critical of certain aspects of Republican orthodoxy and that this time he is doing whatever he can to not let anyone get to his right on issues of the day?

MR. DAVIS: Well I would say, you know, I would challenge them to say which issue is that because I think in 2000 the media always thought that he was much more liberal than he really was and now they believe he is much more conservative than he really is. In other words, there is an expectation that the media creates of who you are and they try to define you as their expectation, not as who you really are. And I think for John McCain, he has been pretty much the same guy his entire political career, he is one of the very few people who you can look at a 24 year career in the Congress and say, you know, his voting record is very consistent.

On these issues the people like to criticize, sometimes it strikes against the orthodoxy of our party, climate change is a very good example of that.  John got very involved in the climate change issue during the campaign in 1999.  At that time, not only in the public domain but certainly in our own party, there was a very hot debate as to whether or not the science could prove there was climate change.  Well, you know, seven years later, there is universal acceptance that not only is there climate change but that there needs to be something to do.  And John has been one of the people pushing our party to get to the point where we have ideas that can help solve the problem and meet the needs that people want.

So, at the time, that was like, wow, this is not a Republican issue, why would John McCain go out and campaign on climate change?  Today, the party is coming to where he is. So I do think the fact that he is a leader and he tries to bring the party to places that they otherwise haven’t been in the past shows not only that he has the ability to be intellectually curious into the future and get himself involved in issues that in the past haven’t been orthodoxy.

MR. HALPERIN: Okay, we turn to your questions now. There are four microphones, two down here, two up there.  My recommendation, if you have a question for Rick Davis, don’t ask him to close his eyes in answering it.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: He doesn’t like that.  But do ask a question, don’t give a speech. Identify yourself, please, in some way and, if you would like to direct it to anyone in particular, please feel free to do that.  If not, we’ll figure out up here who gets to answer. Sir?

MR. MESSEK: Hi, thanks. My name is Luke Messek, I’m a junior at the college, this question is for all three.  As you know, millions of African men, women and children die each year from preventable and treatable diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and public health experts today say that the only way to turn this around is to address the shortage of health care workers on the continent. 

I myself have seen children die painful deaths because they were unable to reach doctors before it was too late and currently in subSaharan Africa you have 3 percent of the world’s health care workers forced to battle 25 percent of the global disease burden. So the World Health Organization says that we can turn this around with, you know, common sense measures to train, recruit and retain health care workers and that the U.S.’s fair share of this would be $8 billion over five years. 

So my question is, as president, would President Giuliani, or President Romney or President McCain commit to this $8 billion over five years?

MR. HALPERIN: All right, excellent question.  Not all these gentlemen are policy experts but, Chris Hennick, you get to start.

MR. HENNICK: A very good question. I think any, at least from a Republican candidate would put a compass due north to what this current White House, this current president, has done on AIDS and particularly international AIDS.  And so I think it’s a very serious issue and it’s one of which I think the legacy will be, for this White House, will be one to, that we’ll be focused on for a long, long time.  So I think both the policy that’s existing now in the White House as well as what your proposals are very valid and very valid to raise among candidates.

MR. HALPERIN:  Alex?

MR. CASTELLANOS: I’m a lowly media guy so it’s hard for me to make policy commitments for that.  All I’ll say is that the governor’s priority here in Massachusetts was to make sure that everybody had access to health care and it’s something that he would think outside the box a little bit and came up with a new way to do it to address the problem.  So I think there are ways to address these problems that aren’t just, you know, how much are we going to spend and write a check is not the only way to look at the problem.  Let’s look at how we can address these things in other ways as well.

MR. HALPERIN:  Rick?

MR. DAVIS:  Yeah, look, I think that health care in general is going to be one of the hottest debated topics, not only in the Republican Party but the Democratic Party. There is no question that the public is losing confidence that our system is going to keep pace with the times. 

I will say that it is interesting to note that we still have, and I think we are encouraged by this, that we still have one of the greatest health care systems in the world and I think a lot of people like you want to just make it better. 

John McCain has consistently supported the child health care program, CHP, that’s going to come up for reauthorization.  That’s a very Senate answer and I’m trying to get away from those things, but one of the things that you talk about is the infrastructure, the people who are actually administering the health care system in the United States and that is getting difficult not only because of the litigious society that we’ve become and the amount of insurance that doctors and providers of these services have to have, it knocks a lot of people out of the business.  But also the ability to get this kind of training in the education system that we have.

And so I would say I don’t know where the number comes from, it sounds like a ton of money to me, but it is in an area that I think this country is going to have to address not only in this area but in the whole delivery system of our health care system, not just whether or not we have access and what the cost is of this insurance.

So, you know, it’s obviously going to be hotly debated, we’re probably not the best guys to be answering a real hard, substantive question like that, but I think you will find that, yeah, I know, we would never do that.  But I think you will find that the candidates this time are going to be really held to a very high standard when it comes to what their plans are going to be for improving the health care system and the delivery system of our people.

MR. HALPERIN:  Ma’am?

MS. ESSLEN: My name is Rachael Esslen and I’m a freshman at the college. 

I would like to address my question to Alex and the Romney campaign.  I myself am a Mormon and I don’t know if you are familiar with the whole Facebook venue but it’s a pretty big part of most college students’ life and they have groups set up for various political candidates, including your three candidates, and the members who join that group, based on that membership, they will display related groups. And I’ve noticed, with all the Romney groups, all of the related groups are always like the largest Mormon Facebook group like on Facebook.

And I think this demonstrates a valid point, that it seems like a lot of the enthusiasm I hear for Romney is coming from Mormons, or from really conservative Christians or kind of the Republican right, and I’m wondering how the Romney campaign is planning to extend and broaden their base, especially because I’ve heard that like the Massachusetts base isn’t as strong as it used to be.

MR. CASTELLANOS: That’s a rumor.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: Thank you.

MR. CASTELLANOS: Well I think we are in good shape in that Massachusetts primary. 

The challenges that face this country are so much bigger than any one religious persuasion at this point. I mean if we can’t see that today, this country is facing a new generation of challenges like it has never seen before, how are we going to appeal to every American?  That’s the question that’s before I think all of us here on this panel, how are we going to appeal to Republican primary voters? I think we’re going to talk to them about the North Star of American culture, what makes America a good and great country and that’s the strength of the American family and how do we make that stronger.

How do we make America more competitive in a world where, without that economic strength, you have no security, you have no jobs for the future, you have no retirement security, you can’t afford health care?  How do we keep America competitive that way?  And also part of it, how do you keep America’s military strength?  How do you maintain it when there is so much competition for the dollars that we need?  How do you rebuild those relationships, international relationships that are going to make America stronger?

So how are we going to appeal to any one?  We are going to appeal to every religious faith, we are going to appeal to every campus group, we are going to try to appeal to, hey, you know, this is your future, how are we going to lead a stronger America into the future?  And every group that supports all these candidates, whomever they are, every one is going to have different beliefs, things they think are important.  Because they support a candidate does not necessarily mean that candidate supports everything they believe.

MR. HALPERIN:  Up there?

MR. KARIUKI:  My name is Kaburi Kariuki, I’m a Mason Fellow here at the Kennedy School.

My question is also for Alex. I know you, Governor Mitt Romney is a staunch Mormon follower and I’m sure you are aware that most Christians consider the Mormon Church a cult.  And the Mormon Church also does have a horrible racial history where they basically discriminated and relegated black folk in this country and across the world. My question to you is, as his campaign advisor, what advice are you going to give to him to navigate this horrible history? And do you think he stands a chance with the black vote in this country?

MR. CASTELLANOS: All right, let’s put him down as undecided.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: He didn’t sound undecided to me, he is almost giving you advice.

MR. CASTELLANOS: Okay, you know, both, I think there had been a time in this country’s history when both Democratic and Republican parties had a history of racial relations that we wouldn’t necessarily be proud of today.  But you know what, this is America and things change, and as I understand it, the Mormon faith has changed and that is not who they are.

So, you know, what would I advise Governor Romney on that issue and all others?  Absolutely be himself and tell the truth, and I know he is a man of strong religious convictions and anybody who is running for public office who is going to for the slightest second change their religious convictions for political gain doesn’t deserve to run.

So I think the reason people elect presidents in this country is because you are going to do the job and that’s based on your strength of character, your values, the kind of person you are. All our values here are shaped not only by our religion, they are shaped by our belief in family and by the experiences we’ve all had, that’s just part of that web. So my advice to Governor Romney is to be the kind of person he has been his entire life. And my advice to America would be to look at the kind of person he has been, the way he has conducted himself, the way he has dealt with others and make your judgement on that.

MR. HALPERIN: Let me preemptively applaud the first three questioners for serious, excellent and succinct questions, for the most part, and urge everybody to keep that up, starting with this gentleman here.

FROM THE FLOOR: Hi. My name is Caleb and, on that note, I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this but I have two questions.

MR. HALPERIN: Are you in the college?

FROM THE FLOOR: Oh, I’m sorry, I’m a freshman at the college and I wanted to ask Mr. Davis certainly Senator McCain has campaigned a lot for President Bush in 2004 and has been a big proponent of the troop surge, but also, recently, some statements that he has made about Secretary Rumsfeld and about the Bush Administration’s position on global climate change have, it seems like he may have been trying to distance himself and I was just wondering if that was a deliberate effort to distance himself from the Bush Administration.

And then, for Mr. Hennick, I had a question about Mayor Giuliani’s position on abortion. Do you think that his position is going to hurt him in getting the Republican nomination, relative to the other two candidates represented here?

MR. DAVIS: Are you sure you don’t have anything for him?

MR. HALPERIN: He needs a rest.

Chris, why don’t you go first.

MR. HENNICK: I don’t think his position will hinder him because where he is, I think what you’ve seen him focus on, certainly on social issues, and that’s clearly an important one and an important one for our party, but I think where you’ve seen his position been is, particularly with Kayard v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court decision on the partial birth abortion ban that has already been, oral arguments have been delivered, there will be a decision I assume some time in this year.  But I think he has already come out, I know in fact he has, that he is upholding that ban with restrictions. So I think that’s very important to focus on, as well as how he views the issue.

He knows that New York is different than the rest of the country in where the focus is and various issues are decided upon. But in the end, I think he has always been a person who has felt like the women have a right to choose and it was the law, so he stands where he believes. But I think, in that aspect, I think that’s just, is more certain than trying to change and alter positions, so I think he is very sure of his reasoning and rationale.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, before you answer the student’s question, let me ask you, do you think the press makes too big a deal of Mayor Giuliani’s position on abortion as compared to how big a deal it will be in the nominating process?

MR. DAVIS:  You want me to answer that question?

MR. HALPERIN:  Yes, sir.

MR. DAVIS: No, I think, look, I mean these guys are going to be held to a lot of scrutiny no matter what the position is on whatever issue.  Abortion has been an issue that’s been hotly debated in our party for a long time, it’s not going to go away any time soon.

MR. HALPERIN: But does the press make too big a deal of the problem it will cause for Mayor Giuliani?

MR. DAVIS: I don’t know, I mean it’s hard for me to dictate, you know, what kind of coverage press should be giving emphasis on different issues.  So much of it depends upon what the cycle is that we are going through, and what the debate is at the time, and what news items are also going on around the country and around the world at that time, so it’s hard to say, I mean that’s pretty speculative. 

I think that at some point in time every one of our candidates are going to be held to a very close scrutiny on some issue that they think is out of step with the Republican orthodoxy, we’ve talked about a few, as it relates to John McCain already today so—

MR. HALPERIN: And that can segue into your answer here.

MR. DAVIS:  And that can segue into my answer.  And I would say one of the things that I enjoy about being involved with John McCain is that he is like everybody we know, he gets frustrated. He has been pretty frustrated with how the Bush Administration has handled the war in Iraq.  As I mentioned earlier, three years ago he came back from a tour in Iraq and said virtually every military commander, regardless of rank, told him we needed more troops to do the job.  He sat down with Don Rumsfeld and told him that, and Don Rumsfeld looked at him and said, you know, John, every military officer I know has told me that they have enough troops to do the job. Well sure they would, if you just fired the head of the army that said you needed more troops, and so no kidding.

So I think that he has this, you know, he is like you, he has a frustration, he sees what’s happening, but there is nothing more valuable to him than the blood and treasure that our country has spilled on the battlefront in Iraq and it gets him very frustrated and so, from time to time, he lets that frustration go into the public domain.  Look, I think it’s great, I think it’s about time that there is a level of accountability to this war, that up to this point in time we haven’t seen much of. 

I mean very recently the administration appointed the guy who has been in charge of the war for the last three years to be the Secretary of the Army, he got a promotion for screwing things up, now what do you think that made John McCain feel like when he had been presiding over the hearings with these guys and saying, look, are we doing enough to make improvements?  And every time it was, oh, don’t worry about it, things are going great, I mean, you know, it’s just a few loose dead-enders, the war is coming to an end soon.

So I mean I think you can react to that the same way you probably do every night when you see the evening news and say what’s being done about this?

MR. BULGER: Hi. My name is Ben Bulger and I’m a grad student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

And my question is, since we are at the Kennedy School of Government, probably President Kennedy’s best known book is Profiles in Courage, which talks about the need to make sacrifices and stand for your principles.  I think that that message is very appealing still today of the need for authenticity in politics and since we are talking to three strategists that are helping people get elected to serve in a national office, can you talk a little bit about your working relationship with your candidates?

How do you help them retain their convictions but also comport them to the needs of a marketable audience to get elected?  Can you talk about the give and take that goes between their principles and your advice?

MR. HALPERIN: So how do you fake authenticity I guess is the question?

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: Just kidding.

Alex, you first.

MR. CASTELLANOS: Genuine fake authenticity.  Well we take a lot of instructions on that from the news media.

(Laughter)

MR. CASTELLANOS: At this level, at this level of the debate and of leadership, you don’t have men rise to the top here, women, and contend for this kind of office that don’t generally know who they are and why they are running.  And the myth that as much as we actually would appreciate and are flattered by the complement, and actually charge for it if we could get away with it, we are not out here to manufacture something with these candidates, we are here to --.  I was talking to somebody the other day on how do you become a good presidential speechwriter and it’s you learn to ask the right questions and take good notes.

These men all have a perspective, there is a reason they got here, to where they are, so the working relationship is what’s your vision for the country?  Where do you think this place is going?  And it seems that one thing I have learned is that candidates attract people around them, you can tell a lot by the team they have around them.  In Governor Romney’s campaign, there are a bunch of people who have never done this before. They come from government, they come from policy, but they have never participated in a presidential campaign like this, and they are full of new ideas and they are excited about new ways of doing things, and so it’s there is a wonderful chaos and spontaneity to it all, so each campaign, in a way, takes on the personality of its candidate.

MR. HALPERIN: I don’t want to preempt you all answering but my guess is you agree with a lot of that. Is there anything you want to add to that or just associate yourself with Brother Castellanos’ remarks?

MR. DAVIS: I would say that there is a dynamic in this that sometimes you come to this fork in the road and it’s an important fork.  There are days when you read polling data and it says you need to go to the right fork to get the votes that you need to be President of the United States, and that’s not where your candidate is headed. And we had a fork like that. In the South Carolina campaign in 2000, all the local data says you’ve got to be for keeping this Confederate Flag on the top of the capitol, and we kept telling John, look, you’ve got to be for this, and he is like, well, I don’t like it.

And we convinced him, us advisors, that that was the only way to win in South Carolina and he resisted it constantly.  And you would probably remember the great episode on a rival network one Sunday where he had botched the answer to this question so many times we literally wrote it out on a card for him and said just read this and he did. In retaliation, he whipped out the card and said my advisors told me to read this today.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS:  And they always have the ultimate revenge—

MR. HALPERIN: That’s like faking authenticity.

MR. DAVIS: That was definitely faking authenticity.  And you know what, for a guy who is a straight talker, it really stuck in his craw, so after we got waxed in South Carolina and we were dead out of the presidential race, he insisted on going back to South Carolina and giving a speech saying, you know, I lied to you, I told you I would come and tell you the truth, I told you I would come and give you straight talk, and I lied to you about that flag, it is a flag that represents hatred and racism, and you ought to take it down and you ought to put it somewhere else.

And you know what, at the time, we weren’t thinking, hey, well, we may have to run in South Carolina again. Otherwise, we probably would have tackled him again and tried to stop him from doing it.  But you know what, at some time, you’ve got to just trust the instincts of the guy who is going to be sitting in the Oval Office making those judgement calls every single day without knuckleheads like us in the way. And that’s the advantage I think that we have with John is he completely listens to that inner voice.

MR. HENNICK: Mayor Giuliani, from my vantage point, he is asking the questions what does he offer the country or what does he offer his party?  Why should he run?  Will there be enough people that will support him? So I think all of those very vital threshold questions are asked by him and him alone and it’s up to us, people like us, to implement that or execute that in certain various ways in a campaign.  But I think, first and foremost, it’s what his general beliefs are and what his rationale for running is.

MR. HALPERIN:  Ma’am?

FROM THE FLOOR: Hi. I work at the Harvard School for Public Health, I wanted to ask you about your candidates’ plan for addressing the shortage of nurses in this country. The Department of Labor estimates that, by 2010, we are going to have a shortage of a million nurses in this country alone and a study done at the University of Pennsylvania estimates that about 20,000 people a year die in this country because they are in hospitals with overworked nurses.

So if we address this shortage, not only do we save American lives, we are also going to save lives in developing countries because a large proportion of nurses and doctors trained in developing countries immigrate to this country and to the U.K. to fill up the slots that we don’t manage to fill ourselves.  So what are your candidates’ plans and do those plans include long-term solutions like strong science education, better salaries and working conditions, and also an ultimate move to universal, single payer health care which, for many reasons, we should have but, in this particular context would cut down on the bureaucracy that is involved that currently takes a third of the time of all the nurses and doctors to deal with, instead of saving lives?

MR. HALPERIN: Thank you for the question, another excellent policy question. 

Let me just say I think I would recommend to the Kennedy School that there be a forum with advisors to the candidates on health care because it’s obviously going to be a big issue in both parties and then substantive questions like that can be answered. Now I saw with great warmth and affection we have three political hacks here and I fear that if I ask them to, I mean I know if we ask them to address this, they don’t know the answer to what their candidates think about this or how it’s going to fit into their eventual health care plan.

So I’m going to give them all a chance to answer and I’m not diminishing the question at all, but I’m just, I’m a little concerned that it’s a mismatch between what they know and what they could reasonably tell you about what they know, compared to some other issues.  So it is a good question, I hope we come back, if the Kennedy School does, takes my suggestion, has a health care forum and you ask that because it’s obviously one of many important health care questions.

Do any of you have a clue what your candidate thinks about—

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: --how to get more nurses in America?

MR. CASTELLANOS: I think all three of us are pro nurse.

MR. HALPERIN:  Okay.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: That’s a great way to put it.

MR. HALPERIN: Again, it’s a perfectly wonderful and important question but—

MR. DAVIS:  I would say it’s probably safe to assume too we are all against a single payer system.

MR. HALPERIN: Yeah, that would be true too.

MR. DAVIS: But, nonetheless—

FROM THE FLOOR: Will you bring this back to your candidates?  I mean this is something that—

MR. DAVIS: Absolutely.

FROM THE FLOOR: --they need to be thinking about, if they are not.

MR. DAVIS: No, they, I can honestly tell you we have had discussions about this and similar issues, and it’s not that they are not thinking about it, it’s just that we are not the most qualified people to answer your question.  But I would say that things like the development of these kinds of programs in community colleges, community colleges are becoming, I know that may be an anathema to this institution but community colleges are becoming a great place in the United States to train workers, especially in areas that are being under-served, and their combination of joint ventures with corporations, like hospitals, to provide skilled nursing is one of the things that’s a great success so far in our education system at the community college level.

I would also say, secondarily, that the expansion of programs like H1B visas to allow the importation, I shouldn’t say importation, the immigration of people with great skills --. I know. See, it’s a gotcha environment here.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS:  I make, I corrected it, okay? It will be in the newspaper tomorrow.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS:  But to allow a much more effective immigration policy because we are strangling our country’s development economically, and in your case, medically because we’ve overreacted, in many cases, to the experiences we’ve had from 9/11.  And we are hearing not only from hospital administrators but from businesses all over the country that they need that trained labor to come in, and come in easily and in large numbers. And I think that’s part of the strength of our country’s economy in the past is that we’ve been able to absorb people in these fields.  So it’s not that we haven’t thought about it, it’s just that we are probably not that well schooled on this issue.

MR. HALPERIN: Dr. Hennick, Dr. Castellanos, do either of you wish to weigh in on this? No, you don’t.

Up there, please?

MR. KWAN: Hi. My name is Jeff Kwan, I’m a student at the college and I’m also a member of the Harvard Republican Club here on campus.  A lot of—

MR. HALPERIN: Do you have a candidate yet?

MR. KWAN:  I’m sorry?

MR. HALPERIN: Do you have a candidate yet you are supporting?

MR. KWAN: I’m president of the club so I can’t personally announce that because we don’t endorse in primaries.  But a lot of what we do right now is outreaching for, to attract minorities into the club, especially racial minorities and members of the LGBD community into supporting the Republican candidate in 2008. I was wondering what commitment your campaigns are making to support diversity in your campaigns and to make sure that minorities will be voting Republican in 2008?

MR. HALPERIN: Excellent question.

Alex?

MR. CASTELLANOS: As a guy who came to this country at 11 years old from Cuba, many moons ago, I don’t know what commitment the campaign is making to specific minorities, I hope none.  I hope it’s, I hope it’s a commitment of opportunity for everybody, the things that attracted my parents to this country and I forever. Look, if the Republican Party is going to be successful, it’s got to be the party of opportunity for everybody, not targeted tax cuts that are just for this group or not some specific policy for this. 

There are 300 million people in this country who, and every one of them is needed right now to produce economically, to stand up politically for the right things, every one of them is needed right now.  It’s not this group or that group, I think we’ve had enough of that kind of politics.  And people frankly are a little tired of it. I think that’s one of the differences I think between republicans, certainly Governor Romney is I think we have an opportunity to do something a little bigger.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick Davis?

MR. DAVIS:  Well it’s hard not to disagree  with that except that I think there are certain things that we do as a party that closes off our opportunities to expand and make a bigger tent out of it and I would address immigration as a classic example of that. We were talking earlier in a separate forum about our ability to attract Hispanic voters as a party in the future. George Bush, when he got reelected, got 42 percent of the, 43 percent of the Hispanic vote, it was the high watermark of Republican recruitment at the ballot box for Hispanic voters, an admirable task and one that I think Bush did a tremendous job in during his campaign.

In 2006, after two years of a very divisive debate on immigration where many in our party basically said close off the borders and gas up the trucks because we are sending them all home, the republicans on the ballot, cumulatively, got about 26 percent of the Hispanic vote.  I would say right now in places like my boss’s home state of Arizona that there are very few Hispanics that are now registering as republicans. He has said repeatedly I would like whoever takes my job, ideally in 2008 when he is elected and sworn in as president, I would like the next senator from Arizona to be a Hispanic.

We don’t do enough in our party to think through sometimes the kind of issues that we tackle and the way we talk about them to determine whether we are going to have a dialogue with large portions of the American public.  And I just think that from a perspective of trying to broaden our party’s base and trying to make us competitive, I mean I’m about winning elections, and you need people to do that, and people have certain attitudes toward things, and I think our party needs to be a little more sensitive to them.

MR. HALPERIN:  Chris?

MR. HENNICK: That’s one of the strengths of the Giuliani candidacy now is to broaden certainly the party and also, throughout the nomination but also in the general election. I think Asian, you actually are younger and your approach there, there is no difference in the sense other than I think you have a greater sense of the future, you want to know what candidates are going to propose for the future and I believe that that standpoint, I think this candidacy, if we look in the future, where we are going to go, not rely on the typical 39 to 40 states that have been waged in the general election in the past.

I think there will be a whole host for the Republican Party to grow stronger with a whole sense of not only younger voters but voters of Asian decent, and Latino, all across the board.  So it’s very critical and very vital for the Republican Party to continue to grow and reach out.

MR. HALPERIN: Up there, please?

MR. GINSBERG: Hi. I’m Jeff Ginsberg, I’m a student here at the Kennedy School.

With all due respect, Mr. Halperin, we have the three top advisors to candidates for the Presidency of the United States and it’s a policy school, so I am going to ask a policy question.

I wanted to ask in terms of your candidates’ policies around gay rights and homosexuality, do your candidates believe that homosexuality is genetic, or environment or both?  And I would ask that you answer that with one word, genetic, environment or both, as the main factor as to why they are homosexual.

And two, do your candidates actually look at data, like with any other policy piece, and decide on their policies on homosexuality?  And I would specifically ask Governor Romney’s advisor, do you, we now have a state that has gay marriage and it’s been here for a while, so now do you look at the data to see if it’s had this extreme negative effect that your candidates thought that it might? Thank you.

MR. HALPERIN: While I give them a little more time to think about their answers, I’ll just say I’m not at all opposed to policy questions, I welcome them, I just, in some cases, I’m pretty confident I know them well enough to know they probably don’t know and their candidates may not even have fleshed out their positions.

MR. GINSBERG: That concerns me but I’ll leave—

MR. HALPERIN: Well, you know, this is an early starting campaign but it is February and, if you look back, most candidates develop their policies over the course of the year, so the fact that they don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever covered a presidential candidate who had a nursing policy in February of the year before the Iowa Caucuses.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: I may be wrong but I don’t think I—

MR. GINSBERG: Sir, it’s a governor, a senator and a mayor of the largest city in the world, they don’t have a policy on nursing?  I’m very concerned.

MR. HALPERIN: Just to be clear, the candidates and their top policy advisors I’m sure would have things to say about it, these aren’t, in every policy question, the right guys to ask. But I don’t want you to think we are not welcoming policy

questions, and this is one that should be pretty interesting and I think they should have answers.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: I’ll remind you since I filibustered—

MR. HENNICK: So you are not going to take the bullet on this one?

MR. HALPERIN: Not on this one.

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN: Genetic, environment or both, and in the case of Governor Romney, has his—

MR. GINSBERG: Well in the case of all, do they look at policy—

MR. HALPERIN: Have they looked at data to suggest whether Massachusetts has become a bad place in the wake of—

(Laughter)

MR. HALPERIN:  A worse place.

MR. GINSBERG: Do they look at data to form their policy on homosexuality?

MR. HALPERIN: Right, okay, I’m pretty sure I know what everybody’s answers are going to be, I’ll write them down here like Jeopardy, Final Jeopardy. 

Chris Hennick, environment, heredity or both?

MR. HENNICK: I’m a bit more focused on the index of political, I’ve been more focused on the index of political predispositions, from that standpoint, of all three choices, so I don’t—

MR. HALPERIN: Do you know Mayor Giuliani’s position on it?

MR. HENNICK: I’m sure he has one but I don’t know that to answer it.

MR. HALPERIN: Rick, do you know your candidate’s position?

MR. DAVIS: I can honestly say I have never had that conversation with John, so

I don’t know.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, do you know your candidate’s position?

MR. CASTELLANOS: I have not talked to Governor Romney about his view of

the science.

MR. HALPERIN: They just don’t know is the answer to that. 

Now, have you looked at anything about what’s happened in Massachusetts since

gay marriage was legalized by judicial decision and whether it’s had any impact on the state adversely or for the good?

MR. CASTELLANOS: This state here?

MR. HALPERIN: Yeah, have you looked at that?

MR. HENNICK: We’ve been so focused on ourselves and where we are going and organizing that we were not looking at any dynamic between that issue.  I know the Mayor is clear on his position in the past of where he stood, certainly on gay rights as Mayor of New York City and where he is focused, but we are not putting this in a context of Massachusetts.

MR. HALPERIN: To the extent that it continues to be an issue, would you recommend, in formulating a public policy position for, in helping your candidate formulate a public policy position, that they look at the effect in an experiment, an uncontrolled experiment in Massachusetts to decide whether gay marriage was a bad thing or would that not be part of the calculation?

MR. HENNICK: I don’t know about the calculation, I think what is his whole DNA is respect for the law and, being a former prosecutor, I think his general sense is these were decisions that were made by the courts instead of legislatures and states. So I think, in that context, he understands the environment and the implications of it.

MR. HALPERIN:  Rick?

MR. DAVIS: No, we have not looked at any data as it relates to Massachusetts, and I don’t know if it helps to define what our position is on it, if that’s interesting to you, but I mean we haven’t seen any data on Massachusetts.

MR. HALPERIN: Alex, special burden of a Massachusetts candidate?

MR. CASTELLANOS: I have not seen any data but I’m not sure that what the question is or if I could answer it, Governor Romney believes kids do better with a mom and a dad.  Some people may disagree with that but he thinks that’s what’s best for society, to have more of that to raise kids.  If, you know, better, what does that mean in terms of how the kids are raised?  Time?  Is it economic?  I mean there is a lot of ways to define that and I’m not sure what, we’d have to take a look at the data, but all I’m saying is it’s not just a decision of adding zeros and ones.

MR. HALPERIN: Let’s see if we can get some more in here.  Sir?

MR. KIMMEL: Hi, thanks for your comments tonight.  My name is Simeon Kimmel, I work at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

Earlier, this question is for Rick. Earlier, you said that you thought that $8 billion over five years seemed like an extraordinarily large amount of money for help for AIDS in Africa, I would like to point out that that’s about as much money as we are spending in one month in Iraq.  And you also said that you thought that our health system here is functioning quite well when compared to other systems.  And I would like to point out also that half of the people in this country who have AIDS don’t have access to treatment.

MR. HALPERIN: Both valid points, but I need you to make, ask a question, if you have one.

MR. KIMMEL: So I was wondering if you could comment a little bit more on your thoughts about, your candidate’s positions on AIDS treatment.

MR. DAVIS: Yeah. First of all, let me remind you I think the question wasn’t about AIDS in Africa, it was—

MR. HALPERIN:  It actually was, but maybe you misheard it.

MR. DAVIS: Oh, okay, then I misunderstood it and I apologize.

(Laughter)

MR. DAVIS: Thank you.

MR. HALPERIN: I should have interrupted you.

MR. DAVIS:  I do have listening problems sometimes.  When I get excited before I speak, I don’t think, so I apologize.  I thought we were talking about practitioners who are helping with the AIDS epidemic here in the United States and other things, like malaria and others.  In fact, I think probably $8 billion isn’t enough over a five year period to deal with that question. But I also know that, coming from a recent meeting with Bono in John McCain’s office the other day, that sometimes it’s not money that is making the difference.

And we hear a lot about the Bush commitment for large amounts of money to go into Africa for AIDS and obviously the very generous work being done by Bill Gates and his foundation and others in Africa but, in many cases, as I understand it from what they were telling us, is that it’s the local community development people who are actually the recipient of some of those funds, but only small portions of them were actually having the best impact in trying to not only treat the disease there in Africa but also to keep it from occurring and reoccurring.

And the most amazing thing that I learned in the course of that is that we don’t have any close, good count on what we really think the epidemic is, not only in Africa but here in the United States.  You could not find a state that can report to you exactly how many AIDS and HIV/AIDS victims they have in their state, we don’t have a way of counting. And so, in order to start treating a disease in a realistic way, we’ve got to start counting in a better way and I think that was one of the first things that John took from the meeting that was so interesting to him. So I apologize for getting it wrong the first time, I hope I’m a little closer to the right answer this time.

MR. HALPERIN: I’m glad you got to do that.  Yes, ma’am?

MS. HUMMEL:  Hi. My name is Rebecca Hummel, I’m a second year public policy student here at the Kennedy School, again a question for Senator McCain’s advisor.

This is a bit about policy and strategy but as the two kind of are conflated, I would like to jump ahead six months, and while we all hope that this surge strategy in Iraq works out, there is a strong likelihood that it may not. And I’m wondering how are you going to reconcile Senator McCain’s probably convictions and passions, which you have upheld as something that you think is a good quality, with what might be a very politically unpalatable recommendation about what to do next in Iraq? So, if he has to get on Letterman again, what would you tell him to say if, you know, more troops are what’s needed and he believes that, but that won’t fly politically and domestically?

MR. DAVIS: I think John has been very straightforward in what he has said in the past about the war, both in hearings in the Armed Services Committee, with the general staff and on television talk shows. And what he has said is very clear, he says we either commit the number of troops that we need to win the war and, if that doesn’t work or if we don’t do it, then we ought to just get out. I mean I can’t imagine a more clear public statement on a policy toward Iraq.  Being from the military, John understands, and probably better than most, that the most difficult military maneuver that you can employ is a retreat and most of the debate on Iraq in our public forums today is about retreating.

And if you are in the military, put themselves, put yourself into their boots for a second and think, hey, we are going to get out in six months, but tonight we are going to go into Fallujah and do night maneuvers and try and find bad guys, any volunteers, because in six months we’ll be out of here? Now do you want to be the last guy shot in Iraq?  I mean it destroys the morale of the military on the ground.  And so part of what I think John’s frustration has been is it’s not you can have it both ways, you can’t be there and get out at the same time. 

You are either there, fighting to win, or you get out, and you don’t really try to have it both ways, and I think he has been very clear about this.  This is something that he has said for quite some time.

MR. HALPERIN: That’s going to have to be the last question, and as always, we wish we got to more.  I just want to say three more things before we conclude.  First, in two weeks, as we said, we’ll have advisors here in this same space for the leading Democratic campaigns and we hope those of you who can come back and we’ll see if we can stump the band with them as well. 

Second, I know a lot of busy people come to Harvard all the time to speak, these are three extraordinarily busy guys so we thank you three for coming and sharing your thoughts with us.

And finally, Chris Hennick, a double credit for coming with a new, young child, and I want to just warn people that he needs to go make an airplane so he can get home, so don’t think when he stiff arms you on his way out that he is being rude, but he does have to get to Logan Airport which is not effortless, so the other two I’m sure will be glad to linger and answer all your questions.

(Laughter) MR. HALPERIN: But Chris needs to go. So thank you all for coming, we

appreciate it, we’ll see you in two weeks.

(Applause)

(Whereupon, at 7:19 p.m., the session was concluded.)


C E R T I F I C A T E

This is to certify that the preceding transcript is an accurate record based on the recordings of the proceedings taken:

Before: MARK HALPERIN, Moderator

In the Matter of:

CAMPAIGN 2008:  LOOKING AHEAD

Date: March 5, 2007

Place: Cambridge, Massachusetts

03/12/07   Martin T. Farley   Date
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