A Word on Words; 3835; Dan Balz And Haynes Johnson

fb liz from national television studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on workers with jobs welcome once again to word on words my guests today are two distinguished journalist from the national political scene in boston journalist working both worried that a political correspondent since nineteen seventy eight he's a frequent guest on the pbs program washington week and haynes johnson won a pulitzer prize for distinguished national

reporting in nineteen ninety six it was his coverage insurance prices in selma they're caught in the battle for america two thousand and eight the story of an extraordinary election that based on extensive interviews with campaign insiders from the candidates own them the first new route for almost for politics friends welcomed on the island again bombed near the end of the book obama's been elected right and you have this post election and we win and it's a fascinating interview me he says i'm not the most interesting in this election which i thought was very insightful and he was of course what it was so many other fascinating carter's which

which remained hidden this book on intimate reason why teddy white the make of the president nineteen sixty if we're going to have to make in the present nineteen eighteen orson johnson of pages but but talk about it from that perspective these fascinating the faster your eight characters who turn up in this election year let us captivated well you know it was with all covered politics for airlines now that we've covered campaigns and so forth when the campaign year we started long before the years to the point that we were looking to see what we can do and so forth and not just do another book much as to try to follow tony wider war by most of them but because we thought it was maybe the most important election and our lifetime and it didn't have this extraordinary range of characters personalities in the state before the country was so tremendous it didn't matter who was on the present any one of these people

would face these terrible problems no matter whether with a warm weather on that basis i want anyone fall to see what happens and i'm glad you cited that interview of the day in chicago because if there's one thing in the book that will stand out in history it seems to me is obama this reflective talking about comparing himself would not comment lincoln would you want to bring people together he would reach out to him and i were we've talked about this ever since that only a sense that is the standard in this book it seemed to believe whatever else we did not get this is so extraordinary you know political you in your life as well are as in politics but i found that every one of the most remarkable sort of self revealing who this person is he's certain there are two things about lincoln i want so here is a self made man

as you're going out and as we know from his own good fall dessert some growth in the nation is sent back by his mother to be raised by two white grandparents annoy com so when men like and so white man running conflicts like something about lincoln that fascinates me he says is its ability to reach out and shape not just a campaign but of the nation and the giants all of become a cliche but to bring people together and i sink about what he said and some people say too is to his own misfortune he has lived up to the villages beside it is the tension of passage i think that soul write about both the interview and what has happened since nine

one one when he talked about lincoln he was quite distinctive him why he admired him and as he said we can have the ability to recognize that the truth was somewhere between you and me than the goal of leadership was to guide people to that troops and bring them together and he was also clear that not every president acted that way in an interview he said some presidents have tried to essentially ban people to their well fdr fdr and certainly you would sail been jailed and then through a lot of this battle over health care there were people who were saying president obama needs to be more like lbj you need to get down there and you know cracks and heads together but in fact his style of leadership as he talked about in that interview was to do it differently and he was determined to do it in that way and i like that that means

that interview was so revealing of president obama's ambitions not just an agenda but in his style of leadership and what happens first year after that the idea that he couldn't bring them together that there wasn't a way to find your mate on the same ground pork so i don't know what's in his hand as he going through all that this let's hear from the head of the pre cut all we know the challenges the commitment you know cause the store the campaign has a story about a different politicians you think back on that lineup of all of democrats in all of the republicans in all of the debates and you finally come down is going to be a problem on mars to be hillary clinton armed services talk about her campaign for

me again the most revealing and maybe it's the most meaningful remembrance of that campaign is how bill and hillary had reacted the challenge and you just go through one after another after another and i'm reminded of how angrily they reacted when bill richardson quote as columns of the training and then how generally where would john willis from home and how disappointed they were throughout the campaign with a campaign for four months and then her performance and then when he gets when bill clinton gets upset how disappointed are found in thinking does polling hours and years before he was among the few just fuming all football all eyes away even

understand he was a two term president anyone since roosevelt in the democratic party and the first black president the senate is likely to all the support all this strength and maybe we can't eat this i have no experience and so for that reason maybe a racist our race card and he just exploded all over the place and she you know obama in the lead you talk about this and there are two characters out of it it's just incredible to watch this thing that when you get to the point where clinton is pressing ted kennedy to endorse him hillary and several lamacchia of the series really emotional angry and there was just all over the place it's again i think that's a second most vivid thing to watch teddy and an entity i mean maybe wanted to go for a while and then he'd listen to use hearing

something that clinton wants everybody else here but turns out to be very sorry to hear it well there's no question that kennedy was really drawn to obama very early on you know obama went to see him in late two thousand six figure running what should i do kennedy says you should run longer you stay here in the senate the longer your voting records gonna be it's gonna be a weight around your neck if you want the president to get out of the senate as quickly as you can but you know they're good friendship and relationship with both bill and hillary clinton that he was not ready to endorse chris dodd one of his closest friends in the senate was in the race he was into a norse at that point one starts out of the race it's his endorsement is suddenly up for grabs and the clintons go after him and particularly brooklyn go after that endorsed when he thinks you think about western time to you know

to a lot of other things while he was president that he fascinated and then you're emulating itself on how jack kennedy offense second in that famous picture the local news in the rose garden with president kennedy with a boy i was a boy is a so so clearly they felt that it was owed and deserve but that was a period when bill clinton was saying things and doing things that when a variety of ways we're we're touching off the race issue and ted kennedy those totally totally angry at the clintons for this blame them for and these conversations that bill clinton had with ted kennedy were very tough and they you know they aired it out with one another and clinton knell took objection to some of the things carey was saying can they said no you're distorting the facts get off this racial stuff than the kennedys and the pecans ultimately realized she wasn't going to get the nomination of the at the open doors so they wanted them to him for him to be

neutral and i tried to keep a patrol and ultimately kennedy went for obama and in many ways it was you know the single most important abortion because it came right at the victory and nobody would want you know you look at where she finally got to make a decision then there is that a group of advisors and she asks them to tell or oh that's even all a staunch event on all these people you just think when you just think when we just can't win unless she asked them anywhere though is sort of she's only as you know the answer i think they are making a difference at that point maybe i don't know what were you know the whole idea to henry clay startled all the anguish of the presence of her husband all the scandal all the abuses took and he gets is that she starts

out with these great the best players in the game more money more of a commission to be available to it and then start falling apart and i you know again it's a psychodrama i really is to get under her i can choose to go sailing away and she's got a deal with me loss and instability and you by michelle where wayman given my age or is it race this villainous thing i found it it's a this is an incredible pork barrel was also interesting because almost to a person on her staff layoffs and yes he can win and one survivor he can win with your help for everybody in the camp should he was against her absent dropping out completely thought she said simply suspended as he put it in one of those conversations made him grumble announcement that brock obama come to you and get your support and everybody else said

no and i suppose through the heart of the tensions internally and she understood that at that point you know she knew no she's a smart politician today she understood where she was at that point maybe have the story of obama mr grove you talked about where he's from all the tragedy in his life and really the factory comes out of nowhere almost a deal with the president on state just one hell of a story from marc and him and you have hillary and have that something that the goldwater girl victims of progressive liberal democrat and he says all these things going for him and caesar falling apart and bill is fomenting problems for i mean it's just we just really i mean you know and the irony being that he was you know he was in as one of the shrewdest relatives in the history of the democratic campaign and a natural campaigner but he was off his game again in their terms you know this is not the bill clinton bill clinton wants you to see how he did it just to get something of that seems right and you know

i've thought a lot about this and that the best explanation that i could come up with was that it so much more difficult for him because he's campaigning for his wife and this is he's not campaigning for himself and he's not campaigning for just anybody else he's out there working for his wife and so there is this this sort of special intensity that he brings to it and i think it put in office and a webinar on her psychiatrist year but there was also i think he was feeling to guilt or that the pain he caused her there was a redemption quality weekend there was a soviet they're these things are going on in just hours incredible just joining us were talking with them mostly johnson about their collaboration on the battle for america about an eighth extraordinary campaign by any standard and as i said earlier two we open the progress if there is a making the president to do that when i served in the image a day why have done it and i congratulate you

know has all remember well we've talked about the democrats and others now let's talk about the republican john mccain and john mccain raises all that money he says you're ten thousand on his mind he wanted so badly and all that money pours into money thinks it's just right there for months suddenly as you hopeful and out campaigns almost broke and and little it won't end of that i forgot and do what it is you need to recount that campaign is choose to rely on he was out and he would dare go on and then it becomes a comeback a visual you know if the youth the clinton obama story is so rich and so

compelling that almost no it obscures the other compelling story about you know the rise and fall and rise and fall of john mccain over the course of several years and that was a campaign that was in chaos almost from day one they created this huge gap rather salam push two thousand for john mccain in a sense remade himself as lindsey graham his sidekick and friends said to become the leader of the party rather than the leader of a movement that he had been in two thousand he was never comfortable with that he was totally income for award the campaign they felt they were spending as john mccain would say spending like drunken sailors and they were they were bringing in money but not at the pace that they were spending out and the campaign imploded in the middle of the summer of two thousand seven and you've got mitt romney and you've got rudy giuliani and then you met fred thompson the big names said in the national media at times there is and you know he finds himself not only no money but down in a boat and see it one of my

favorite cities that we tried to draw this book is when john mccain the campaign has imploded all of a sudden the inevitable win for him he sings too and he's going up going back new hampshire proudly know just buy and sell for the lake tang is baggage going commercial no no jet planes to take us with our charters and so forth and so on and has cried when we win again the voters there that have helped him defeat george bush or eight years before and is going through this i love that he's alone and he's down the fact that he came back as if this is the best i think in a lot of the stories that are the reason is that those we write in the book he was blessed by his opposition that all the people you mentioned and mike huckabee had an opportunity at some point to take control of the campaign romney had a moment giuliani had a moment fred thompson let his moment ago before even that is that is the fact that huckabee has moment i'm not one of those candidates could really do what they needed to do and allow john mccain to get back in you know

i think about him and then i think about the next to the next chapter in the campaign not necessarily an acceptable in the book there is the crucial chapter in which this woman from alaska no word of its own apply an annual describe the secrecy that surrounded that fly with such criticism and and this year's we never heard of it all over and we've ever ladder over so the job of this of such fun it was such fun for us to do that we love the story kept twisting and turning and then there's sarah palin and they're sitting there and the eagle nest looking at a few minutes of the picture and so forth and a picture why because he's terrible shape he's doomed obama's a great

convention and he swam the polls all of a sudden and it's coming up with only eight weeks to go for the election and he's desperate they were packed into the story voters as though they were a woman and the abbot they don't even know this person and it is a subdued crowd and then she turns out of a book in the next few weeks he regains and comes even ahead in some polls for the present say which is kind of amazing so i did just keep your life is never a sorghum i n d i guess nobody wanted to do that and your wife was a good she has a job i did the novel these years the senators or girl are republicans who were saying the same thing today where he called general joe lieberman the morning of the announcement before it became public just say grizzly women had been a person he really wanted to take it just to say

well i've you know i've picked sarah palin fan lieberman said in an interview with him i said to him gee i don't know much about her well nobody did but also a week first that first foray when she comes out there and goes like this anonymous and their weather and she returned and that be one heck of a campaign are going up and down the shadows of connectivity with people we're in a campaign oh shia and in some ways i did i thought she brought to the campaign what it lost when huckabee dropped out a minute we stayed around literally as long as a fan long but you know is not going anywhere and we all know is not going anywhere and then she comes on and suddenly eight when the big burst of coverage of her candidacy comes

on were wondering suddenly an ingenious when i don't think that very long but i did say i my mom isn't something here right is she going to strike a smart she connected with people not just republicans to connect also there's this fresh faced young woman independent oh yeah she's a hunter shoes of the issues that's useful the way up there in alaska and she's coming out she's governor she's fighting and leah christian so forth but it lasted just a whisper but during that period there were a lot of democrats as you know were very nervous and the question whether the obama campaign was up to the task of doing something to combat the energy that she was bringing and there was a real argument inside the campaign between david axelrod and another consultant in those first couple of days several people in the campaign had worked for the person that all of that she had defeated for governor alaska two thousand sex and they knew that she could be a formidable candidate and axelrod view was she may be that what he has blown up the only

rationale for his campaign which is experience experience experience his picks somebody who's not ready to be vice president or apprentice president but that the obama campaign spent a painful couple of weeks trying to bat back criticism from a lot of their democratic friends that they were doing the wrong thing and she did it to yourself and those interviews television interview ms couric interview i mean this demonstration devastated it was so devastating because she was stumbling around you go back and re read the transcript or even look at it it's a tree i you know this is not someone that is qualified to be president stacey crucial time for america and the country saw that typically women's soccer so women turn against her in the end of it large numbers percentages to an end and he never quite recovered lot of john mccain they had everybody in the mccain campaign knew instantly when they watch that interview and they just the new instant this was going to be terrible you know an unknown

on the one hand you a bear and you're covering it as it goes along and you're writing it as it goes along and then it's over and you have to come together and put it together into the battle for america to dominate and then time goes by and you look back and say or what a domain and what isn't only and now i am what does it all mean actually we've been going to have a battle for healthcare we've come out of the obama not a complete one of not a complete loser republicans are still in the fight say we're gonna we're gonna sink it it's there's so much more to write about than health care but it almost have to come on the post theme of the campaign re christened ship is still alive and well his ability to reach that the gap has not worked how would have all

tried to things but i think number one is will he said the beginning of this whole thing no matter who was going to be president obama face horrendously difficult complex issues no matter what was so therefore was not been easy time with all the expectations for obama the second thing is i think most horn the fact that an african american was elected president states after walt the history of civil rights segregation and slavery itself was coming for a good whatever happens in obama's presidency that's a mark in american history that's a bright happy page for us to take pride in and the country felt that that night to the summit republicans we talked to who have been following around a fellow upright in the country that we had we didn't in racism but we step across a divide that you know i mean i i think that but whenever i still believe whatever reason obama that's gonna tear up there i had a conversation with someone who had worked

in the bush white house and this was a year ago that we were talking about the early stages of the obama presidency and about the agenda that he was putting forth and this was a very very big agenda and not only dealing with the economy that was in such terrible shape when he took office but then to kind of double down and say in addition to that i'm going to ask for the biggest expansion of health care coverage certainly since medicare and i would like every robust climate change bill and changes in education and he said if he pulls this off this is truly going to be a historic presidency and then he paused and he said and if he doesn't pull it off it's also going to be a historic failure all right and i think that that's the tension that has been their he came into office with enormous expectations on real expectations and the circumstances of the most difficult problems any president has confronted since roosevelt and the question

is how does he make his way through that in what has turned out to be a much more polarizing environment that i think he had thought he might face and so the jury's still out on that you know that's the next set of books to be read how late model for the for coming with john begala who are joining us for oregon johnson thought keep reading fb