Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.)

Insider Interview With The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com

washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza joined two other Washington Post journalists to interview Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) on Feb. 15 as part of an ongoing series of conversations with potential 2008 presidential candidates. A transcript of the interview is below:

THE FIX: We'd like to know why you decided to join the Alito filibuster and oppose cloture?

SEN. BAYH: I might have had a different feeling if someone else had been doing the nominating, but as I understood the president during both of his elections, he, basically using thinly veiled code, was saying to his most extreme supporters 'Don't worry, you'll be happy with the people I'm going to pick,' which in my mind, I took him at his word, so that raised the bar in my mind. It made it harder to resolve doubt in favor of the nominee.

And then the nature of the process here has just broken down. It's designed almost to obscure more than it is to illuminate, and for understandable reasons. The nominees know if they say anything even remotely controversial they get in trouble, and very often the people on our side are playing sort of a game of gotcha. So those two things combined with the fact that it is a lifetime appointment to a court from which there is no appeal, dealing with the most fundamental rights and liberties of the American people, I think something other than a 50/50 tie vote is not inappropriate as a threshold for confirmation, which, as you know, under the current situation the 50/50 tie with the vice president breaking the tie, that's all it takes for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Right. But you can vote against without actually saying I want a filibuster.

As a practical matter, it was one and the same.

So your goal was to do anything necessary.

As a practical matter, following the path that you just contemplated, there would be to say well, "This is of fundamental importance to the Republic, and I know this is the only chance that actually, if I have doubts, to do anything about it, but I'm not going to."

Well, how much deference is the president owed in judicial appointments?

A fair amount. And as a former executive, the confirmation process in Indiana works a little differently, but as a former executive with one objective, I had first crack for the prerogatives of the president. But as I said, that's why I started the way I started today. When he ran for office, [Bush] essentially gave a wink and a nod to the most extreme elements in his own party: "You'll be happier with the people I'm going to pick." It wasn't [that] he was saying, "Hey, I'm going to pick folks are going to go right down the middle." I mean, he was sort of, I think, giving an indication that he intended to pick people who had an ideological agenda, and that raised the bar in my mind.

Well, let me ask it this way, once the Gang of 14 did their compromise last spring, part of that deal essentially was that the Senate would clear the runway for Dennis Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor. There was no filibuster of them because it was clear that filibusters would not -- there was no effort.

Were you able to read Arlen [Specter]'s mind, how he was going to vote? I think it kind of came down to him, didn't it? Whether the particular option was going to be --

Well, I don't know whether Frist had the votes or didn't have the votes, but in the cases of those judges who many people would argue are even more conservative than Judge Alito, and I grant that they are only on the appellate part of the federal bench. The Democrats said, "Well, we'll vote against, but we're not going to filibuster." But in the case of Alito they did. Is that simply because he was a Supreme Court nominee?

Yes, I think the stakes are higher when it's a Supreme Court Justice. They are the final word, and very often that could be with us for a generation, Courts of Appeals, you know? You can have divided opinions, and I think that was part of it. The gang of 14 -- well-intended good people, but I think that was kind of -- it kicked the issue down the road, didn't ultimately resolve it. And I think everybody knew that it would ultimately be resolved when the Supreme Court nominees were being -- thank you.

Is there, in your mind, an equivalent of a litmus test then for Supreme Court judges, i.e. you found Alito unacceptable because of your fears that he would overturn Roe v. Wade?

No, not a litmus test on some specific issues. I don't believe in that. But a litmus test in terms of not having an ideological agenda. I think that's the appropriate. And I simply didn't conclude that I knew enough, had enough confidence that Judge Alito didn't have such an agenda. But I couldn't cast a stone from which there is no recourse. Now look, I'll say to all of you, I hope I'm wrong. I hope I look back on this five, six years from now and say you know what, this guy is going right down the middle, doesn't have a particular world view he's trying to impose. I hope that's the way it works out, but I can't say that with great confidence sitting here today. There's a concern that I have that that may be the case, and it was started with the president basically approaching the Supreme Court with the statements he made about how he intended to go about nominating people, the kind of people he intended to nominate during the campaign.

I'm curious about Alito. He had recommendations from both Democrats and Republicans. At least at his hearings, you know, when asked questions, he'd confess an interest in being non-ideological. What gave you pause about him that would cause you to doubt that he was anything but impartial?

I'll be honest with you. I haven't thought about this since the vote, so I'd have to go back and review my material. It was a compilation of things that he had written, votes that he cast, then just an unreduced level of doubt which I think, frankly, is as much the fault of this process as it was Judge Alito's. I think as you're all aware, being asked direct hard questions, it's very uncommon to get direct precise answers given the nature of the process we have, because it's politicized to such a degree. And that's been going on for a long time, it's not just unique to Justice Alito.

How similar was your thought process on Chief Justice Roberts vs. Justice Alito? Did you approach that nomination in the same way, starting with what the president had said during the campaign?

It was very similar. I think Judge Roberts seemed to be a little more adept at answering some of the questions in a way that was somewhat reassuring. ... You know, I met with both -- I met with Justice Alito and I liked him. Matter of fact, it was -- if he'd been able to [let his] personality [out] a bit more in public the way [he] did in private, he would have been better served, but it wasn't wasn't the case. But it was very similar.

Another hot-button topic is Iraq. John Edwards, two months ago, maybe a little longer, basically said that he made a mistake when he voted in favor of the war in 2002. Did you have any of the same kinds of doubts about your own vote?

I was down at the White House a few weeks ago. The president was calling down groups of senators ... I think he's doing this routinely just to reach out a little bit. And one of the first things he said was -- and I had not really heard him say this publicly -- maybe he has, I don't follow all his statements, but he said -- and I don't remember the precise words, but ... I'm getting as close to his precise words as I can. He said, "We all wish we could have do-overs," something along those lines. ... And this is the point I want to make: Of course, knowing what we know today, we'd make different decisions. I did what I thought was right at the time based on the facts as I understood them at the time. It turned out some of those facts weren't accurate, so of course you'd make different decisions. But I think we've got to get to the point where we're -- and it is legitimate to ask what people have learned, how we would do things different, those kinds of things. We've got to stop just obsessing on decisions that were made several years ago, and instead focus on where we are, and most importantly, where we're going, and how most effectively to resolve this in a way that is in the national security interest of the United States. That's really is the main issue.

Where are we on Iraq?

Well, it's a very difficult situation. I just got back from there. Well, not just back; I was there in January -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Israel. ... I think we're at a critical juncture, and I'll tell you why I think that's the case. One of our top generals there said to me, he said there's no military answer to this. There's only a political answer to this. And we're at a critical point in Iraqi politics. They've had their election. They're about to form the government, and the key questions are: Will the Iraqi government truly represent the diversity of the Iraqi nation, not just window dressing, but in reality in terms of the Sunnis being included in the army, the police, the new governing structure? That's number one.

Number two, when they revisit their constitution in ways that ensure minority rights while also respecting majority rule, will they strike the right balance between regional autonomy and a strong central government? There are some things. You know, you asked me about the Gang of 14, and [the Iraqis] kind of kicked some of the hardest decision on their constitution down the road, sort of yet to be -- like the old TV program, to be continued. [The Iraqis] kind of got their election out of the way and said, "Well, we're going to revisit this later on." Now they need to do that, so we're going to find out.

I think that the key question really is -- two key questions. Will the Shia recognize that it is in their interest to includes the Sunnis in a meaningful way? And will the Sunnis realize that there's no going back? Will they reconcile themselves to the future, and a meaningful role in that future? These questions are going to be answered in probably the next couple of months, and we're going to know a heck of a lot more about the future course of events once these things become apparent.

And then finally, moving side-by-side with that is the security track. We made progress with their military. This year we've got to focus on their resources, getting them to represent the different ethnic groups, getting them to be more effective on the ground in the local communities. That's where you get your intelligence, if you're combating an insurgency, it's more from the local cop on the beat than it is from the military folks, so we've got to focus on that. But, look, if the politics doesn't come together, the security situation never will, and so the security situation has got to move side-by-side on a parallel track with politics situation. We're at a critical juncture; but, look, the complexity, the difficulty of this can't be overstated.

... Afghanistan in some ways is a very difficult situation, but I think somewhat more hopeful because they had 25 years of violence and death. They had a radical Islamic upheaval, they had a civil war. More of the Afghans have concluded they don't want any more of that, and they're willing to make some of the hard decisions to try and keep that from happening. Now you've got some alienated elements in the Pashtun area, some Taliban holdovers, they're getting sanctuary in Pakistan. It's a different issue, but for the most part, the Afghans have decided they want a different future than what they've had. Iraq hasn't quite gone through that crucible. I hope they don't force themselves to go through it. Time will tell, and I don't think much time.

There was something else I was going to say on this. A couple of broader themes in every one of these places. Can politics work in these societies, whether it's within the Palestinian community, Iraq and Afghanistan, different but somewhat similar, and then with Pakistan ... can democracy be proven to meet the aspirations and the challenges that the people of those societies feel in their daily lives, or is it just an abstract theory? Can politics deliver what they're looking for in terms of security, economic opportunities, health care, education, those kinds of things? And if it can't, that's what the radicals prey on, and one of the deep challenges we're facing there is that ... nation-building, if that's what we want to call it, is a -- it is hard. Nation-building is hard, dealing with failed places is difficult. And so a relatively small percentage of highly motivated, heavily armed, violent people can do damage far disproportional to their numbers, and that's what we're finding in almost all those places.

And finally, I'll say the malevolent influence of Iran, that was mentioned without me bringing it up in every one of those places, so that's another broad theme. But can democracy and politics be made to work, can nations only be successful when it's an asymmetric situation? These are big questions largely unknown. We're trying to find the answer now.

Are we at a point where significant numbers of troops should come home?

Well, as I said, I think we're going to know a lot more in a matter of just two or three months than we know today. I'm hopeful that we can begin -- if the Iraqis begin to get their political act together, if they prove they can make the tough choices, then there's a chance that this can be successful. And as we build up their police and military capacity, I think we can begin with responsible redeployment without the place just falling apart.

But you're not where Rep. John Murtha is right now?

Well, ... I haven't read his speech yet. I'm told it's been mischaracterized a little bit. Do I think we can withdraw all of our troops tomorrow like that, without a --

Murtha's point is the U.S. troops in Iraq are hurting more than helping right now.

Well, I think we can begin a responsible redeployment based upon developments, political and security developments. But it's going to be -- the timing of that is going to have to be determined as we go. It's not possible to just pick an arbitrary date, I don't think.

That sounds very much like the president's position, of conditions-based redeployment.

Well, the administration's position on this ... has evolved pretty dramatically over time. We had the secretary of State saying we're going to remain there as long as we're needed. Well, I can tell you, that's going to be -- if that's the standard, we're there almost forever. So, clearly, they've evolved. ... Once [the Iraqis] stand up their government, once they revisit their constitution, if they do include Sunni, Shiites, Kurds in meaningful ways in the police and the military, then I think we've got to see -- give them a chance to fly a little bit more on their own. Let's see what they can do, and not again -- I don't think six months, nine months -- I believe there will -- if the politics works well, and the security continues, if we can begin to do with the police what we've done with the military, I think you'll see -- I don't how to define the word "significantly". I'd be picking a figure out of the air, but I do think you'll see fewer American forces in Iraq at the end of this year than we did in the beginning with the prospect of even fewer the year after that. And that's the course I'm hopeful we can be on.

... So I would envision our involvement being a lot less patrolling the streets, providing security out in the communities, more confined to the kind of things they can't do for themselves; air coverage support, logistical support, those kinds of things. That's what I would I would envision us transitioning to here, hopefully sooner rather than later. But it's, again, got to be driven by reality as we understand it, not by our hopes alone.

...

But the sense of the resolution that the Democrats put forward last fall, which got modified and then passed was ... that this was going to be a year of significant transition in Iraq, in which it goes from largely U.S. dominated to largely Iraq dominated. Also, that there had to be a message sent to the Iraqi government that there was not unlimited patience in the United States. And if some of the things you're suggesting don't happen, that this government wants to say to them that we're not going to stay here, even if we haven't gotten to that point.

In a speech I gave a couple of weeks ago I said, "Our presence here cannot be used as an excuse for the Iraqis avoiding making the hard decisions that have to be made for them to be successful." Of course, there's a reluctance to make those decisions, but they've got to get on with it. And yes, I think we need to send a very direct message to them. Look, if you're doing your best to make the hard decisions, make a go of this, we will support you. If you don't, if you just dissolve into political squabbling and back-door it, then you will no longer have our support. I think we've got to be very direct about it.

The final thought I have, look, we've got voices all over the spectrum in our country, as all of you recognized. My position on this is that we've got to be somewhere between cut-and-run, I don't think that's the best thing in our nation's security. And we're sort of mindlessly staying the course. You've got to have a sensible middle ground, and what that would involve to leave them would be benchmarks for progress, flexible time lines for meeting those benchmarks, accountability for the people who run the show for making the progress, and candor with the American people on how we're doing. Those are the four things that I would have in the policy, and it's kind of Management 101. We haven't had it for years, now we need it.

And in terms of the bench marking, what is a reasonable time frame in your mind for the Iraqis to have made the kinds of changes that you suggest are needed before we step in and say hey, enough is enough. I mean, is it this summer, is it next winter?

I think we're going to know sooner rather than later whether they're getting their political act together or not. They've had their election, they've started to form their constitution. They're starting to form their government, surely there's -- as I said, I think we're in a critical period here, and I'm thinking the next couple of months. I won't put an exact figure on it, but in the next several months, I think we're going to know a lot more about whether they have the will and the ability to make the hard decisions that they need to make a go of it. Now that doesn't guarantee they will make a go of it, but will at least tell us that there's some prospect of that.

You just said that there's a wide variety of voices on this issue -- in the country, but in your party there's a wide variety of voices. Do you need, either politically or from a policy perspective, do you need a unified or consensus position for the party on Iraq, either in heading into 2006 or heading into 2008. Does the party need a consensus position on Iraq, do you believe?

Are you asking about the political consequences of all this? Of course, we need a position on Iraq, and that position will be articulated by whoever our nominee happens to be. My hope is, now this gets back to the question you've all been kind of asking about. Look, God willing, our presence in Iraq two years from now will be significantly less than it is today. We'll still need a position on Iraq, but hopefully it -- I think we're going to know one way or the other before then what the trajectory of this is going to be. And our presence there one way or the other will probably be significantly less two years from now, and so perhaps it won't be quite so salient an issue. But as I said, for us as Democrats, we have a broader national security issue we have to come to grips with. Iraq is actually a case in point of how the administration has undermined our nation's security, but when it comes to national security more broadly defined, and the war on terrorism more specifically, by too many Americans we're still viewed as being insufficient, and we've got to address that.

You made a speech recently about sort of addressing this, the president and Karl Rove ... and Dick Cheney have said that this is about a pre-September 11th mindset and a post-September 11th mindset. Can your party answer that concern on a policy level and on a political level effectively, and if you believe that they can, what are the ways in which you go about doing that?

We absolutely can, but only if we first realize we have an issue we have to address. And I'm afraid too many members of my party simply want to change the subject because they know we've got to re-address it, rather than trying to address it head-on. And that's not going to be good enough. Look, this is a threshold issue for the Democratic Party. The majority of Americans don't trust us with their lives, much less with other things, and events are unfortunately likely to occur that will remind the American people that it is a dangerous world, the bombings in Madrid, and London, and Bali, and God forbid there should be something in this country -- things like that will continue to happen, and so this is a -- so yes, it is an issue. I guess my take on it would be this -- first of all, it is a very important substantive issue for the country. We do live in perilous times, that's number one.

Number two, it's a political matter, so we have to address it as patriotic Americans, as Democrats we have to address it because it is a significant weakness. You know, Karl Rove is a lot of things, but subtle he's not. He basically announced to the world what their strategy was going to be. Their message to the American people basically is we're strong, the Democrats are weak, vote for us or you will die. I mean, that's kind of it. So our people are, "Oh, you know Karl Rove, how can he inject politics into national security?" And others go, "We know we've got a problem, so let's instead talk about health care or Social Security." This is not going to work. We've got to take this issue head-on, and be -- a couple of things.

First, there is a long and compelling case to be made that they have undermined our nation's security, that they, in fact, are weak on what they claim to be strong on. And we've got to take that on and hammer that. Number one, Iraq is a case in point. Iraq, North Korea, there are others. And secondly, then show how we would do better, demonstrate that we can be both tough and smart. Tough alone isn't enough. That's what tried here. If you're tough but not smart, you actually undermine what you're attempting to accomplish, but we can do both. Too many people have concluded we're definitely not one, and we don't know about the other. We've got to be both.

Without being too political, can you give us an example of what you're talking about, being both smart and tough?

I'm going to be laying that out in some detail in the days to come, but I'll give you a couple of examples. With Iran, calling out Iran as part of the axis of evil, was tough. Proceeding then to do nothing about it was not very smart. I mean, does anyone think that ... rhetoric alone was going to impact [Iran's] behavior? Maybe it did, it got them accelerating their focus on getting their nuclear capability as quickly as they could, but then there was Kim Jong Ill. ...

I don't want to play could have, would have, should have, but in this case there's some merit. If we had addressed, started to address [and] marshal the world at the beginning [about getting] serious about Iran, shortly after the president gave his speech. And I give him credit for telling it the way it is. Iran is a malevolent force, pre-$60 barrel oil, Iran would have had much less influence. We were on much better standing with the Russians in those days then we are today. China -- can we really talk turkey with China? They seek long-term energy resources from Iran, can we talk turkey with them when we're borrowing a couple of hundred billion dollars from them every year, so that we are not in as strong a position today to deal with this as we were when the President first called them out. That's tough, but it's not smart.

I'm just curious on Iran, what are the other proposals that you have there, because it seems like for the last year or two we've been basically kind of deferring to the Europeans to see how that line of diplomacy would fan out and now it seems it's come to a dead end. Would you have done something differently?

Well, yes. The administration just didn't focus on this very much for the first couple of years after the speech. Belatedly, they tried to start getting things together, but I think we should have gone -- I don't want to say that this is an easy process, it's not. Marshaling world opinion is difficult, especially when it comes to the Europeans ... What we need is to go the U.N. Security Council and seek comprehensive and meaningful sanctions, economic, cultural, and otherwise against Iran. Freezing assets, banning travel, they import machinery, other things that are important, refined gasoline to their economy -- 85 percent of their exports are petroleum, and the other 15 percent are pistachios and textiles, so if we could crack down on that -- hope you don't like pistachio ice cream...

Will this work? I don't know, but it gives us the best -- I've reached the fundamental conclusion that the regime running Iran is unlikely to respond to rhetoric alone. They want the nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons, and they're hellbent to get them. And the only way you can keep that from happening is to force them to revisit their cost benefit analysis, so what I want to do is use every meaningful step, short of the use of force, to maximize our chances of facing the unpalatable dilemma of okay, now we have to use force on the one hand, or we have to accept the world in which there is a nuclear-armed Iran, neither of which is a very pleasant prospect. We just kind of dithered. We said axis of evil, okay, and then didn't do a whole lot about it.

Are you willing to send oil up another $20 a barrel, perhaps?

Well, we'll see. The Iranians have said that. Are they really going to do this, are they going to pull the trigger? Eighty-five percent of their exports, they're going to cut themselves off? We, obviously, have to contemplate that. There would be adverse consequences to using -- are you saying that they would go for an oil embargo if we didn't use force, we used economic, diplomatic, and cultural...

But you are [in favor of] imposing sanctions.

Yes, but not using military force. ... We'll see how they respond. If they resort to the use of force, well, then I guess we know who we're dealing with at that point. And do we want them to have a nuclear weapon?

What do you think the chances of the United States being able to rally opinion around the world for those kinds of sanctions? There does not seem to be, at this point, anything close to a consensus for those.

Well, it's difficult ... I can't give a percentage of that. I think a realistic would say -- we're talking about comprehensive, enforceable sanctions? They do a lot of business with UAE, they would be important. They actually do most of their trading with the G-8. Russia might be a leak in the embargo. ... Given the history of the Europeans and some others in this, it would be difficult. The Persian -- the other Persian Gulf states, they are with whom Iran does a lot of its trading. And then you've got Japan, Germany, and some of the others, but particularly Persian Gulf states, would be highly alarmed at the prospect of a radical Shiite regime of Iran for having nuclear weapons. They would have an incentive to cooperative with us on this, and I would hope that the other industrialized nations would see that in a world of radical Islam, when we're dealing with a regime that has actively sponsored acts of terror, their current president is somewhat apocalyptic. This would be a very damaging event to local security. [The Iranians] conducting a nuclear test, that wouldn't be great for the price of oil either.

You've laid out what you think the party needs to do on national security issues and policies. What, if anything, is your analysis of the party's domestic policy, its situation and what Democrats need to do, if anything, on that front to make themselves more competitive?

This puts us into a discussion -- you know, what are the challenges we face in addition to our national security challenges? I think that if you look at the big picture of the questions that we face, the globalization of the economy. How is America going to create prosperity in the new globalized economy, and what does it do to empower each American to share in that prosperity? On the macro level that's involved stepping up our investments in research and development. It means trying to open up other markets for trade where we do well, typically intellectual property and that kind of thing. And basically, our comparative advantage will probably lie in the more highly innovative parts of the global economy. That means stepping up R&D efforts, and that means a consistent focus on education, starting with preschool, all the way through college, access to college, and even adult training, because the growing gap between the haves and have-nots in our country, which is real, is really a skills and education gap more than anything else.

You want to solve the problem of poverty in America and the growing gap between the classes, we have got to address education. And we're traditionally strong on that, and this we can -- I don't want to digress on any of these things, but broadly defined, globalization and more highly innovative economy. What do we do to prepare ourselves?

What about changing demography, aging of our population, and the strain that that's going to put on our financial resources, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, not to mention just the underlying budget deficit, which is substantial. We face growing and potentially grave financial problems in this country, and they have national security ramifications, too. No great country has been militarily strong but financially weak over an extended period of time. It just can't happen, but that's the course that we're on.

I mentioned yesterday when [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke] came over. I asked him, I said, "Chairman, are you concerned that a rumor or a slip of the tongue by the Japanese Prime Minister sent our currency into a free-fall? Is that something our nation should be concerned about?" Well, you know, he kind of said well, yeah, he thought it was, but he couldn't say, so it is a position of look -- global interdependence is one thing. Growing dependency on borrowed capital from abroad, this is usually a matter of weakness for our country because other nation states -- well, it's not in their financial interest to cause things that would disrupt our currency and the economy. Well, that's true, if all they care about is their own pecuniary interest, but nation states sometimes have interests other than just simply their financial bottom line. Why should we put ourselves in the position where we have to trust their financial interest, or trump other concerns that they might have?

So the whole, what do we do about the aging of our population and the financial ramifications, that's a big-time issue, because it affects our economy, and it's going to affect our national security. Energy dependence -- similarly, is going to affect national security, economy, our finances because a good part of it, trying to count and balance, our environment. That's one of the major challenges of our generation. There are other things I could see, but in each of those, the Democratic party has to have a well thought out, meaningful agenda.

... And can I say one other thing, just to digress? We need to do it in a positive way. We also need to do it in a way to put the lie to some stereotypes that the other side likes to stick on us, that we're great at redistributing income, but don't care much about economic growth, that we like the programs, but we don't care about fiscal responsibility, balancing budgets, things like that. These are things that they use against us.

The president proposed in the State of the Union a bipartisan commission to look broadly at entitlement reform. Should Democrats participate in that, and under what terms?

If the President is sincere, of course we should participate. It's in the national interest that we do, but I think all of you have been around this town long enough to know that sometimes the commissions are just used as an excuse for not doing anything. So yes, if he's serious, we should participate.

By the way, I was down at the White House earlier this week, and the president had 10 or 11 [Senators] in the private residence for discussion about energy policies. This was good, this was refreshing. He seemed to be genuinely soliciting input. He expressed a level of engagement on the issues. But I told him, I said, "Look, meetings are nice, speeches are nice, but actions are what matter. Now we need to move this forward and actually come up with a strategy for reducing our dependence on the import of petroleum. And, Mr. President, if you're serious you'll find those of us on our side willing to work with you on this." So yes, ... if he's serious, of course. If it's just an excuse for hey, I tried. It's not going to work. I had to say something in the speech so I went to the commission --

Should the president be forced to take private accounts off the table as the Democrats said last year was the price for negotiations over a Social Security bill?

Well, I don't want to get into all that. My position on it, I'm not adverse to private accounts.

It's apparently a central issue in the debate.

Right, but I think -- yes, it is. Look, I'm not adverse to private accounts, but I've always felt they should be in addition to, rather than as a replacement for Social Security, so if that's the basis on which we're discussing it, certainly it should.

As you think about what's going on in domestic policy, are there any specific things that the Democrats could propose that might kind of break the kind of stalemate around domestic policy right now? And I'm specifically thinking with this context, whoever becomes president in 2008, Republican or Democrat, is going to be facing a very bleak fiscal outlook, with probably a budget deficit of $400 or $500 billion dollars, restricting what he or she could do. Given that kind of fiscal reality, what are the three or four major domestic policy actions that you would propose?

We can talk about several, but let me give you one. By the way, I walked out of the White House on Thursday last week encouraged, but also saddened. Saddened because this is the way things should have been working the last five years; encouraged that well, maybe now, even though it's late, there is still a chance to get some things done that would help the public. It doesn't have to be just constant division and partisan warfare out here, which gets to me to my point. There was a rare moment last December, like when ten of us -- I'm very excited about the prospect for making progress on this energy issue, and I'll tell you why. It was the before this meeting in the White House.

Last December, we had ten senators gather, five Democrats - I'm sorry, it's now five-five, but then it was eight, four and four, including Sam Brownback, Lindsay Graham, Jeff Sessions ... and these are some of the more conservative members of the United States Senate. And it's got a wonderful name, this legislation, it's the Bayh-Brownback-Lieberman, et cetera, et cetera bill. I just don't know why I find that to be kind of a catchy name.

Nothing like Alphabetical supremacy.

That's right. And what it would do -- here's why I'm excited about it -- strong incentives to develop and produce high mileage vehicles in the United States by American workers, incentives to consumers to buy them, meaningful steps in the use of bio fuels, like Brazil does, and a number of other things, focusing on what are called some of the technological choke-points in terms of the research stumbling blocks we got to get over for some energy breakthroughs. ... And I told the president, I said, "Mr. President, first of all, it's good you had us. This is the right priority you're focusing on. We've already run some of the traps in this. You're really looking for bipartisan cooperation, we've got ten of us already on a bill that would reduce imports in this country by two and a half million barrels a day in ten years, more than seven over twenty." [The president] laid out [in] the State of the Union one ... [that] he wanted to free us from Middle Eastern oil, and he used a figure -- here's the difficulty with that. It's about 2.4 million barrels a day now, but it's likely to go up, so if you say today I'm going to reduce it 2.4 million, it's unlikely to be that ten years from now ...

And we got strong, even very conservative Republican support for this. Again, it's -- the reporters at the press conference asking some of the Republicans, why are you guys here? You can see these other guys here, but why are you here? And one or two of them said $60 barrel of oil changes every day. This is a national security issue for us. And you know what, we've got an opportunity -- this is one of the great challenges of our generation, and we've got an opportunity to make progress, not after the national election, but right now. We should have had more leadership following 9/11. There was a moment where the American people would have followed this president to do almost anything, but now maybe we got it back because of the gas spike following Katrina. I think the American people understand hey, this is an important issue, so maybe we've got a chance to get it back.

Do you think that this does mark a genuine turn in the way the White House is now going to operate?

Well, I hope so, but it would take more than one meeting to prove it to me. ...

We should put you down as still somewhat skeptical.

Yes, very judiciously. ... Let's put it this way: I am, by nature, an optimist, but I'm not naive.

...

I want to get your take on two things. One is, what do you make of the divide or the seeming divide between the liberal wing of the party as represented in the blog world who adamantly oppose the war, who see President Bush as, for lack of better word, a criminal of some sort, and the moderates, and I would put yourself in that category. What do you make of that, and how much -- does that divide to be reconciled -- does that divide exist in your mind, and does it need to be reconciled before 2008?

Well, let me answer it in reverse order. It absolutely has to be addressed, and the reason for that is that leading this country has to be about something other than ideological division. It's got to be about how we move the country forward in practical terms, not looking at issues of as left or right, or even center; but instead, do they make sense, will they matter in people's daily lives? That's what the Democrats and Americans need to focus on. My sense is they're probably just sick of this polarization, stridency, ideological extremism on every side, and so we've got to get away from that, and instead focus on what will work, how we get it done to actually meet the challenges that Americans face.

And how do you go about doing that? Let's just say probably the harder part of that question: How do you not make them seem like Republican Light? Are there significant things you can do to make that work?

Absolutely, and I've got a long record of standing for progressive things that help to empower people to meet the challenges that they confront, whether that's improving schools, or standing health care, creating jobs, balancing budgets so that we don't stick our kids with a bunch of unpaid debts -- all those things. What you really asked me is how do you avoid the consensus among a variety of opinion? You sit down, you hear people out, you start with the understanding, and for the most part we aspire to the same things. We have different ways of getting there, but that's what you do. That's what I try to in the United States Senate.

The final on-camera question, are you running for President?

No, but if you keep asking me, I'll be running away from this table.

Well, let me ask you in a slightly more nuanced way. You are doing a lot of things through your PAC, through traveling around the country. Talk to me about why you're doing that.

Well, look, I am doing the practical things that you would expect someone to do to make possible a decision about running for president. Regrettably, the process starts so early these days, that if you don't do some of these things you essentially decide not to, and so I'm going forward and I'm doing them. I'm doing them because I care about the future of our country. I think we face some very big challenges as a nation, economic challenges, financial challenges, national security challenges, energy challenges, and we're just not doing nearly enough to meet them; not the sense of urgency, not the sense of consensus-building and that's got to change. And finally, I'd say that I'm just heartsick about how broken this town is. Our government is not working as it should for the benefit of the American people.

You know, the government ought to be an instrument for helping create opportunity and to meeting the challenges that we face. And all too often, it's become an obstacle, something that has to be overcome to achieve the progress the American public has a right to expect. And that's about as sad as it gets, and that's got to change, too. So what role I can do in meeting our challenges and trying to make this place more productive in summoning the American people, create the kind of future we have a right to expect so that our children will be proud of us one day, those are things I'm thinking a lot about, but I won't make a decision until certainly after midterm elections.