Post Politics Hour
washingtonpost.com's Daily Politics Discussion

Michael D. Shear
Washington Post White House Reporter
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 11:00 AM

Don't want to miss out on the latest in politics? Start each day with The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.

Washington Post White House reporter Michael D. Shear was online Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. ET to answer readers' questions about the latest news from Washington and the transition.

A transcript follows.

Get the latest transition news live on washingtonpost.com's 44: A Transition to Power, or subscribe to the daily Post Politics Podcast.

Archive: Post Politics Hour discussion transcripts

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Michael D. Shear: Good morning everyone.

Lots to talk about this morning. Will Sen. Clinton be Madame Secretary? Will Sen. Stevens ask for a recount? And, somewhat more disturbingly, we're still getting questions about Sarah Palin's clothes.

Let's get at it.

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Alaska Senate Race: Would Sen. Stevens and/or the Alaskan Republican party really waste money on the cost of a recount? If Stevens were to win, he would be thrown out of the Senate anyway so I assume the recount would be for the Republicans to try to retain the seat in a new election. But it just seems like such a waste of money to me.

washingtonpost.com: Ted Stevens Loses Battle For Alaska Senate Seat (Post, Nov. 19)

Michael D. Shear: As my colleague, Paul Kane, reported this morning, it's not clear they will have that chance. The margin appears to be outside of the recount provisions. But if it were to fall within the margin that allows them to request a recount, I would expect they might. As you suggest, having a Republican in the seat, even if it's Stevens, counts for something in an election to fill a vacancy.

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Florissant Valley, Mo.: Morning, Michael. Quick question about the Lieberman deal. Do you think it originated in Obama's desire to heal and forgive, or was it a shrewd political calculation about trying to get to 60 Dem votes? Finally, do you think Obama got a concession from the senator to ease off on his pro-surge, pro-Iraq war stance? Thanks.

Michael D. Shear: Well, I'm a hardened, cynical reporter, so I'm always looking for the answer that goes beyond the happy talk.

Don't get me wrong, I think Obama may well have a desire to heal and forgive, and that probably played a role. But let's look at what's happened this morning -- Sen. Stevens has lost, moving Dems to 58. If they pick up another with Franken or Martin, that moves them to 59. Why would Obama want to anger Sen. Lieberman just when they might need him to get to 60 on any number of votes.

As far as the war thing, I suspect that Obama doesn't need him to ease off. The surge question is largely over now -- it was a campaign issue, but the question of what to do in Iraq has, I think, moved beyond that.

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St Paul, Minn. : Hi Michael -- Thanks for taking questions today. Even though nothing is "official," is the offer to Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state "in trouble"? We're hearing that the vetting process is bogged down, she's not even sure that she wants it, the Obama team is getting impatient. Do you think the incredibly disciplined Obama machine anticipated these problems, or might they wish they'd never even gone down this path in the first place?

Michael D. Shear: It's hard to know exactly what's going on, but all indications are that it is very serious, that she is very much interested in taking the job, and that the vetting of Bill Clinton is proceeding better than it started.

Having said all that, there are lots of reasons to think that this could go the other way, from both sides.

As for the disciplined Obama machine, I have to believe that they knew this would be among the more complicated nominations, and that they weren't caught off guard by the Bill Clinton issue.

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Richmond, Va.: I thought one of the most admirable traits of the Obama campaign (and of Obama himself) was no drama. This SOS thing with Hillary is a circus. What is going on? Why would he allow this? I am flummoxed.

Michael D. Shear: One of the things that all campaigns learn very quickly is that governing is more chaotic than campaigning. For a highly disciplined candidate, it's much easier to control things during the campaign. Real life intrudes more often once you are actually in office.

Having said that, there are some signs that some in Obamaland are a bit frustrated by the leaks and by the drama of Clinton's friends and their "yes-she-will" and "no-she-wont" conversations with reporters.

Stand by though. This has to end soon, one way or the other, and your state of flummoxation will be over.

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Princeton, N.J.: Nate Silver on fivethirtyeight.com who was very accurate in his electoral estimates, has examined the MN Senate race and concluded that Franken has a much better chance than Coleman. Given that this result will not come out before the GA race, will the Dems go all out in GA? Will Obama go down there?

Michael D. Shear: Hat tip to Nate Silver, whose site became a real favorite for those of us who are political junkies.

I don't, however, believe that the judgment about the MN race will affect the Democrats in GA. They are going all out there, since they would need both of them to reach 60 in the Senate.

Just in the last 24 hours, I received emails about the Georgia race from Max Cleland (on behalf of the DSCC), Steve Smith (on behalf of the AFL-CIO) and Democracy for America. They are all pushing hard to defeat Saxby Chambliss in that runoff on Dec. 2.

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Fair Lawn, N.J. : Re the Congress-persons who oppose the bailout of the auto companies; do they believe: 1. The auto companies will blunder through on their own, and they don't want to get suckered again as with the Wall Street bailout? or 2. The auto companies can go through bankruptcy and survive, get rid of the big contracts, and survive, or 3. They're toast, and we can't stop them from failing, so let them collapse?

If next year, all we have left is a smaller Ford with the other two shutting their doors, what will real estate in the Midwest be going for (rhetorical question)?

Michael D. Shear: I think probably there are members of Congress who believe all three of those.

One interesting article today was an opinion piece by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

It was in some New York paper, but I'll see if we can get the link up here.

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washingtonpost.com: FiveThirtyEight.com

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washingtonpost.com: Op-Ed/Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt (The New York Times, Nov. 18)

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New York: Michael, McCain-Feingold is a joke, far worse than even an alternative of unfettered donations. For one, biased media (e.g., Fox News) will always be outside the limits, for Constitutional reasons, unless we revive a "Fairness Doctrine" that survives challenge.

What are the chances everyone realizes the law made a bad situation worse and it is overturned by the courts?

Michael D. Shear: The conventional wisdom seems to be that it won't matter if it's overturned by the courts, at least for the presidential races in the future.

That's because it's assumed that candidates for president will now simply finance their campaigns by themselves, without public money, and will spend whatever they need to spend.

As for other candidates, my sense is that the law has survived a bunch of court challenges, but that there may be some movement to revise -- again -- the law in Congress. But having said that, there's lots of big issues that need attention first and that may take a back seat.

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Egg Harbor, N.J.: Bill Clinton will divulge all future donors and SOME past donors. That may be glossed over by some media, but it is transparently obvious that something is being hidden.

Michael D. Shear: This is a good point. I believe the issue for Clinton is the question of what the agreement was with the past donors regarding confidentiality. That's not an issue going forward, since you can tell future donors that they should expect their names will be public.

Still, as a reporter, I want more information, not less. So I'm eager to see everything.

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New York: The Democrats have capitulated to the Republicans on every procedural matter, not even forcing the Republicans to actually filibuster anything. What makes you think things would be different at 60 votes?

Michael D. Shear: Not sure which things your are talking about New York, since I'm not a congressional reporter.

But it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for a party to force a filibuster on all sorts of procedural things if you knew that the other side had the votes to keep one up, would it?

It may be different if the Democrats have 58 or 58 votes and only need to peel away one or two to break a filibuster.

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Valdost, Ga.: Michael -- I live in S. Georgia and I beg to differ with you about the Dems pushing hard.

I see NO ads for Martin on local TV (lots if I watch the Atlanta stations) and usually about 2 Chambliss ads every hour.

I'm a Dem and have already voted for Martin, but he needs a lot more help if the Dems want to win. Sure, my part of the state is 'red' but my county went for Obama/Biden about 14 percent more than in 2000/04, so there is a chance -- if the party gets on the stick and does something.

I've gotten lots of e-mails too -- from Brazile, Carville, but the GOTV seems pretty weak at least about early voting.

Michael D. Shear: Here's some first-hand observations about the situation in Georgia. Interesting.

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Boston, Mass.: Sen. Lieberman loved to beat up on President Clinton in the media; abandoned Vice President Gore during the recount; spent the past eight years preening in front of any camera he could find to tell the world Democrats are no good and Bush is great. A new party game: How long before President Obama gets nailed by Lieberman?

Michael D. Shear: It is certainly the case that Sen. Lieberman seems to have no hesitation going after members of his own party. It will be fascinating to see how the Lieberman-Obama relationship develops.

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Baltimore, Md.: Michael,

I don't believe "flummoxation" is actually a word -- and neither does my browser.

Just letting you know.

Michael D. Shear: Oh, c'mon people. Can't a guy have a little fun with the English language in one of these chats?

Yes, I'm aware that "flummoxation" is not a word. I think Baltimore and his browser both need to take a break from the spell checker.

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Santa Cruz, Calif.: Thanks for taking my question. While I know there is some advantage to having 60 Dem senators, isn't a little more being made of this than is necessary? If Obama is truly going to govern from the center (which I believe), wouldn't he WANT to develop legislation that would pull in at least a few Republican votes (the two from Maine, McCain, and some others for example)? And the Dem caucus is going to have some pretty conservative Dems, like Begich. The question is, how often does something major come down to a strict party-line vote?

Michael D. Shear: Very good points, Santa Cruz.

The issue comes up most often when there are severe, party-line disputes, where having 60 people with a "D" by their names might give the Democrats the ability to force things through.

But as you say, it's in some ways more a symbolic victory if they get there. In truth, there's almost always some defection, and Obama will indeed try to get GOP support -- party to make good on his promise and partly because it's good politics to seem like your policies are broader than one party support.

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Edinburg, N.Y. : Is there a strong media bias in favor of the candidate running what is perceived as the superior campaign (i.e., e.g. Karl Rove in 2000, Obama, Clinton) and against the one who seems disorganized and/or off-message(e.g. McCain, McGovern, Dole)?

Michael D. Shear: Interesting question. I guess so, in the sense that what we cover during campaigns is, in part, the campaign operations themselves. Superior campaigns are better at reaching the media, better at delivering messages to the public, better at organizing their supporters -- and we reflect that in the stories that we write.

I'm not sure that's a problem, though. Thoughts?

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Miss Manners : Flummoxation is not a word.

Flummox-ization should be.

How does this differ from bamboozlement?

Michael D. Shear: How about bamboozlization?

My son's favorite word is: antidisestablishmentarianism

Did i spell that right? My browser says I did.

(And here's the Wikipedia definition: Antidisestablishmentarianism is a political position that originated in nineteenth-century Britain, where antidisestablishmentarians were opposed to proposals to remove the Church of England's status as the state church of England forwarded principally by both Payne and Tuffin.)

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Vacations ahead: Are the White House reporters thinking happy thoughts about President Obama vacationing in Chicago or Hawaii rather than Crawford, Tex.?

Michael D. Shear: As a new white house reporter who never went to Crawford, I can say just for myself that both Chicago and Hawaii seem preferable.

Having said that, I'm not sure that's where we'll be all the time. I think Obama may use Camp David a lot more than Bush did. And he could end up more like Bill Clinton, who would end up at friends houses in the Hamptons or in other vacation spots.

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Flummoxation: Baltimore, I loved Michael's use of this "word" because I knew he was inventing it. That's one of the wonderful things about language. Shakespeare created a lot of new words. And what about words like "chortled," which Lewis Carroll coined in "Jabberwock," another made-up word?

Michael D. Shear: Yes!

Me and Shakespeare -- two peas in a pod.

(Or is that Shakespeare and I?)

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Embedding Bushocrats: Are there any legislative alternatives being discussed to ease the "un-embedding" of Bush political appointees? This is unseemly but not unexpected.

Michael D. Shear: That's a good question. I'm not up on the Hill, so I'm not sure about the conversations that might be going on. But it sounds logical.

I'll post our story from the other day on this issue.

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"Superior campaign"?: Er... the WINNING campaign is always viewed as the "superior" campaign, regardless of whether they were actually particularly smart. Let us not forget the "genius" Karl Rove has his candidate doing victory laps in California the week before election day 2000, and was just 500 Florida votes from looking like a complete stumphead.

Michael D. Shear: Good point here.

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Kettering, Ohio: I think appointing Hillary as SoS would be one way to assure she is out of the way in 2012. It is far from a sure thing that Obama will have any luck dealing with the issues we have now, and with the poor perception of this Democratic Congress, he could easily be a one termer. By appointing HRC, the Obamaians assure that the one strong Dem out there will not be able to be a 1984 Ted Kennedy model. That was Carter's worst nightmare and helped usher in the so-called Conservative Revolution of Reagan. What say ye?

Michael D. Shear: Well, this is one way of looking at it. But think about this: by getting out of the Senate, Hillary Clinton avoids all of the potentially "bad" votes she would otherwise be asked to take.

One example: Will Obama need to raise taxes? A Sen. Clinton might have to vote yes.

So being outside the Senate, roaming the world while her former colleagues deal with the economic crisis and the delicate and dangerous domestic issues (social security, health care, crime) might make it easier for her to run in 2012 if things have not gone well for Obama. She'd have to quit as SOS, obviously, but who knows.

Just a thought.

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Flummoxation: Don't insult the great Miss Manners by insinuating that she lowers herself to participate in the silly "it's not a word" war.

Michael D. Shear: A thousand pardons.

I would never knowingly insult Miss Manners.

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More from Missouri: If anyone cares, McCain's lead in Missouri is now 4,300 and change. (I love it when Maria Bartiromo says that). There are three more (urban) counties to hear revised figures from. Still a long shot. And purely abstract.

Michael D. Shear: A reader report:

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San Francisco, Calif.: Hi Michael -- always enjoy reading Post Politics, My question -- should Hillary become the SOS is there any chance that Bill could be appointed to take her place in the Senate? I like to see all that intelligence put to use.

Michael D. Shear: You know, Al Sharpton made that same suggestion to me the other day. (I'm pretty sure he was joking.)

I'm going out on a limb here. But I think it's highly unlikely that the former president would want to be a junior senator.

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Broder on Hillary: Do you agree with your colleague's column this morning, that Hillary would serve the Obama administration better by remaining in the Senate? Do you think she would feel that way?

washingtonpost.com: A Force for Good -- but Not at State (The Post, Nov. 19)

Michael D. Shear: I think David's column was interesting. Everyone should read it. But I'll leave the opinion-making to him.

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Alexandria, Va.: Here is a fun thought exercise: How do you think Obama himself would hold up to his own vetting questionnaire?

Michael D. Shear: Hmm. Interesting thought.

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Michael D. Shear: Ok, everyone.

As usual, your questions have left me in a temporary state of flummoxation and bamboozlement. But I hope you've have fun. See you next time.

Mike

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