Transcript: I don’t do well with questions structured around “should”. I’m not good at telling people what I think they should do. I think every American should – you know who can, and not everyone can. But I think there are a lot of Americans in the position to ask themselves, “How can this moment make my life better? How can change improve my life?” We spend a lot of time worrying about change. We spend a lot of time fearful about what it’s gonna mean for our . . . for us or for our children; for our jobs; for our standing in the world as a country; for our cultures and our values, right? There’s so much anxiety around communities. And I think we’d be a sort of more forward looking, creative, happier country if people spent time thinking about how can change improve my life? How can it improve my job? How can it improve my family? How can the Internet, or technology, or you know . . . you know new social groups . . . Or you know how does all of this change going on . . . changing . . . The local economy is changing. The regional economy is changing. How can it, you know . . . How can it make things better? What can it do for my children that it didn’t do for me? And how can we get there? And then I think we start to have a conversation about politics that’s a lot more productive. Because then rather than being . . . rather than it being about preserving the past, we start to think about, okay, how do we take advantage of what’s happening?

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I’m pretty optimistic. You know I’m generally that way. I’m not . . . I’m not really an optimist by nature. I sweat out every game where the Yankees have a lead because I’m sure they’re gonna blow it in the eighth inning. So I can’t call myself a sunny, optimistic person. But when it comes to sort of the direction of the world and the country, I’m not cynical about that. I’m very optimistic about it. I mean I think the social, technological changes are gonna empower people in ways we haven’t imagined. And you know I mentioned this issue of people working at home. I think this is a really big deal. Before the industrial . . . the onset of the industrial age in the 20th century, people didn’t go to work. They worked . . . they lived above their store, or they farmed, and they were with their families. And they had like a really great quality of life if they were, you know . . . if they could sustain themselves. It wasn’t perfect, but you know I think we’re gonna enter a different era of what it means to work in America, what it means to live here. I don’t think people need to get in cars and spend hours of their time polluting the environment away from their families. Or sit around, you know, in a sterile office and hope that their boss doesn’t pop his head in; you know or the office joker doesn’t take up too much of their time, right? I mean I think . . . I think we’re gonna have a period in, you know, the next several decades where Americans can get much greater control over their lives; and much greater flexibility; and structure it the way they want; and feel like their work has value beyond, you know, having to dress up and show face time; but to feel like they’re respected individuals who can go run an errand if they need to, but who can also get their work done; who can put on jeans and come to work in their . . . in the morning if they want to. And I think that’s gonna be a great life for a lot of people, and I’m waiting for a government that gets it.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Well I think I . . . I mean it’s kind of what I was just talking about. I . . . I do what I do because I think it’s a . . . an absolutely vital public service. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. It’s not a . . . just a career for me. I certainly didn’t go into it because I was gonna make more money. I chose . . . I choose to do political journalism because I think it’s absolutely vital to keep a public informed and thinking about these issues, and understanding these issues. And I do believe strongly in the American ideal. I mean I’m not . . . If you asked me what code of morality binds me . . . you know is it a religious code? Or is it, you know, a code . . . you know an ethical code of career or whatever else? It’s really an American code. I mean I believe very strongly that this is the best system of government ever invented; that we’re a tremendous influence for good in the world and can be; that freedom – personal freedom – and participatory democracy is the . . . the evolution of political thought in humanity. It’s where the whole world is going and should be going. It’s where, you (01:02:32) know . . . I don’t know how long they’ll be humans around on the planet. And I don’t know whether we’ll find a way to destroy ourselves. I mean we’re certainly doing pretty well in that area. But as long as there are humans on the planet, humankind will tilt toward personal freedom and we’ll move in that direction. And so I want . . . I want people to be as empowered, and as free, and have as much control over their lives as they can. And you know my philosophy as a journalist is always . . . you know it’s really to be . . . to be ruthless when I have to but to be kind when I don’t. I mean I really . . . To me I always put myself in people’s shoes when I, you know . . . when I write about them and think about the way they experience what you write about them. I think . . . I think if I had to give my son advice for whatever he does in the world as the way he behaves, I would tell him to be kind because I think there’s a great value to it.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: You know people with money have the power in Washington today. People, you know . . . interest groups with money; trade associations; lobbyists with money; individuals with money. I mean money has wrapped its tentacles around the political system. It’s impeding change. It’s not the only reason we’re not getting change. There’s a timidity and a natural resistance to . . . to . . . to embracing change, and a lack of leadership certainly that exists. But the money is making it awfully . . . It’s a terrible disincentive toward reform and toward sort of the evolution of government. And if, you know, you had to ask who had the most power, it would be . . . it would be anybody who could buy the time of an elected representative.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Well I don’t know that you harness technology. I think technology often harnesses you. And technology is gonna change politics whether we like it or not. And maybe it’s too much to expect that we can sort of get ahead of the curve. But I’m really excited about this. I mean I’m excited about the whole moment. I’m very optimistic about it, and I think . . . Look I think the trend . . . To be very philosophical about it, I do believe . . . maybe it sounds jinglistic, but the trend of all humanity is moving toward . . . is always evolving toward personal freedom and personal liberty. I think that’s what makes the American ideal so vital, is because I do think it represents the sort of political evolution of humankind in a way in this moment. I think it will be remembered that way as long as people are walking the planet, no matter what happens. And so you know to me this technological revolution where people can engage on a personal level and customize their lives and their options; and work at home if we can make that possible for people; and be around their children; and telecommute; and all the things that this technology makes possible is incredibly exciting. And it certainly has that effect, you know, potentially in the political realm. I mean I . . . in my lifetime people will vote online. I believe that. I don’t see . . . The arguments are so silly. “Well it’s not secure.” Well you know how many things I buy on the Internet with my credit card? I mean I guess you could argue that your vote is much more important than your credit card. It is. But if we can make that secure, certainly we can make voting reasonably secure. And so you know I think that . . . And I think we’ll have greater communication between . . . hopefully between our leaders and our people because they’re able to make themselves heard, and there’s . . . you can communicate so much more easily. So I think the process is gonna change in ways we can’t imagine.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Every campaign is different. And every campaign we say is gonna be the most important one in American history, etc. etc. I’ll tell you what. I think this campaign has the potential to be one of the most important in America history, but only if the candidates make it so. Only if after getting the nominations and going into the arena, they’re willing to articulate some, you know . . . some vision of the government that isn’t safe, and cautious, and full of the same old rhetoric. You know only if somebody is serious about a healthcare plan and says, “Here’s how we need to do it. It’s gonna change the structure of the country. It’s gonna make industry very unhappy, but it’s gonna free up businesses out of the burden of this . . . out of this competitive burden of carrying benefits costs. And it’s gonna give workers the opportunity to change jobs or work for themselves. And they’re not gonna be crippled by the costs of healthcare like . . .” This can be an incredibly important election if people are willing to offer and follow through on those kinds of ideas, and fight about it, and willing to make a few people unhappy all the way. But if it’s gonna be a safe, focus-grouped campaign mostly based on capitalizing on the constituencies that you know already exist; and promising some sort of incremental change or going back to the same policy prescriptions we’ve had, then no. It doesn’t have to be an important campaign. It could just be a placeholder.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: No, and I don’t . . . I don’t think a lot of American do either. This is a case where the American public has really outpaced their baby boomer generation of leaders. And we’re just . . . All these people are doing is litigating and re-litigating old battles because it’s very comfortable terrain where no one ever wins and no one ever loses, and a lot of interest groups get to propagate themselves. But voters have largely moved beyond it. I mean look, take . . . People hate when I say this, but take an issue like abortion. It’s the most divisive issue, right, you can have in American life. We’re still talking about abortion like we were 25 years ago. It’s a fight. Should Roe v. Wade stand? Should Roe v. Wade be overturned? This generation, they’re like beating each other up. How much blood has been spilled? How much . . . how much anger and fury? How many words spilled between both sides of this generation on . . . on this issue right? I mean look. My wife is pregnant right now. I have a child. Every American has this experience now who gets pregnant. You’re like 12 weeks into a pregnancy, and you go and they have these . . . You can do it eight weeks into a pregnancy. But it’s at like 12 or 14 weeks of a pregnancy – I don’t know what it is – you go in and they’ve got these high resolution sonograms. And they put you on them and you can see . . . You can see your baby like floating around, doing somersaults, waving its hand around, blinking its eyes. They can show you hair. They can . . . Americans get this. Like Americans . . . This has been going on for a decade at least, these high resolution graphics. Like Americans know life is . . . Americans know when a life is a life. They can see it on the screen. They also know that they don’t wanna go back to the days of making it impossible for people to get any kind of abortion. And they also know that personal freedoms are more important to Americans maybe than they’ve ever been, right? So I don’t think there’s a huge constituency out there for overturning Roe v. Wade. But I don’t think there’s a . . . but I don’t think there’s a . . . there’s a huge constituency that believes that Roe v. Wade isn’t necessarily the logical law of the land anymore either. I think there’s a greater consensus about this than you would know from listening to people who have been fighting over it for 30 years; and haven’t bothered to take their heads out of the sand long enough to realize that the issue has changed; and that science has largely made this debate irrelevant. And that we can actually move on in some way. And I think, you know, across the board that’s true of other issues too. I just think . . . I don’t think people want their politicians hashing this stuff out anymore.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Well I’m uninformed about whether he’ll jump in because I haven’t spent any time talking to those folks. My gut is no, because if he . . . It would be . . . I don’t see signs . . . I don’t see serious signs that he wants to do that, which he would need to be showing. And my gut tells me he is not the right person, although I could be totally wrong about that. I mean he’s . . . He’s in New York which is not exactly, you know, central to the identity of most Americans. He’s . . . You know he’s sort of abrasive in that New York way. He’s a billionaire. I think there’s a . . . I think there has to be something transcendent about a candidate like that. Not just in the ideology you espouse. I think people would respond to a lot of arguments. But there has to be something transcendent about . . . about that person that makes people identify with them and believe . . . believe that they are the kind of leader that can do the impossible.

You know the closest I can think of in recent history would not be Bloomberg, but would be . . . or Ross Perot, who was a little nutty, but . . . but it would be Colin Powell who opted not to run in 1996, and would have run in any event, I gather, as a Republican. But had he chose, and had it been his desire to run as an Independent, I think he might have – even then in the pre-Internet days – he had the kind of stature that would have made that a very, very interesting, you know, run. And John McCain had that kind of appeal for Independents after 2000. The moment was never there for him to run for president. But he told me once he thought if he had done it early on before he lost primaries; if he and Bob Carey, say, had gone out and run on a bipartisan ticket, he thought he might have had a shot. I think the bipartisan ticket is probably the . . . the next iteration of American politics. And if we keep going the way we’re going in terms of addressing problems, then we would see that in the next eight to 12 years would not . . . would not remotely surprise me. I half expect to see it every campaign now.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I don’t think America is interested in more than two parties, because I don’t think America is all that interested in parties. But if the question is can somebody who is not a Republican or a Democrat win the White House, I would say absolutely. I mean the barriers to this that have traditionally existed have never been lower. Those barriers were money and the arcane laws of ballot access that the two parties used to keep people out of the process, and to keep them from engaging the public. Those two things simply . . . simply are less formidable than they’ve ever been. You can raise a ton of money online. You can . . . You can organize a ton of people in different states without having to spend a lot of money to go out and get you the ballot access you need. What’s . . . The only thing missing is the candidate. I mean it takes somebody who has tremendous credibility; and somebody . . . somebody of real stature; and not necessarily a billionaire because I think people are suspicious of that. But somebody who enjoys a lot of credibility and some celebrity in public life; and who is inspiring enough to you know . . . to get people to embrace a different . . . a different and more, you know, scarier direction. But I think it . . . I thought . . . I was writing 10 years ago that I thought it was more possible than it’s ever been. And I think it’s 10 times more possible now than it was then. And you know I don’t know. Maybe we’ve seen a handful of people who might have been able to pull it off. But we don’t see anyone . . . I don’t know of anyone out there on the horizon now who I think is the person to fill that role.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I suspect like most people he’s running because he’s always wanted to be president and thinks he’s . . . thinks he’s smart enough, good enough, and charismatic enough to be president; has that . . . has that good a sense of himself. And . . . and you know I think he’s running on a very simple premise, which is you don’t have to think I’m a nice guy. I’m not looking to babysit your kids. You don’t have to agree with everything I agree with. We disagree about some things in there. And I’m gonna do my best not to make a mess in those issues that you care about, like abortion or whatever else. But none of that matters. The only social issue that matters is we are now under attack by a civilization. We are now under . . . under the siege of radical Islam from around the world; and that, you know, I’m the guy who can keep you safe. I’ve proven that I’m the guy who can . . . who can direct troops and keep people safe. I did it in New York City and I’ll do it in the country. I mean he’s running as an anti-terror president. That’s kind of all there is. And everything else he’s running . . . every other issue is just there to mitigate potential opposition so he can focus people on the one thing he cares most about.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I suspect like most people he’s running because he’s always wanted to be president and thinks he’s . . . thinks he’s smart enough, good enough, and charismatic enough to be president; has that . . . has that good a sense of himself. And . . . and you know I think he’s running on a very simple premise, which is you don’t have to think I’m a nice guy. I’m not looking to babysit your kids. You don’t have to agree with everything I agree with. We disagree about some things in there. And I’m gonna do my best not to make a mess in those issues that you care about, like abortion or whatever else. But none of that matters. The only social issue that matters is we are now under attack by a civilization. We are now under . . . under the siege of radical Islam from around the world; and that, you know, I’m the guy who can keep you safe. I’ve proven that I’m the guy who can . . . who can direct troops and keep people safe. I did it in New York City and I’ll do it in the country. I mean he’s running as an anti-terror president. That’s kind of all there is. And everything else he’s running . . . every other issue is just there to mitigate potential opposition so he can focus people on the one thing he cares most about.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Well I mean they’re in a tough spot because that’s . . . I wouldn’t want to be a Republican candidate right now because the President is so unpopular. He’s so damaged the brand of his party. So has the Republican Congress. And none of these guys, for very practical political reasons, have been able to really firmly break the president’s . . . I would say that a candidate . . . It depends on who the candidate is and how easy this is. But my completely armchair, uninformed point of view would be that for a Republican candidate to win in 2008, they’re gonna have to break strongly with the . . . with the legacy of this administration, and the legacy of Congressional Republicans, and articulate a new way forward that separates them from . . . from the recent past.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I don’t know because I’m not a campaign strategist. I mean I would be just a terrible campaign manager, and most journalists would. And so you know my take on that is not better than many other people’s. And I don’t readily accept the explanation, the idea, popular, that has great currency on the blogs or online, that if you stick to your principles, and stand up and articulate them strongly no matter what they are, people will back you because it’s really just an election about people who are Democrats and people who are Republicans. And it’s a matter of how many you bring out, right? This is the theory that Karl Rove made popular, and that a lot of the folks at Move On and elsewhere think makes a lot of sense; that basically the country falls into two camps, there’s not much of a middle ground. And the more full-throated you are in defense of your principles and policies, the greater chance you have of inspiring the people you need to win. I would much more subscribe to Bill Clinton’s model that, in fact, campaigns are still decided by independent voters. And those independent voters, some of them may have voted Republican for 15 years without interruption. It doesn’t make them Republicans. When you go out and talk to voters as I have in the ___________ or in some of the royal countries . . . royal states in the country, they’re not . . . they’re not as party-identified as they used to be. People are just less party-identified. They’re not . . . They don’t see themselves as instruments of a blue team or a red team. They’re actually up for grabs, but they can fall into one camp or another for a significant period of time. And so you know I think to win, particularly for Democrats, for whom the math has not been especially good up until this moment, the polling is much better for them right now. But I think that’s a reflection of how people are feeling about Republicans. You know you do need to have a compelling case for people who don’t automatically agree with you.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I mean it’s funny. I did a TV show recently. I rarely do TV. I think it’s pretty corrosive for journalists – print journalists like myself. But I did This Week, which is a great show and a cool . . . you know it’s a cool venue. And . . . and Bob Reisch was on one side of me and George Will was on the other, and they were having an argument about the economy. And George Will was saying, “Look at the Stock Market and look at the indicators. The economy is terrific. The economy is not an issue in this campaign.” And Bob Reisch was saying, “Look at inequality, and look at the housing market. I’m telling you the economy . . . people are anxious. The economy is going to be a big issue in the campaign.” What I was thinking to myself but did not have the courage nor the time to say is, you know, “You guys don’t get it.” It’s not the market indicator. It’s not the housing slump. And it’s not the Stock Market today, or six months from now, or six . . . There is a 30-year underlying anxiety . . . And by the way I think Bob Reisch does get this. I wanna be fair. There’s a 30-year underlying anxiety in American life about economic opportunity. And it’s not dependent on the indicators of the day. And when gas prices go up, it gets a little bit worse. And when gas prices go down it might get a little bit better. But generally speaking there are . . . You know we’ve had for, you know, two generations essentially a deep fear about what economic changes is wreaking on the society and . . . and . . . and what it means for their children. Because that is really the American ethos. It sound like a cliché, but if you tell people who work in mines or who work industrial jobs that their income potential . . . that their personal potential is gonna be limited, but their children’s will not, they’re okay. They would take that I think. We all care about the opportunities our kids have. It’s why we’re here. It’s the deepest thing we hold about the American ideal. We’ve made it into a cliché of the American dream, but it’s not a cliché. It’s actually a deeply held value. And people have great anxiety about it. And it’s the issue in every campaign, and it’s going to be the issue in this campaign as well. And . . . and . . . and so will foreign policy, because I think September 11th is a defining event in some way. A lot of Democrats don’t think it is. I think it is. I think because people do feel a sense that what happens in the world now affects them. And this is really the thread that runs through all these sort of emerging issues - economically and foreign policies – where we’ve now entered a time in American life for all the reasons we talked about – technologically and socially – where we no longer dictate all the terms. We’re not self-sufficient. We actually are affected by what some . . . you know a bunch of homicidal terrorists hatch up in an apartment in Berlin or Bond somewhere. We’re actually affected by the economic policy that China pursues, or that Venezuela pursues. And so you know it’s a very insecure time because we’re used to dictating the terms to everybody else militarily and economically. And the question is for leaders in this country is what are you gonna do about that? What’s your vision for adapting to it? And what’s missing from the campaign is any greater discussion of what that change looks like. It’s any hard truths. It’s any . . . any answer for any problem that might not immediately be popular with the broader swath of people. That’s what’s missing.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I mean there are certainly some trends at work that contribute to this. It’s not a coincidence. Money in politics contributes to this, because only a certain number of people . . . You either have to be famous or wealthy. It’s very, very hard to be anything else and succeed in American politics right now at the highest level. The celebritization of the culture and politics plays a big role in this. If you ever . . . Everything now is kind of a soap opera or People magazine segment subject, you know. So you know we like families. And we like spouses. And we like kids. And you know we’re willing to . . . This goes back really to the Kennedy’s right? This has been happening over a period of time in American history. And people’s personal lives are much more an issue in politics than they were. And so you would expect to come from that, I think, some . . . some . . . some dynastic impulse. Because once somebody has celebrity, it rubs off on all the people around them right? So tabloids now write about this guy – what’s his name – Kevin Federer, right? (referring to Kevin Federline) I mean who is this guy? He married a pop singer, right? So of course, you know, why shouldn’t the wife of a president be instantly considered a potential senator and president? You know because that’s the culture.

But you know it’s not a first. I mean we had the son of a president before. We had two cousins within a relatively . . . within a couple decades of each other. So you know it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re headed toward that period. I think what it . . . The larger meaning of it to me is – because this is the larger meaning of everything to me – is . . . is . . . is really about this economic upheaval in America, because what we . . . What it really says is we’re living in this moment now quite differently from the last 100 years or so where this notion that anybody can be born in any circumstances and get the education and the opportunities they need to go out, to be self-sufficient, to run for public office, to ultimately be president. The Bill Clinton story of Hope, Arkansas is very much in jeopardy. It’s still doable. It’s still possible if you have Clinton’s talent, and drive, and ambition, and neuroses; but . . . but ultimately, you know, like everything else in this society where opportunity is . . . is gravitating toward a more limited number of people. And that’s obviously gonna be reflected in politics because it’s reflected everywhere else. And it’s, you know, the central challenge we face.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: That’s a big question. That’s a question I’m wrestling with in my writing right now. I . . . I’m not . . . I’m not convinced she’s gonna win the nomination of the Democratic party. I think that’s a very open question. And if so, I think she’s got a long way to go to get to the presidency. But to me, to this point . . . Politicians evolve. I don’t know Hillary Clinton well. I’ve talked to her a couple of times. To me this is the defining difference between her and her husband. And of course the comparisons are inevitable and she has to deal with that, because if it weren’t for her husband she wouldn’t be where she is. So we have to be able to make that comparison. Bill Clinton identified a vision for his party and for the country that was . . . that was new, and counterintuitive, and divisive. It made a lot of people unhappy. It still makes a lot of Democrats unhappy – the idea of Clinton as in the idea of moving to the center; the idea that party orthodoxies of the New Deal and great society era were not adequate to the moment in governing. He made very little progress in convincing his party of that. But he made that argument and made it consistently through his presidency. And . . . and . . . and think, you know, outlined a real vision for where he wanted to take the country. She has not. I mean she runs to win. That’s her slogan, “I’m in to win.” Or you know some vaguery like “The change we need,” right? Some vague . . . a vague . . . It’s not a vaguery is it? It’s some vague comment, some vague slogan. But she, unlike . . . Unlike Bill Clinton, Hillary has not articulated, you know, some vision of where she thinks the country or the party needs to go; some . . . some rejection of the past, some notion that inspires people, or gets them thinking or debating. She has been a very conventional politician running effectively to gain power. And her . . . her essential argument is to pick up where her husband left off. And I don’t . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know that that’s enough to build . . . to build on the, you know . . . to build on the conversation that he started.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Well I would say . . . I’ll tell you my own feeling about this. I mean you know you can . . . you can . . . you go out and go into the streets of New York and ask that question, you’ll get some people who are pretty fired up. I’ve never been a “Bush is the devil” kind of guy. I really take offense at sort of the comparisons to totalitarianism. Somebody sent me an e-mail recently and compared this administration, what it was doing, to what had been done in sort of communists . . . the early years of the communist Soviet Union. There was some comparison. And I just wrote them . . . I write these people, and I consider it my personal responsibility as a journalist to write people back – even when they’re praising me and being nice and I don’t need the fight – to write people back and say, “I have to reject this premise. This is not good.” There is nothing about this country today that was true in the early years of the communist Soviet Union. You know you say what you want about George W. Bush. He is not Stalin, so let’s not be ridiculous. Having said that, I think his legacy will be treated harshly. I’m not alone of course. That’s a majority . . . But my . . . If for no other reason, if you took all the policies out of it . . . Say you just took Iraq out of it . . . Let’s say Iraq is not the defining thing of his . . . defining issue we think it is now. Or let’s say it’s not foreign policy. If for no other reason than he entered office at a time of incredible, paralyzing division in the country, that he promised to mend it, and that he made it infinitely worse. That is his greatest disservice as a president. That alone makes him a failed president if nothing else did, in my mind, because he retarded the dialogue and the conversation in a country that desperately needed to advance it. And for that I think history will judge him harshly. And whatever else . . . You know whatever else comes out of his presidency will be judged beyond that.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: But I . . . I think history . . . This is a very charitable assessment. I think history will record Bill Clinton as the first president of the 21st century – as sort of in that way – and he would like this very much – but in that way the Teddy Roosevelt of his time in that I think he saw the future, and he didn’t get us into the future. And he didn’t achieve nearly what he wanted to. And it’s disappointing, and historians tend to be very disappointed in it in the present day. David Kennedy of Stanford described it to me as the “great squandering”. You know it’s how historians see the Clinton presidency. But I see something a little different, which is he didn’t get us into that future, but he did define it. He created a political lexicon. People didn’t talk about the information age, the new economy, the globalization, the global economy. You know we throw these words around now like they’ve always been here. They weren’t here. And Bill Clinton sat on factory floors, and in airport hangers and said to people, you know, this is not your father’s economy. It’s never going to be again. The world is changing. It’s gonna be painful for you, but it’s also full of promise and we can’t stop it. And he wasn’t the first one to make that (31:16) argument. I think Gary Hart predated him. There have been some visionary politicians. But he was the most persuasive and the most successful. And what Clinton left us as a legacy – and it may be a paltry legacy by some standards – is a lexicon, and a debate, and a language we can use; a sort of basic understanding in order to have the conversations we really need to have. And I think . . . I think when the history is written, what they’ll say is these conversations are never linear in American life. You had Teddy Roosevelt, and you had Woodrow Wilson, and you had Franklin Roosevelt. But you also had Taft and Hoover thrown in and nobody remembers that. And it was kind of a step backward from the move toward an industrialized society and a centralized government. And I think similarly people will write in 100 years that Bill Clinton was the first president to define the challenges of the 21st century. And that the country then took a real step back from that conversation; that they elected a president in George W. Bush who . . . who you know in a sense believed you could hold back some of that change. And . . . and probably he won’t be the last president we have who . . . who . . . who makes that conversation less productive rather than more, but we’ll get there.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: I mean there’s a ton of young talent out there. I mean you look at the 2006 elections when the Democrats who were elected then are, you know, infinitely more promising than some of the people who came before. And you know I think . . . I’m not . . . I don’t . . . I certainly don’t have a point of view in the presidential campaign. And I don’t know Obama well and haven’t written about him for the magazine to this point. But you know I think he’s a tremendous political talent. I think he could be around . . . You know win or lose he could be around for 20 more years in the political dialogue at least. And he represents, I think, a different generational mindset. I think that’s why a lot of people get very excited about him.

There are, you know . . . There are people on the state level. There are people . . . There’s a congressman . . . There’s congressman and congress people like, you know, Archer Davis from Alabama who’s gonna run for statewide office in 2010. You know he could be the first black governor of the old south. I mean there’s . . . There’s a lot of change in the air, and a lot of good young politicians. And I think the party apparatus and orthodoxies have stifled a lot of that talent. I think the baby boomer establishment has been a little bit suffocating.

Recorded on: 12/13/07

Transcript: Well I think the greatest challenge facing both parties is change – it’s fundamental change. Look you can live in a lot of moments in American history where the world you’re born into and the world you govern are not that vastly different. They’re always different. Thirty or 40 years pass, you know things are gonna change in a country. But . . . but that said, you know you can . . . if you were . . . If you were born at a certain point in the 20th century after . . . after the Great Depression and you were governing in the 1960s or 1970s, you know the world was . . . The economy was pretty much the economy it was supposed to be. It was run by an industrial engine. The world was still divvied up among states who did menace to each other only. Or you know signed treaties and didn’t menace each other. I mean the world was pretty much the one . . . You had telephones, and you had televisions. You had nicer televisions and you had cable TV; but people were still communicating with one another in much the same way. And they were still posting letters by hand and sending them in a mailbox, you know. And then you have a moment like this where . . . where the world is just vastly different than it was 30, 40 years ago. And in a sense we’re caught between moments, right? We’re caught between what was an industrial age and what comes next, because we still have vestiges – one foot in the past . . . one foot in the past . . . one foot there and one foot in the future. So the challenge for the Democratic party or any party is to lead the way into that future; it’s to articulate what . . . what government . . . what . . . and the economic engine, and foreign policy of a country are gonna look like in the era when none of those things are operable anymore; when the economy is not industrial driven; where people communicate with each other all over the world in a flash, right? Where people expect to have options and choices in their lives. Where the threats that affect the world are not necessarily states to states, but a bunch of people who can communicate on the Internet and do a great deal more damage than a general in some country can. You know this is a whole new landscape. And I’m coming around to the view that it’s too much to ask. It’s just too much to ask of a generation born into a different world to govern in this one. I think the baby boom generation has done what it can. I don’t . . . I don’t indict them as selfish, worthless people. I just think it’s too . . . It may have been just too much to ask a generation born in the 1950s to figure out how to govern in the year 2007 or 2008. And I’m not . . . I’m coming around to the view that leadership . . . real leadership, and real change, and real evolution of government will . . . will have to wait for another generation.

Recorded on: 12/13/07