MICHEL MARTIN, host:
I'm Michel Martin, and this is Tell Me More from NPR News. Just ahead, we check in with a panel of Pennsylvania voters who talked with us a month ago after Senator Barack Obama's big speech about race. They'll tell us how they feel about the candidates since then, and if anything's changed. Tomorrow of course is the big Pennsylvania Democratic primary: 158 delegates at stake. It was a hot weekend, and we're not talking about the weather. Both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama barnstormed the state, both flooded the airwaves with ads, both made negative attacks. Will it energize the voters or turn them off? Here to talk with us about it are Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon and Mackenzie Carpenter, a reporter for the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Thank you both for joining me.
Mr. PERRY BACON (Reporter, Washington Post): Thanks for having me.
Ms. MACKENZIE CARPENTER (Reporter, Pittsburg Post-Gazette): Good to be here.
MARTIN: Before we get to the specific questions, Perry, I wanted to ask, you know, how you spent your weekend? And I'm not getting in your business, I just think people would like to know what a reporter covering a big presidential election does the weekend before the big primary.
Mr. BACON: Well, on Friday and Saturday I was following Senator Clinton around Pennsylvania, which meant that I didn't get a lot of sleep. I think she had five events - she had an event pretty late Friday night in the Philadelphia area, and then had five events sort of around the state starting off in the Philadelphia area and then going west. She had five events very, you know, very packed rallies, a very compressed schedule so it was a very exciting weekend.
MARTIN: And what about you, Mackenzie, what'd you do?
Ms. CARPENTER: Well, I don't know if I had as rough a schedule as Perry, although Saturday night at ten of ten I'm standing in the pouring rain in McKeesport listening to Senator Clinton talk to a crowd of thousands of people who had turned out for her. And I remember thinking, what am I doing here? And it was all very exciting.
MARTIN: Well, speaking of that, this is one of the things I wanted to know. It seems like both candidates took it up a notch. They both got kind of personal with each other. They both have ads running that are very explicitly negative. Now it's not as though negative campaigning is unknown to the people of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, which are the two main, you know, population centers. There was a very spirited mayor's race in Philadelphia last year, but I am wondering what sense you're getting from voters? Perry, are they digging the attention or are they getting kind of a little tired of the attacks? How are they responding, do you think, to the tone of the campaign?
Mr. BACON: The voters I talked to in each state we go to, not only in Pennsylvania, but in Indiana, I mean if you're up here in Washington you get a sense people are sort of tired of the campaign, they want them to end, but the voters I talked to seem energized and excited that the candidates are coming to their state, and they're seeing them for the first time. And I tend to, you know, I'm following Senator Clinton, so I'm going to her rallies. So when she criticizes Senator Obama and says he - his speeches, and I have more substance, they sort of applaud and like that to some extent.
MARTIN: Mackenzie, what about you? What are you hearing?
Ms. CARPENTER: Well, I detected sort of a benign feeling among the crowd when I was interviewing folks waiting to get into a Hillary fundraiser, or excuse me, rally, the other day. They were - I asked them, these were people in California, PA, who live in a town that might have been the kind of community that Barack Obama was talking about in his bitter comments, and I thought - I asked them how do you feel? And a lot of them just shrugged it off and said, that doesn't bother me. They were for Hillary, but they didn't seem to mind him characterizing them as bitter and frustrated.
MARTIN: That's interesting. And speaking of Barack Obama, on Friday night in Philadelphia he drew what is believed to be the largest crowd since he started the campaign, some 35,000 people at an outdoor rally. Is there any significance to the size of that crowd? Did it set any kind of a marker locally?
Ms. CARPENTER: Well, I would say no only because Philadelphia is hugely in his corner. We ran a poll, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a joint poll with MSNBC and McClatchy that appeared yesterday, that just as everywhere else in urban areas, I think he is supported by 83 percent of the folks living in Philadelphia, mostly a black population. So that's not too surprising to me. What would be more surprising is how he does tonight. He is going to end his five day final tour of the state in Pittsburg at the Petersen Event Center at the University of Pittsburgh, so it'll be very interesting to see just how many people turn out for him here since this is a bastion of Regan Democrats, western Pennsylvania.
MARTIN: And, Perry, you know, we've been hearing and actually I want to hear from both of you on this, party leaders, you mentioned that in Washington people are like sick of it. They're ready to move on. We've heard Democratic Party leader Howard Dean say in recent days he wants the superdelegates to start declaring themselves. Are national party leaders of the mind that this campaign is doing more harm than good? Is that a consensus that at this point they're worried that the candidates are kind of beating each other down to the point where they're softening themselves up in November, or is there a division on that, too?
Mr. BACON: In their - I mean, I don't think it's a consensus in one way. The party leaders are superdelegates, so if they all get together and said we want to end this race, they could end it tomorrow to some extent. They could say we all want to get behind Senator Obama. We want this to end. So they're words all it's too divisive, it's too divisive, but their actions suggest they're not really that concerned about it being that divisive. So I think there's two things going on at once here.
MARTIN: What are those two things?
Mr. BACON: The one, I don't think that - like I said, if you talk to voters, I don't think they want to end the race because you talk to voters, a lot of voters in Indiana and Kentucky and the places that will vote soon actually, like, participating in the process and, like, getting a chance to vote. I don't think the party leaders want to be in a position of deciding the race more or less, even though Obama's the presumed winner, they'd have to actually get in and decide the race and that's something they seem weary of doing.
MARTIN: If you're just joining us I'm speaking with Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon and Pittsburg Post-Gazette reporter Mackenzie Carpenter about Pennsylvania's Democratic primary tomorrow. And speaking of participating, Mackenzie, we had a couple stories about this whole question of street money, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say they're not paying street money, even though it's my understanding that it's legal. Do you, you know, getting, you know, paying people to get folks out to deliver folks to the polls and so forth - what are you hearing about that? Is that a turnoff for the voters there or do they, you know, is that an issue at all?
Ms. CARPENTER: You know that's a classic old Philadelphia tradition. It's called walking-around money, and it certainly exists elsewhere. When I was covering their campaign and before the Texas primary that was a big issue down in south Texas, too, where these people were going to get money to turnout on Election Day. So you know, Obama has said I'm not going to pay them, and you know, I don't know what's going to happen in Philadelphia. I don't think it's as big a deal here in Pittsburgh, but I couldn't help but laugh because, again, this is part of Philadelphia politics where the old saying is, people vote early and often there.
MARTIN: Perry, what are you hearing about this?
Mr. BACON: I think that in Philadelphia, Obama will do so well I don't think it matters. I mean his campaign has taken a different tactic in this. They're not giving the money and Clinton's staff is not really saying, I guess, but moreover I think Obama's going to do so well in Philadelphia, it's sort of a non issue.
MARTIN: Well, why wouldn't he? He has the money. He has 51 million dollars.
Mr. BACON: You know they can be portrayed as...
MARTIN: It's a moral issue?
Mr. BACON: They portray it as a moral issue. We practice this new kind of politics which they talk about all the time and this is a part of their new kind of politics so they say.
MARTIN: OK. And what does Senator Clinton say? You're saying you're not sure whether she's paying or not?
Mr. BACON: I'm actually not sure. I'm not sure what they've said about that.
Ms. CARPENTER: You never know, Michel. In Philadelphia, anything's possible.
MARTIN: OK. And speaking of anything's possible, curious about what affects you think the endorsements are going to have? It's my understanding that Senator Clinton has, well of course she's got Governor Rendell who's, you know, hard worker, you know, shows up, does more than just sort of get on the phone and wave, actually, you know, rearranges his schedule to show up, and she also has Michael Nutter who's the newly elected mayor of Philadelphia, which has to be helpful in that he just - he still has a campaign organization since he was just elected himself. On the other hand, Senator Obama has Bob Casey. So, do you have any sense, either of you, of how - Perry, you want to start, of how - what affect, if any, these endorsements are having?
Mr. BACON: I just don't think at a race on this level, where people know these candidates this well that, you know, Bob Casey saying he likes Senator Obama is pushing a lot of voters toward him. Michael Nutter, I'm pretty sure will be the Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who was a Congresswomen, an African-American Congresswomen who campaigned for Senator Clinton in Ohio and the - a black Congresswomen in Cleveland and Obama won Cleveland overwhelmingly. Two, I just don't think that's going to - Obama's going to do very well in Philadelphia no matter what Michael Nutter says to some extent. The advantage Clinton gets with Rendell and also, I would say, Obama gets with Casey, the key practical advantage is that they know the state well. I'm told that Governor Rendell is very involved with Senator Clinton's campaign, actually telling them here are places you should go. You should emphasize the economy more here and security issues more here. That kind of stuff is, I think, more helpful, the advice they give is more helpful.
MARTIN: Mackenzie, what do you think?
Ms. CARPENTER: Well, actually, it's interesting. There's a famous little story about Governor Rendell telling Hillary Clinton to hold off. She had - after the March 4th primary she immediately wanted to come into western Pennsylvania, where, as I said, there are a lot of Reagan Democrats and he said just wait a few days because he needed to nail down the endorsements of the mayor of Pittsburgh and he wanted that to be timed with her first appearance here. So, sure enough, a few days later she shows up here and our mayor announced that he was endorsing her. So, that's the kind of, pretty savvy political expertise that Governor Rendell has brought to her campaign here.
MARTIN: Do you think it's going to make a difference?
Ms. CARPENTER: Boy. You know, I was at California University, which is this little college on the Monongahela River. Governor Rendell came on the stage. You know, did he excite the crowd? I mean, I just can't imagine that he's going to make that big a difference. I think Perry is right. I think that these candidates are so well known, my God, they're on television, you know, 24/7. I got four robocalls yesterday at my house.
MARTIN: From who?
Ms. CARPENTER: I mean, I'm just saying, I think people have enough information without having to rely on the governor of Pennsylvania or their political leaders, that's all.
MARTIN: Interesting. Finally, the debate last week. There's been a lot of, you know, hazirai (ph) about that debate and whether it was fair, whether it was unfair. ABC is getting a lot of negative attention for the way they handled it. And I do have to disclose, I used to work at ABC before I worked here, so, I think people know that but - do you have any sense of whether that mattered, Mackenzie?
Ms. CARPENTER: Well, I wrote a story in yesterday's paper where, again, I was talking to folks who were waiting in line outside this rally on Saturday night. And these are, you know, sort of, average, salt of the earth types and it was interesting. There were decidedly mixed feelings. I got a bunch of people saying the flag pin question was out of line. As one older woman, who is a Hillary supporter said, she's not wearing the flag pin, why did they bring this up? On the other hand, there were folks who said this is going to be part of the November campaign and it's a, you know, voters need to know about these issues, which are symbolic, but important. And the candidates need to get toughened up.
MARTIN: OK. Perry, quickly?
Mr. BACON: I think it, sort of, signaled what happened over the weekend was that the debate was contentious and now we've moved to a zone where, however the voters - the candidates seem to see there's an invitation, a reason to attack each other more. We get a very - Obama was, sort of, more pointed than I've ever seen him and, you know, sort of describing Senator Clinton and she answered in kind on Sunday.
MARTIN: So it was a tune up. A tune up. OK. Washington Post political reporter, Perry Bacon. He was kind enough to join us in the studio here in Washington, just back from Pennsylvania. Hopefully had, like, a half hour nap. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter, Mackenzie Carpenter joined us on the phone and she's still out there in the field working. Long night for both of you. Thank you both so much for taking the time.
Mr. BACON: Thank you.
Ms. CARPENTER: Thank you.
MARTIN: In a moment, the pundits say white voters are the key to the keystone state right now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
