The West Wing s07e06 Episode Script
The Al Smith Dinner
THE WEST WING Original air date: 10/30/2005 Do you realize how few voters read that ink-stained rag? The New York Times? Every network producer reads it.
Every nationally syndicated columnist reads it.
We can't run a campaign for editorial writers.
We'd have 12 votes, half of them within walking distance of zay-bars.
That Times piece is ten times worse for Vinick.
He's the one dragging his feet on debate negotiations.
He's the one who rejected the debate commission's plan.
They called it 'a classic case of a front-runner trying to sit on a lead.
' Well, I can see how it's classic.
He's been leading for two months now.
I don't know why the Times slammed us, too.
We're doing everything we can to get debates; the dates Vinick wants, the locations Vinick wants.
You know, it's starting to look like I'm desperate to debate him.
Will you stop?! I'm just saying, watch it with the body parts.
That's ridiculous.
You're the next President of the United States.
Don't say that.
You have a standard to uphold.
She held out her forearm.
You want me to refuse to sign autographs? You signed higher than her forearm.
At which body part do you draw the line? Bruno, help me out here.
The guy's a rock star; David Cassidy meets David Rockefeller; all those body part votes.
He's the next President of the United States.
Would you please stop saying that? Vinick is a terrific debater.
And every time he backs away from the negotiating table, every time his aide tells the New York Times that I'm the greatest debater since Socrates, they're lowering expectations on his performance and raising mine through the roof.
But he doesn't need the debates.
We do.
There's no way to hide that.
What good are debates if I have to demolish him to win? I've got another negotiating session with Bruno tomorrow in Washington.
Break the logjam.
And lower expectations.
Okay, those are contradictory orders, 'cause the more I give to get an agreement, the more it's going to look Get it done.
Santos pulled out of North Dakota and West Virginia.
There is not a single state we're not competing in.
We could win all 50.
Get used to it, Senator.
Neither of you is worried about this Times editorial? Nope.
They're calling me the roadblock to democracy.
We still have a shot at the Times' endorsement.
We're going to get a deal on debates soon enough and on our terms.
The Times is just rapping us on the knuckles.
The governor of New York called again, urging you to reconsider I'm not going to the Al Smith dinner.
Presidential nominees always go.
No one's thrilled that it's just going to be the Vice Presidential candidates.
You know what they're going to want me to talk about.
The biggest political event in New York, obviously a huge deal on the Catholic community; you could go, speak about your opposition to partial-birth abortion.
Ohh, bad idea.
I'm not going to give a speech about partial-birth abortion in a room full of people who think any abortion is a sin.
New York's competitive, Catholic vote's critical.
And I'm pro-choice, same as Santos.
I'd be crazy to engage this issue.
You got another call from the New York State Party about Have Josh return it.
Who's Al Smith anyway? First Catholic to run for President; 1928.
Why's the dinner such a big deal? Oh, it's a big benefit to Catholic charities.
It's the most political non-political event in New York.
A ballroom full of Catholics should be your crowd.
Vinick doesn't even go to church.
That's just what I need.
A contest over who gets the most 'boos' for the line 'I support a woman's right to choose.
' Leo will handle it.
Make it 5:30.
While Senator Vinick is back in Washington tonight, Congressman Matthew Santos is in Michigan fighting for the state's 17 electoral votes.
As the electoral math narrows, you can bet they'll both be in Michigan Why are we talking about the environment in Michigan this weekend? You talk about it everywhere.
It's Michigan.
Hug a tree, kill a Chrysler.
We're four points up there; we don't need to get hit for pandering.
You want to spend a few minutes on thank you notes for those New Mexico electorates? Nah, I've got the list.
It's been a great day; why don't you guys get some rest.
- Are you sure? - Yeah.
Go ahead.
- Okay, see you in the morning.
- Okay.
Matthew Santos is in Michigan fighting for the state's 17 electoral votes.
As the electoral math narrows, you can bet they'll both be in Michigan more and more.
We'll be right back after this.
This November, America faces a vote of conscience.
Matt Santos on human life: Do I want to limit access to abortion? No.
- Turn on MSNBC.
- No, on telling you when your daughter wants an abortion.
No, on banning partial-birth abortion.
I need Sheila.
Paid for by the Committee for the Integrity of Human Life.
Who the hell is the Committee for the Integrity of Human Life, and who told them to drag abortion into my campaign? It's a bare-knuckle attack ad.
It's not our ad.
The public won't make the distinction.
And you think some left-leaning committee for something or other isn't going to slam us right back? Then we're in a negative ad war.
Plus, they're hitting Santos for what a lot of Republicans think is my position on abortion.
The ad does lay out some pretty clear differences.
Which may play great to a few right-wing partisans, but it'll look phony and political to everyone else.
I want this ad pulled.
I want the Chairman of the Republican Party to say that this committee does not speak for us.
I'll say it, too.
If any of our people are involved in this, fire them.
The quote is completely out of context.
Do you remember the quote? I remember what I think.
They make it seem like I'm for abortion on demand.
- I'm not defending the ad - It's a right-wing parody of my position.
- We'll find whatever piece of legislation - You'll find it tonight.
It'll be hard to rebut.
You voted against the partial-birth abortion ban.
The Republicans wouldn't carve out a clear exception for the life and health of mother.
You voted against parental consent.
There was no judicial override.
There are pro-life judges out there refusing requests even for incest victims.
I am not for unlimited abortion.
Look, I don't know how we respond, but by tomorrow this is going to be on every cable network across the country.
It's news for free and it's going to hurt us with swing voters.
If Vinick's taking the gloves off, so can we: Its fair game, no one can say it's not.
Josh? We don't know that Vinick's behind this.
He sure benefits from it.
If we turn this campaign full-tilt negative, we can never go back.
Call Vinick's people.
Tell them to call this the lie that it is and get it off the air.
I want a counter-attack ready to go by morning if they don't.
I don't really feel comfortable working in Toby's old office.
Think of it as the Communications Director's office.
I can't help thinking of it as a federal crime scene.
Have you heard from the policy shops? This Toby thing will drown out everything for another few days, but then we'll need a policy to announce.
TPC says they're pretty tapped out.
They say we should highlight the good things the government's already doing.
Great.
Wait till people find out there's a post office.
The President's going on a three-day tour of distressed urban areas to promote investment in jobs in inner cities.
I'll announce it next week.
Try today at your first press briefing.
You don't want me briefing today.
I do.
I need a few days to get up to speed.
I don't know the first thing about the leak investigation and I haven't even sat down with Counsel.
Refer those questions to Counsel's office.
Those questions? What about the entire briefing? We have to show that we've replaced Toby without missing a beat.
There's an ongoing investigation.
There's not much we can say about it anyway.
Congressman.
Sir, there's an independent ad attacking your position on abortion.
It's a complete obstruction of my views.
What do we know? The Committee for the Integrity of Human Life is a 527; one of these independent expenditure committees.
No connection to us or the RNC? I wouldn't say that.
Its major donors all give to the RNC and a few of them are big donors of yours too.
You talk to the Party Chair? Hodder won't denounce the ad.
He thinks it'd be bad for us and bad for the party.
Has he seen it? Does he want us to get in a mud wrestling match with Matt Santos? The Chairman's view is that it fires up social conservatives.
It reminds them that while you may be pro-choice, Santos is for virtually unrestricted abortion.
You have to denounce it yourself before a huge bank of cameras.
You want this piece of trash on the air.
No, but I don't want you or anyone else from this campaign criticizing pro-life anything.
We're trying to win a mandate in a country that's over 60% pro-choice.
We cannot get cute with this.
Hodder's got credibility with the right-to-lifers.
I don't.
He's the one who's got to kill this.
I want to see him this afternoon right after the Maryland rally.
Get your bank of cameras ready.
Excuse me.
Joshua.
Looking forward to our next round of negotiations.
Maybe this time you'll propose hourly debates with breaks for IV nutrition for the candidates.
Your side is running a vicious, baseless attack ad.
It is not my side.
It is not my ad.
Get that ad off the air and renounce the sleazeballs who put it there or the gloves are off.
There are laws against coordination with an independent Call the RNC.
I need copies of every negative Santos spot they've been working on.
C.
J.
wanted you to have this revised POTUS schedule.
You haven't heard back from her? About your request to postpone the briefing? Right.
Unless you count her saying 'Don't ask if Will can postpone the briefing.
' That doesn't count.
Never heard back.
Good morning.
I'm Will Bailey, assistant to the President and new White House Director of Communications.
I'll be conducting the daily briefings from now on and I have a statement to make at this time.
One week from today the President will launch a bold and far-reaching new markets initiative - an inter-agency effort to bring jobs and private investment to distressed urban communities.
We're handing out a list of initial agency efforts - small business loans, tax incentives, Commerce's new Adopt and Entrepreneur Program, which, of course, we expect to be controversial.
I'll take your questions.
Did any of the White House senior staff know Toby Ziegler was leaking national security secrets? There's an ongoing investigation.
I'll refer you to the President's statement on the matter.
But it doesn't speak to that question.
I'm not going to parse his statement.
We're not asking you to parse it.
Which is good, because I'm not going to.
Did any senior staff know Toby was lying from that very podium? Toby Ziegler's been dismissed by the President.
That should be an indication of what this White House thinks.
I'm asking what the White House knew.
Two weeks ago, Toby said I'll refer you to Counsel on that.
They're crushing him like a grape.
He's doing fine.
So Santos pulls out of both North Dakota and West Virginia.
That's great news so soon after Labor Day.
Yeah.
It'll give us a chance at that West Virginia second.
Yeah.
That Santos crew doesn't know a damn thing about party building.
- How you doing? - Mr.
Chairman.
Good to see you again.
I don't like that abortion ad.
I don't care how you deal with it; hold a press conference in the lobby, say they don't speak for the party, but I want it dealt with now.
It's becoming a national story.
No one showed me that ad.
I probably wouldn't have run it.
Do you know what kind of damage it would do to walk away from it? An attack that, quite frankly Arnie, lots of folks think should be in your stump speech.
Santos and I are both pro-choice.
I can't pretend there's some huge difference between our positions.
Santos thinks my 14-year-old daughter needs my permission to get an aspirin in school; but not an abortion? The platform's pro-life.
The people in this party, who do the phone-banking, plant the lawn signs, get half our guys elected, they're pro-life too.
Mr.
Chairman, this is a rough, negative ad at a time when we don't need it.
This committee knows nothing from tactics.
Maybe it's not about tactics, maybe they mean what they say.
We know how hard you've been working on keeping social conservatives on the reservation.
We were this close, this close, to a third-party candidacy from the religious right.
I'm still concerned they stay home on Election Day.
This ad hurts me as much as it hurts Santos.
Maybe more.
Pro-lifers have their issues with you but Santos is for unlimited abortion.
If you don't denounce that ad, I'm going to have to do it myself.
Can I speak candidly? Because you've been sugar-coating up till now? Corporate conservatives may love you, Neo-Cons and Libertarians may love you, Bruno Gianelli Democrats may love you too, but social conservatives don't.
You never speak about their issues.
You send mixed signals about judicial appointments.
You are the first nominee in 20 years to skip the Al Smith dinner because, God forbid you might be near some religious voters.
Well, I can't meet my responsibility to this party without them.
No candidate could hold those voters together.
If this were Europe, the Republican Party would be three parties.
Thank goodness they don't have to sleep together, they just have to show up on the same day and vote Republican.
Do you realize how many states my pro-choice position puts on the table? Do you realize how we can grow this party if we're willing to reach out? I guess I'd like to see you unite the party that we have now.
I'm not denouncing that ad.
And I don't think you want to either, Arnie.
Do you have a comment on the independent ad attacking Santos on choice? I oppose all 527 ads.
You think Vinick's behind this? I don't know.
He could be.
We found the full interview they used in the ad.
It's from three years ago, KPRC in Houston.
So let's talk legislatively.
Do I want to limit access to abortion? No, because there are common sense limits under the law right now.
Should we work together to reduce the number of abortions? Absolutely, and that's where I think we can work together to find common ground.
They took my quote totally out of context.
Yeah.
Yeah, so why are they running the ad on television? It's fraud.
Well, you just said pretty clearly that you're not for limiting access.
We called the stations that are running it.
They're not going to pull it.
They think it's a fair charge.
I've got Leo on the line.
He's back at headquarters.
Leo? Congressman, you've already said it was a distortion.
I worry about too tough a response beyond that.
It makes this a much larger story.
It can't get any larger.
They're already talking about it on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, probably the Home Shopping Network.
We are the pro-choice party.
There's no denying it.
I'm not sure we don't stand up and say 'Damn right I'm pro-choice.
So is 60% of the country.
' I have to make it clear that I'm not for abortion without limits.
What if we hit Vinick on a completely different level? Taxes, corporate cronyism, we haul out a long list of all the special interest giveaways he supported in Congress.
Look, this is about something that's much more fundamental.
Vinick's appeal is that he's a different kind of Republican.
Moderate, reasonable, pro-choice.
The Congressman's right.
This ad shows that Vinick's centrism is just a bad coat of paint.
The guy has a long record of pro-choice votes.
Then why is his party platform pro-life straight up and down? Well, he promised the religious right he'd appoint pro-life judges.
He's obviously not too attached to that voting record.
Let this attack stand and we strip away what's different about Santos: he's a religious Catholic, not another secular Democrat who can be portrayed as hostile to heartland values.
Leo? I worry about elevating this, but if the charge sticks it could kill us with values voters and that puts Vinick's nine-point lead in the bank.
We hit him and we hit him hard.
I don't think we start with a negative ad.
No.
We get one ready; a tough one.
But our first one on Vinick will be a free media bonanza.
Why waste money on an ad buy? We use a spokesperson for this.
We don't elevate it to Santos' or Leo's level.
Clarify that our guy is not for abortion without limits.
The ad's a sham.
Anyone can see from the full interview.
Then bam, we hit Vinick with a political two-by-four.
You don't have to be happy about this.
You don't have to be queasy about this.
You don't know Santos the way I do.
- If this becomes a full-out negative - You think he's got a glass jaw? I think we lose a negative ad war.
I think the other side is better at this and I think they have more to work with.
I did the Merrianhoff Senate campaign.
You know those charges that he had weird financial dealings with Taiwanese businessmen? He did.
Those were the charges.
Anyway, we ran against Barrack, clean as a bar of soap.
We hit him first with everything we could find.
By the time he hit back, the voters thought it was just another ugly campaign; a pox on both our houses.
You're proud of that? I'm proud that Merrianhoff defends Medicare and Medicaid in the Senate.
I'm proud that he votes against every reckless Republican tax cut.
We're the blue team and there's a real war going on.
Josh, do you want the right wing to get their judges? - No.
- Then stop being so queasy.
We hit Vinick for hypocrisy; for saying he's pro-choice and letting anti-choice ideologues pick his judiciary and run lying ads.
I'll phone the language into headquarters.
Don't use our regular spokesman.
Find a woman.
You know, 40-something, soccer mom.
What about debate negotiations? I'm meeting with Bruno this afternoon in Washington.
We're still on makeup and deli trays.
There's going to be debates.
Vinick doesn't want to incur the wrath of the New York Times anymore than we do.
We have to stop being so eager.
We have to change our body language.
Let them chase us for a change.
I've had nine meetings with Bruno on this.
He knows what I want, how I think.
He doesn't know me.
Have you seen this abortion ad? It's all over cable news.
They're predicting a negative ad blitz by Friday.
I'm amazed it took them this long to get started.
Someone gave the President this Eskimo adage: "The best place to store surplus food is in someone else's stomach.
" Use it in this afternoon's briefing.
We're announcing 50 major private employers have joined the new markets initiative.
'Cause which would you rather have when you're hungry: rotten food or a friend No.
I get it.
It's just: a second briefing? You saw the wires.
They counted the number of questions I was asked this morning because I didn't answer one of them.
You thought we were going to get good coverage this week? a career high.
You have to let the press punch themselves out.
You're talking to the punching bag.
My job is to look like I'm not completely ignorant.
Counsel won't even brief me on the details of Toby's firing.
I asked them not to.
Don't you want me to have a shred of credibility in the briefing room? Your ignorance is your credibility.
That's why I put you in this job.
And your constituents aren't in that room, they're in distressed urban areas.
You brief at 4:00.
I'm the Jamaican Bobsledding Team.
Securing America's future.
Securing, not strengthening.
He's not a personal trainer.
Is that statement all set? All set.
Got a woman to read the thing? Right out of central casting.
No nose rings, brow piercings? Trust me, this girl's a cold glass of milk.
She was working for the Midwest Corridor Campaign.
Lou asked for the binders on Vinick's Senate flip-flops.
Yeah.
- Are we about to run our very first? - They're starting.
I'll call you back.
Uh, no.
Tell him we're not doing the Al Smith dinner, not in the middle of all this.
Good afternoon.
It is wrong and misleading to imply, through edited footage, that Congressman Santos is for abortion without limits.
This is Otto.
That's Donna.
Who? The Dairy Queen, Donna Moss.
What happened to our forty-something soccer mom? Lou hired her last week to do Midwest press.
Looks too young, huh? Uh, the Women's Alliance for Choice just called.
They want an urgent meeting with the Congressman.
Yeah.
We're talking about an endorsement event.
Have Leo do it.
I don't want Santos meeting with the pro-choice lobby till this abortion stuff cools down.
And the American people needs to know which is the real Arnold Vinick.
The one who supports a woman's right to choose and votes accordingly or the one who's party has a pro-life platform Yes, they're ready to go.
She's hitting me from the left and from the right.
We have to wait until we see what's She's telling the right I'm pro-abortion, telling the left I'm a captive of the religious nuts.
The RNC upped their ad buy by another 750 points.
Every battleground market.
That since I don't have a functioning uterus like Tippy Hedron here, of course I'm not qualified to talk about it.
All the networks are running pieces of the Santos abortion ad tonight.
I ought to go out there and call it a piece of trash and a lie.
I don't like it either, but Hodder's not wrong.
There is nothing in that ad that's inaccurate.
Santos couldn't have written a better ad himself.
They're whacking me for playing both sides.
The 527's raised a quarter of a million off last night's airings alone.
After tonight it's going to be 20 times that much.
This is energizing the very people we were afraid were going to stay home in November.
You think I should stand by it? No.
I think you should scrub your Michigan swing, go to the Al Smith dinner, talk about your opposition to partial-birth abortion; and the minute the Santos campaign runs its first negative ad we run a hundred of ours.
Years, I've been looking forward to this campaign.
I never imagined it would look like this.
It'll look better after you win.
Good afternoon.
We're handing out lists of private sector commitments to the President's new markets initiative.
It shows the business community is deeply engaged in job creation for poor communities.
As the Eskimo said, "If you store your food in somebody else's stomach um, well, you'd better hope it doesn't need refrigeration.
" Has the President been asked to testify in the criminal investigation? That's a matter for Counsel.
Will he assert privilege if he has to testify? I'll refer you to this morning's briefing.
When you said you'd get back to us on that? See, now you're cheating.
You didn't need to be referred.
Does the President consider Mr.
Babish's conversations with Mr.
Ziegler to be privileged? I'm not getting into that.
Isn't Mr.
Babish also a witness? I'd have to check with him.
Will, you've been in this job four days.
When are you going to sit down with Counsel and get us some answers? I'm not.
Who are you? Louise Thornton.
Josh couldn't make it.
Stuck in Michigan? Santos benched him.
He sent me.
We have some magazines outside if you get bored with those.
Any good ones? Are we going to, how shall I say, negotiate? Nah.
This may look like your dentist's waiting room.
It's a negotiating session for Presidential debates.
You want as few debates as possible but you don't want to tick off the debate commission or the opinion elites, right? Hmm.
And I think that Vinick could kick Santos' abortion-loving ass all over the stage.
Game over, check please.
And? And I'm your best buddy on this.
No debates, you can blame me.
Would you like a magazine? Because I figure about a half an hour of this and I can tell the Congressman it didn't work out.
You understand why I'm taking this meeting instead of Santos? He didn't want to be seen with the Woman's Alliance for Choice, not while he's trying to limit abortion.
He's not trying to limit abortion.
That's not what his spokeswoman said.
It's a rhetorical position.
President Bartlet did it too.
President Bartlet never ran against a pro-choice Republican.
We haven't endorsed a Presidential candidate yet.
I know.
We're going to have to push that back a bit.
See, we need moderate votes to chip into Vinick's lead.
We don't want to make Santos the baby-killing candidate, if you'll excuse We're thinking of endorsing Vinick.
Becca, you're not talking to some punk Congressional staffer.
Vinick's pro-choice and he's probably going to win.
- You can't honestly believe that - How do you close a nine-point gap? You'll be lucky if you get one debate.
The way Santos has been begging for it, Vinick's expectations are so low he'll just have to avoid tripping over the podium to win.
We're the pro-choice party.
You don't sound like it.
Vinick's the one who won't criticize his party on this; partial-birth, parental notification.
He's bowing for the far-right fringes.
But if he wins, they really will be the fringes, won't they? And then both parties will be where the party is: pro-choice down the line.
Becca, if you help a Republican get elected President How many more Republicans will have the courage to stand up for a woman's right to choose? Thank you.
The Virginia steel sector's a model for the country.
You should be proud.
The debate negotiations seem to be off.
Seem to be? The Santos campaign blew them up.
It's a ploy.
Better be.
They need debates ten times more than us.
We can wait it out.
That's the bad news.
Yeah.
Let's have the good news.
The Women's Alliance for Choice wants an endorsement meeting.
You're kidding.
The heart of the Democratic base wants to support you.
Santos would be doomed.
We'd win 53 states, a few desert islands.
How do we know this isn't a setup? We meet with them and we find out.
I don't know.
You know, a pro-choice group gets within 53 feet of me, the whole Republican Party would go crazy.
You're a pro-choice candidate.
They're a pro-choice lobby.
This isn't a typical election.
I can't see how they can endorse a Republican who's against partial-birth abortion, who's for parental notification.
This could be Santos screwing me.
I know these people.
I can keep this meeting quiet.
No.
The RNC has five negative ads ready that would blow Santos out of the water but it's going to harden his support on the left.
It's going to make us more dependent on the right.
Yeah we still win, but we win dirty.
Wouldn't you rather outflank him on the left? If this becomes a press story, that I'm courting not just the center but the organized left, I'd be kissing off a quarter of the Republican base.
I can't win without my own party.
We're going to New York tomorrow.
I'm speaking at the Al Smith dinner.
Tell Sheila I need speech language on partial-birth abortion.
Something that'll mollify the right.
Arnold Vinick promises he'll cut taxes.
Then why do economists say that will break his pledge to balance the budget? He says he's pro-choice.
Then why do news reports say he told the far-right he'd pick anti-choice judges.
Arnold Vinick: if he's on both sides, how can he be on your side? Hey.
You hired Donna Moss? No, I picked her off the street and put her on national television.
She was the absolute wrong person for that hit on Vinick.
Didn't we say forty-something with kids? We said a woman, and she was great.
She worked for Russell in the primary.
So did half the available Democratic talent.
She worked for me before that.
Well, that is a strike against her.
I can see why you're concerned.
Debate negotiations are off.
They're off? We walked away.
I gave it to the Times and the Journal.
You better hope this works.
Vinick can live without debates.
If we don't get them we're toast.
That's exactly what we need to even expectations: prove we're willing to walk away.
If we're lucky, the Times is going to call us a roadblock.
Donna Moss gave dozens of bad quotes about Santos during the primary.
You may run Communications but I'm campaign manager.
I sign off on any new spokesperson.
The Women's Alliance for Choice is thinking of endorsing Vinick.
- Okay, very bad news.
- Oh, yeah.
Is it public? Not yet.
- Maybe it'll hurt Vinick with his own right wing.
- Great.
Vinick loses the right, keeps the middle and left, and the only way for us to get votes is to plaster the Ten Commandments all over our campaign bus.
water transportation? What's next, a Congressional earmark for olives? So, back into the breach.
Down the hall, turn left at the crucible.
- If you want to offer any tips - Just follow your instincts.
My instincts say to curl up in a ball in the corner of my office.
Then just follow your job description.
Down the hall, to your left at the So I should tell Legislative Affairs? The President's not signing the bill, not when it looks like Happy Hour at the Algonquin.
See if they can get some of these earmarks out of it.
Today, I am pleased to announce that as part of our upcoming new markets tour, the President Bartlet will visit the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala-Sue nation to talk about the importance of investing in Native American communities.
I'll dodge your questions now.
When was the last time a sitting President visited an Indian reservation? That would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936.
Next question.
Hey, did you talk to Joey Lucas? She's got another version of our flip-flop spot without the monster-chiller theater music.
Yeah, come with me.
Where are we going? Bedroom/office/staffroom.
Okay, I don't want to seem ungracious.
We've all been under a lot of pressure.
It's just that - Hi.
- Hi.
I don't know what the problem is between you two, but she's great on television and I don't care if she worked for Francisco Franco in the primary, right now it's all hands on deck.
So work it out.
What kind of on-the-record experience do you have? Is this a job interview? I'm campaign manager, I hire the staff.
It generally involves an interview.
On-the-record experience? Six hours ago, nationally televised press conference, Santos-McGarry campaign.
References if we want to pursue this? Josh Lyman, campaign manager, try the main switchboard.
Did he tell you that campaigns demand loyalty; you don't go working for the other guy? Who happened to be the Party's front-runner.
You knew I wasn't supporting him; me, your mentor in professional politics.
The guy who taught me to answer the phone, who kept me in grunt-level servitude because I knew he liked his hamburgers burnt like hockey pucks? You ditched me when I gave you a career.
As a short-order cook, I'm still waiting for the spatula to I hope you two are getting along like peas in a pod.
It just broke over the wires: Women's Alliance wants to meet with Vinick.
I need you to spin it bad for him, fine for us.
How is that even possible? Bad for us, worse for him; whatever sticks to the wall.
How's the Congressman? He's been better.
The Women's Alliance? And two more things.
Vinick changed his schedule.
He's flying to New York, speaking at the Al Smith dinner.
We've got 50 reporters out there wondering if we're doing the same.
Why the hell would Vinick do the Smith dinner? Because if he gives an in-your-face, pro-choice speech, he could seal the endorsement.
What was the second thing? The bishop from Camden, New Jersey, issued a statement: 'if Santos comes to mass in Camden, he'll deny him communion.
His views of abortion have placed him in a state of great sin.
' How does that play with values voters? Don't be spooked by the Times.
The staff was right to blow off the debate negotiations.
A bad editorial never killed anyone; not that I won't hear about it at this DCCC dinner.
You heard about the diocese of Camden? So you don't go to mass in Camden.
Lou and Joey are almost done with our first negative ad.
I know you wanted a more substantive campaign.
Well, that's not what bothers me about it.
What, then? Negative ads work.
And the more we run them, the more people believe the worst about us.
And so we pummel each other to the ground and whoever crawls across the finish line wins.
Yeah.
How do I get back the Women's Alliance for Choice? Come to New York tomorrow and meet with them.
Tell them you're taking the stage at the Al Smith dinner right next to Vinick and defending a woman's right to choose.
And be ready for me to be the only guy clapping.
So I'm the abortion-without-limits guy, huh? We're the pro-choice party.
You've got to dance with the one who brung you.
Vinick just landed in New York, too.
Still no intelligence on what he's saying at the Smith dinner.
What kind of hit did we take in last night's tracking poll? Four points on "Shares our values" but Vinick took a bigger hit.
swing voters think he's a typical Republican.
They won't when he's endorsed by the leading pro-choice group in America.
We need a way to spin it if they do endorse Vinick.
It'd be a political earthquake.
From a group that's supposedly on our side.
They're not on our side.
They're on their own side.
They're an interest group jockeying for influence.
You think they're supporters of a Republican no matter what they're leadership says? Pull back.
I bet 85% of them are dyed-in-the-sackcloth Santos supporters.
Phone Joey with that question for tomorrow's poll.
I'm on it.
I need you to talk to Treasury about that debt relief report.
The President's interested in doing an event on it.
Sure.
And he thinks the agency response to new markets has been a bit thin.
You should crack a few sub-cabinet heads.
Did you see today's briefing? Yeah.
We need a better answer on the energy bill.
It's not your fault.
DOE's been dickering around.
Right.
Set up a call with McGinn at Treasury and I need a fresh list of those agency commitments.
Will Bailey.
Seagle, the pressure's all mine.
On the record, I'd say it's something either administration would have to love.
It's pro-business, it's anti-poverty.
The investigation's ongoing.
I really can't comment.
Seagle? No, keep talking.
I'm not going anywhere.
That ad's pretty tough.
The debate's still in the air.
We can't afford to take our foot off the gas.
Vinick will hit back.
He's probably already bought the air time.
He has.
- Leo.
- We'll do the meeting with the Women's Alliance for Choice in the hall up there.
You and Mr.
McGarry don't have to be onstage for a half an hour.
All right.
We'll talk about our ad buy after the dinner.
We'll see you in there, Congressman.
I hope you're going to give a tough speech on partial-birth abortion tonight.
These folks need to hear it.
This story about the Women's Alliance won't even endorse you.
It's a disaster.
Because I'd get more votes for a position I happen to hold? You can't let this communion thing bother you.
Most Catholics are pro-choice.
How do bishops expect politicians to do what they can't do in their own church? And the Bible's silent on the issue; not one word that says it's the destruction of a human life.
It is.
You're pro-life? I believe life begins at conception.
Well ain't that a kick in the pulpit.
Politics is about practicality.
Not if you think abortion is murder.
Whether you do or not, Roe v.
Wade has been the law of the land for decades.
Most of the country is not ready to change that.
Neither am I.
Well, that's not the party's position.
I joined this party because the liberals were the ones who always wanted something from the government.
We just wanted government to leave us alone.
Especially when there's no consensus otherwise.
I'm trying to lead the majority who agrees on that, not the minority who wants to enact their version of Leviticus into law.
We're a big tent, Arnie; room enough for all.
You're going to denounce that ad tonight.
I'm not responsible for making you more palatable with the abortion lobby.
Denounce that ad or I'll do it in my speech in front of two dozen bishops and a tent full of Catholic charities.
Leo tells me that you might defend the right to choose tonight.
Proudly, aggressively; this would be a gutsy place to do it.
We are the pro-choice ticket, Becca.
I still believe that the Women's Alliance needs to encourage pro-choice Republicans and the Democratic Party needs to as well.
What we need to make clear is that we're not hostile to people who are anti-abortion.
Pro-choice means anyone can do what they want.
Yeah, but it shouldn't mean that we're proud of whatever they choose.
Maybe all this chest-beating is the reason the right can get away with that ad; the reason why a leader of my church can exile me for not trying to impose my religion on the rest of the country, and we're surprised that there are people out there who think we're for unlimited abortion.
That there are actually voters, who are pro-choice, that think that we're too extreme.
Political posturing aside, precisely what limits are you for? Do you support abortion to choose the sex of the baby? Of course not.
How about after an IQ test? No.
Well, then you support limits on abortion yourself.
Isn't it all a matter of degrees after that? Who are you, who are any of us, to say where someone should draw the line for themselves? I'd like to know what you're saying tonight.
That abortion is a tragedy.
That it should be legal, it should be safe; it should be a lot rarer than it is now.
If you have a problem with that, then endorse whoever you want.
You'll go in after the intro.
Next time you decide to smear me maybe you'll have the guts to do it yourself.
I had nothing to do with that ad.
You blew off the debates.
It's clear what kind of campaign you want.
Oh, I forgot how eager you were for debates.
And next time you send left-wing lobbyists to my office, don't forget the gift card.
You want an ugly campaign you're going to get one.
I didn't start this.
Nah, you henchmen did it for you.
You're hitting me on partial-birth tonight, aren't you? Here we are, a Presidential campaign, grand national debate, pounding each other on one of the few things we basically agree on.
Then let's negotiate now.
Excuse me.
No backroom tactics.
You and me, a real debate.
Oh, please.
A real debate, really.
No negative ads.
No attacks in our speeches out there.
If we can have a real debate on the issues, just you and me.
How's Sunday night? It's a hell of a way to end your campaign.
Oh, I'm just getting started.
We're delighted to welcome to the Al Smith dinner, Senator Arnold Vinick of California and Congressman Matthew Santos of Texas.
Every nationally syndicated columnist reads it.
We can't run a campaign for editorial writers.
We'd have 12 votes, half of them within walking distance of zay-bars.
That Times piece is ten times worse for Vinick.
He's the one dragging his feet on debate negotiations.
He's the one who rejected the debate commission's plan.
They called it 'a classic case of a front-runner trying to sit on a lead.
' Well, I can see how it's classic.
He's been leading for two months now.
I don't know why the Times slammed us, too.
We're doing everything we can to get debates; the dates Vinick wants, the locations Vinick wants.
You know, it's starting to look like I'm desperate to debate him.
Will you stop?! I'm just saying, watch it with the body parts.
That's ridiculous.
You're the next President of the United States.
Don't say that.
You have a standard to uphold.
She held out her forearm.
You want me to refuse to sign autographs? You signed higher than her forearm.
At which body part do you draw the line? Bruno, help me out here.
The guy's a rock star; David Cassidy meets David Rockefeller; all those body part votes.
He's the next President of the United States.
Would you please stop saying that? Vinick is a terrific debater.
And every time he backs away from the negotiating table, every time his aide tells the New York Times that I'm the greatest debater since Socrates, they're lowering expectations on his performance and raising mine through the roof.
But he doesn't need the debates.
We do.
There's no way to hide that.
What good are debates if I have to demolish him to win? I've got another negotiating session with Bruno tomorrow in Washington.
Break the logjam.
And lower expectations.
Okay, those are contradictory orders, 'cause the more I give to get an agreement, the more it's going to look Get it done.
Santos pulled out of North Dakota and West Virginia.
There is not a single state we're not competing in.
We could win all 50.
Get used to it, Senator.
Neither of you is worried about this Times editorial? Nope.
They're calling me the roadblock to democracy.
We still have a shot at the Times' endorsement.
We're going to get a deal on debates soon enough and on our terms.
The Times is just rapping us on the knuckles.
The governor of New York called again, urging you to reconsider I'm not going to the Al Smith dinner.
Presidential nominees always go.
No one's thrilled that it's just going to be the Vice Presidential candidates.
You know what they're going to want me to talk about.
The biggest political event in New York, obviously a huge deal on the Catholic community; you could go, speak about your opposition to partial-birth abortion.
Ohh, bad idea.
I'm not going to give a speech about partial-birth abortion in a room full of people who think any abortion is a sin.
New York's competitive, Catholic vote's critical.
And I'm pro-choice, same as Santos.
I'd be crazy to engage this issue.
You got another call from the New York State Party about Have Josh return it.
Who's Al Smith anyway? First Catholic to run for President; 1928.
Why's the dinner such a big deal? Oh, it's a big benefit to Catholic charities.
It's the most political non-political event in New York.
A ballroom full of Catholics should be your crowd.
Vinick doesn't even go to church.
That's just what I need.
A contest over who gets the most 'boos' for the line 'I support a woman's right to choose.
' Leo will handle it.
Make it 5:30.
While Senator Vinick is back in Washington tonight, Congressman Matthew Santos is in Michigan fighting for the state's 17 electoral votes.
As the electoral math narrows, you can bet they'll both be in Michigan Why are we talking about the environment in Michigan this weekend? You talk about it everywhere.
It's Michigan.
Hug a tree, kill a Chrysler.
We're four points up there; we don't need to get hit for pandering.
You want to spend a few minutes on thank you notes for those New Mexico electorates? Nah, I've got the list.
It's been a great day; why don't you guys get some rest.
- Are you sure? - Yeah.
Go ahead.
- Okay, see you in the morning.
- Okay.
Matthew Santos is in Michigan fighting for the state's 17 electoral votes.
As the electoral math narrows, you can bet they'll both be in Michigan more and more.
We'll be right back after this.
This November, America faces a vote of conscience.
Matt Santos on human life: Do I want to limit access to abortion? No.
- Turn on MSNBC.
- No, on telling you when your daughter wants an abortion.
No, on banning partial-birth abortion.
I need Sheila.
Paid for by the Committee for the Integrity of Human Life.
Who the hell is the Committee for the Integrity of Human Life, and who told them to drag abortion into my campaign? It's a bare-knuckle attack ad.
It's not our ad.
The public won't make the distinction.
And you think some left-leaning committee for something or other isn't going to slam us right back? Then we're in a negative ad war.
Plus, they're hitting Santos for what a lot of Republicans think is my position on abortion.
The ad does lay out some pretty clear differences.
Which may play great to a few right-wing partisans, but it'll look phony and political to everyone else.
I want this ad pulled.
I want the Chairman of the Republican Party to say that this committee does not speak for us.
I'll say it, too.
If any of our people are involved in this, fire them.
The quote is completely out of context.
Do you remember the quote? I remember what I think.
They make it seem like I'm for abortion on demand.
- I'm not defending the ad - It's a right-wing parody of my position.
- We'll find whatever piece of legislation - You'll find it tonight.
It'll be hard to rebut.
You voted against the partial-birth abortion ban.
The Republicans wouldn't carve out a clear exception for the life and health of mother.
You voted against parental consent.
There was no judicial override.
There are pro-life judges out there refusing requests even for incest victims.
I am not for unlimited abortion.
Look, I don't know how we respond, but by tomorrow this is going to be on every cable network across the country.
It's news for free and it's going to hurt us with swing voters.
If Vinick's taking the gloves off, so can we: Its fair game, no one can say it's not.
Josh? We don't know that Vinick's behind this.
He sure benefits from it.
If we turn this campaign full-tilt negative, we can never go back.
Call Vinick's people.
Tell them to call this the lie that it is and get it off the air.
I want a counter-attack ready to go by morning if they don't.
I don't really feel comfortable working in Toby's old office.
Think of it as the Communications Director's office.
I can't help thinking of it as a federal crime scene.
Have you heard from the policy shops? This Toby thing will drown out everything for another few days, but then we'll need a policy to announce.
TPC says they're pretty tapped out.
They say we should highlight the good things the government's already doing.
Great.
Wait till people find out there's a post office.
The President's going on a three-day tour of distressed urban areas to promote investment in jobs in inner cities.
I'll announce it next week.
Try today at your first press briefing.
You don't want me briefing today.
I do.
I need a few days to get up to speed.
I don't know the first thing about the leak investigation and I haven't even sat down with Counsel.
Refer those questions to Counsel's office.
Those questions? What about the entire briefing? We have to show that we've replaced Toby without missing a beat.
There's an ongoing investigation.
There's not much we can say about it anyway.
Congressman.
Sir, there's an independent ad attacking your position on abortion.
It's a complete obstruction of my views.
What do we know? The Committee for the Integrity of Human Life is a 527; one of these independent expenditure committees.
No connection to us or the RNC? I wouldn't say that.
Its major donors all give to the RNC and a few of them are big donors of yours too.
You talk to the Party Chair? Hodder won't denounce the ad.
He thinks it'd be bad for us and bad for the party.
Has he seen it? Does he want us to get in a mud wrestling match with Matt Santos? The Chairman's view is that it fires up social conservatives.
It reminds them that while you may be pro-choice, Santos is for virtually unrestricted abortion.
You have to denounce it yourself before a huge bank of cameras.
You want this piece of trash on the air.
No, but I don't want you or anyone else from this campaign criticizing pro-life anything.
We're trying to win a mandate in a country that's over 60% pro-choice.
We cannot get cute with this.
Hodder's got credibility with the right-to-lifers.
I don't.
He's the one who's got to kill this.
I want to see him this afternoon right after the Maryland rally.
Get your bank of cameras ready.
Excuse me.
Joshua.
Looking forward to our next round of negotiations.
Maybe this time you'll propose hourly debates with breaks for IV nutrition for the candidates.
Your side is running a vicious, baseless attack ad.
It is not my side.
It is not my ad.
Get that ad off the air and renounce the sleazeballs who put it there or the gloves are off.
There are laws against coordination with an independent Call the RNC.
I need copies of every negative Santos spot they've been working on.
C.
J.
wanted you to have this revised POTUS schedule.
You haven't heard back from her? About your request to postpone the briefing? Right.
Unless you count her saying 'Don't ask if Will can postpone the briefing.
' That doesn't count.
Never heard back.
Good morning.
I'm Will Bailey, assistant to the President and new White House Director of Communications.
I'll be conducting the daily briefings from now on and I have a statement to make at this time.
One week from today the President will launch a bold and far-reaching new markets initiative - an inter-agency effort to bring jobs and private investment to distressed urban communities.
We're handing out a list of initial agency efforts - small business loans, tax incentives, Commerce's new Adopt and Entrepreneur Program, which, of course, we expect to be controversial.
I'll take your questions.
Did any of the White House senior staff know Toby Ziegler was leaking national security secrets? There's an ongoing investigation.
I'll refer you to the President's statement on the matter.
But it doesn't speak to that question.
I'm not going to parse his statement.
We're not asking you to parse it.
Which is good, because I'm not going to.
Did any senior staff know Toby was lying from that very podium? Toby Ziegler's been dismissed by the President.
That should be an indication of what this White House thinks.
I'm asking what the White House knew.
Two weeks ago, Toby said I'll refer you to Counsel on that.
They're crushing him like a grape.
He's doing fine.
So Santos pulls out of both North Dakota and West Virginia.
That's great news so soon after Labor Day.
Yeah.
It'll give us a chance at that West Virginia second.
Yeah.
That Santos crew doesn't know a damn thing about party building.
- How you doing? - Mr.
Chairman.
Good to see you again.
I don't like that abortion ad.
I don't care how you deal with it; hold a press conference in the lobby, say they don't speak for the party, but I want it dealt with now.
It's becoming a national story.
No one showed me that ad.
I probably wouldn't have run it.
Do you know what kind of damage it would do to walk away from it? An attack that, quite frankly Arnie, lots of folks think should be in your stump speech.
Santos and I are both pro-choice.
I can't pretend there's some huge difference between our positions.
Santos thinks my 14-year-old daughter needs my permission to get an aspirin in school; but not an abortion? The platform's pro-life.
The people in this party, who do the phone-banking, plant the lawn signs, get half our guys elected, they're pro-life too.
Mr.
Chairman, this is a rough, negative ad at a time when we don't need it.
This committee knows nothing from tactics.
Maybe it's not about tactics, maybe they mean what they say.
We know how hard you've been working on keeping social conservatives on the reservation.
We were this close, this close, to a third-party candidacy from the religious right.
I'm still concerned they stay home on Election Day.
This ad hurts me as much as it hurts Santos.
Maybe more.
Pro-lifers have their issues with you but Santos is for unlimited abortion.
If you don't denounce that ad, I'm going to have to do it myself.
Can I speak candidly? Because you've been sugar-coating up till now? Corporate conservatives may love you, Neo-Cons and Libertarians may love you, Bruno Gianelli Democrats may love you too, but social conservatives don't.
You never speak about their issues.
You send mixed signals about judicial appointments.
You are the first nominee in 20 years to skip the Al Smith dinner because, God forbid you might be near some religious voters.
Well, I can't meet my responsibility to this party without them.
No candidate could hold those voters together.
If this were Europe, the Republican Party would be three parties.
Thank goodness they don't have to sleep together, they just have to show up on the same day and vote Republican.
Do you realize how many states my pro-choice position puts on the table? Do you realize how we can grow this party if we're willing to reach out? I guess I'd like to see you unite the party that we have now.
I'm not denouncing that ad.
And I don't think you want to either, Arnie.
Do you have a comment on the independent ad attacking Santos on choice? I oppose all 527 ads.
You think Vinick's behind this? I don't know.
He could be.
We found the full interview they used in the ad.
It's from three years ago, KPRC in Houston.
So let's talk legislatively.
Do I want to limit access to abortion? No, because there are common sense limits under the law right now.
Should we work together to reduce the number of abortions? Absolutely, and that's where I think we can work together to find common ground.
They took my quote totally out of context.
Yeah.
Yeah, so why are they running the ad on television? It's fraud.
Well, you just said pretty clearly that you're not for limiting access.
We called the stations that are running it.
They're not going to pull it.
They think it's a fair charge.
I've got Leo on the line.
He's back at headquarters.
Leo? Congressman, you've already said it was a distortion.
I worry about too tough a response beyond that.
It makes this a much larger story.
It can't get any larger.
They're already talking about it on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, probably the Home Shopping Network.
We are the pro-choice party.
There's no denying it.
I'm not sure we don't stand up and say 'Damn right I'm pro-choice.
So is 60% of the country.
' I have to make it clear that I'm not for abortion without limits.
What if we hit Vinick on a completely different level? Taxes, corporate cronyism, we haul out a long list of all the special interest giveaways he supported in Congress.
Look, this is about something that's much more fundamental.
Vinick's appeal is that he's a different kind of Republican.
Moderate, reasonable, pro-choice.
The Congressman's right.
This ad shows that Vinick's centrism is just a bad coat of paint.
The guy has a long record of pro-choice votes.
Then why is his party platform pro-life straight up and down? Well, he promised the religious right he'd appoint pro-life judges.
He's obviously not too attached to that voting record.
Let this attack stand and we strip away what's different about Santos: he's a religious Catholic, not another secular Democrat who can be portrayed as hostile to heartland values.
Leo? I worry about elevating this, but if the charge sticks it could kill us with values voters and that puts Vinick's nine-point lead in the bank.
We hit him and we hit him hard.
I don't think we start with a negative ad.
No.
We get one ready; a tough one.
But our first one on Vinick will be a free media bonanza.
Why waste money on an ad buy? We use a spokesperson for this.
We don't elevate it to Santos' or Leo's level.
Clarify that our guy is not for abortion without limits.
The ad's a sham.
Anyone can see from the full interview.
Then bam, we hit Vinick with a political two-by-four.
You don't have to be happy about this.
You don't have to be queasy about this.
You don't know Santos the way I do.
- If this becomes a full-out negative - You think he's got a glass jaw? I think we lose a negative ad war.
I think the other side is better at this and I think they have more to work with.
I did the Merrianhoff Senate campaign.
You know those charges that he had weird financial dealings with Taiwanese businessmen? He did.
Those were the charges.
Anyway, we ran against Barrack, clean as a bar of soap.
We hit him first with everything we could find.
By the time he hit back, the voters thought it was just another ugly campaign; a pox on both our houses.
You're proud of that? I'm proud that Merrianhoff defends Medicare and Medicaid in the Senate.
I'm proud that he votes against every reckless Republican tax cut.
We're the blue team and there's a real war going on.
Josh, do you want the right wing to get their judges? - No.
- Then stop being so queasy.
We hit Vinick for hypocrisy; for saying he's pro-choice and letting anti-choice ideologues pick his judiciary and run lying ads.
I'll phone the language into headquarters.
Don't use our regular spokesman.
Find a woman.
You know, 40-something, soccer mom.
What about debate negotiations? I'm meeting with Bruno this afternoon in Washington.
We're still on makeup and deli trays.
There's going to be debates.
Vinick doesn't want to incur the wrath of the New York Times anymore than we do.
We have to stop being so eager.
We have to change our body language.
Let them chase us for a change.
I've had nine meetings with Bruno on this.
He knows what I want, how I think.
He doesn't know me.
Have you seen this abortion ad? It's all over cable news.
They're predicting a negative ad blitz by Friday.
I'm amazed it took them this long to get started.
Someone gave the President this Eskimo adage: "The best place to store surplus food is in someone else's stomach.
" Use it in this afternoon's briefing.
We're announcing 50 major private employers have joined the new markets initiative.
'Cause which would you rather have when you're hungry: rotten food or a friend No.
I get it.
It's just: a second briefing? You saw the wires.
They counted the number of questions I was asked this morning because I didn't answer one of them.
You thought we were going to get good coverage this week? a career high.
You have to let the press punch themselves out.
You're talking to the punching bag.
My job is to look like I'm not completely ignorant.
Counsel won't even brief me on the details of Toby's firing.
I asked them not to.
Don't you want me to have a shred of credibility in the briefing room? Your ignorance is your credibility.
That's why I put you in this job.
And your constituents aren't in that room, they're in distressed urban areas.
You brief at 4:00.
I'm the Jamaican Bobsledding Team.
Securing America's future.
Securing, not strengthening.
He's not a personal trainer.
Is that statement all set? All set.
Got a woman to read the thing? Right out of central casting.
No nose rings, brow piercings? Trust me, this girl's a cold glass of milk.
She was working for the Midwest Corridor Campaign.
Lou asked for the binders on Vinick's Senate flip-flops.
Yeah.
- Are we about to run our very first? - They're starting.
I'll call you back.
Uh, no.
Tell him we're not doing the Al Smith dinner, not in the middle of all this.
Good afternoon.
It is wrong and misleading to imply, through edited footage, that Congressman Santos is for abortion without limits.
This is Otto.
That's Donna.
Who? The Dairy Queen, Donna Moss.
What happened to our forty-something soccer mom? Lou hired her last week to do Midwest press.
Looks too young, huh? Uh, the Women's Alliance for Choice just called.
They want an urgent meeting with the Congressman.
Yeah.
We're talking about an endorsement event.
Have Leo do it.
I don't want Santos meeting with the pro-choice lobby till this abortion stuff cools down.
And the American people needs to know which is the real Arnold Vinick.
The one who supports a woman's right to choose and votes accordingly or the one who's party has a pro-life platform Yes, they're ready to go.
She's hitting me from the left and from the right.
We have to wait until we see what's She's telling the right I'm pro-abortion, telling the left I'm a captive of the religious nuts.
The RNC upped their ad buy by another 750 points.
Every battleground market.
That since I don't have a functioning uterus like Tippy Hedron here, of course I'm not qualified to talk about it.
All the networks are running pieces of the Santos abortion ad tonight.
I ought to go out there and call it a piece of trash and a lie.
I don't like it either, but Hodder's not wrong.
There is nothing in that ad that's inaccurate.
Santos couldn't have written a better ad himself.
They're whacking me for playing both sides.
The 527's raised a quarter of a million off last night's airings alone.
After tonight it's going to be 20 times that much.
This is energizing the very people we were afraid were going to stay home in November.
You think I should stand by it? No.
I think you should scrub your Michigan swing, go to the Al Smith dinner, talk about your opposition to partial-birth abortion; and the minute the Santos campaign runs its first negative ad we run a hundred of ours.
Years, I've been looking forward to this campaign.
I never imagined it would look like this.
It'll look better after you win.
Good afternoon.
We're handing out lists of private sector commitments to the President's new markets initiative.
It shows the business community is deeply engaged in job creation for poor communities.
As the Eskimo said, "If you store your food in somebody else's stomach um, well, you'd better hope it doesn't need refrigeration.
" Has the President been asked to testify in the criminal investigation? That's a matter for Counsel.
Will he assert privilege if he has to testify? I'll refer you to this morning's briefing.
When you said you'd get back to us on that? See, now you're cheating.
You didn't need to be referred.
Does the President consider Mr.
Babish's conversations with Mr.
Ziegler to be privileged? I'm not getting into that.
Isn't Mr.
Babish also a witness? I'd have to check with him.
Will, you've been in this job four days.
When are you going to sit down with Counsel and get us some answers? I'm not.
Who are you? Louise Thornton.
Josh couldn't make it.
Stuck in Michigan? Santos benched him.
He sent me.
We have some magazines outside if you get bored with those.
Any good ones? Are we going to, how shall I say, negotiate? Nah.
This may look like your dentist's waiting room.
It's a negotiating session for Presidential debates.
You want as few debates as possible but you don't want to tick off the debate commission or the opinion elites, right? Hmm.
And I think that Vinick could kick Santos' abortion-loving ass all over the stage.
Game over, check please.
And? And I'm your best buddy on this.
No debates, you can blame me.
Would you like a magazine? Because I figure about a half an hour of this and I can tell the Congressman it didn't work out.
You understand why I'm taking this meeting instead of Santos? He didn't want to be seen with the Woman's Alliance for Choice, not while he's trying to limit abortion.
He's not trying to limit abortion.
That's not what his spokeswoman said.
It's a rhetorical position.
President Bartlet did it too.
President Bartlet never ran against a pro-choice Republican.
We haven't endorsed a Presidential candidate yet.
I know.
We're going to have to push that back a bit.
See, we need moderate votes to chip into Vinick's lead.
We don't want to make Santos the baby-killing candidate, if you'll excuse We're thinking of endorsing Vinick.
Becca, you're not talking to some punk Congressional staffer.
Vinick's pro-choice and he's probably going to win.
- You can't honestly believe that - How do you close a nine-point gap? You'll be lucky if you get one debate.
The way Santos has been begging for it, Vinick's expectations are so low he'll just have to avoid tripping over the podium to win.
We're the pro-choice party.
You don't sound like it.
Vinick's the one who won't criticize his party on this; partial-birth, parental notification.
He's bowing for the far-right fringes.
But if he wins, they really will be the fringes, won't they? And then both parties will be where the party is: pro-choice down the line.
Becca, if you help a Republican get elected President How many more Republicans will have the courage to stand up for a woman's right to choose? Thank you.
The Virginia steel sector's a model for the country.
You should be proud.
The debate negotiations seem to be off.
Seem to be? The Santos campaign blew them up.
It's a ploy.
Better be.
They need debates ten times more than us.
We can wait it out.
That's the bad news.
Yeah.
Let's have the good news.
The Women's Alliance for Choice wants an endorsement meeting.
You're kidding.
The heart of the Democratic base wants to support you.
Santos would be doomed.
We'd win 53 states, a few desert islands.
How do we know this isn't a setup? We meet with them and we find out.
I don't know.
You know, a pro-choice group gets within 53 feet of me, the whole Republican Party would go crazy.
You're a pro-choice candidate.
They're a pro-choice lobby.
This isn't a typical election.
I can't see how they can endorse a Republican who's against partial-birth abortion, who's for parental notification.
This could be Santos screwing me.
I know these people.
I can keep this meeting quiet.
No.
The RNC has five negative ads ready that would blow Santos out of the water but it's going to harden his support on the left.
It's going to make us more dependent on the right.
Yeah we still win, but we win dirty.
Wouldn't you rather outflank him on the left? If this becomes a press story, that I'm courting not just the center but the organized left, I'd be kissing off a quarter of the Republican base.
I can't win without my own party.
We're going to New York tomorrow.
I'm speaking at the Al Smith dinner.
Tell Sheila I need speech language on partial-birth abortion.
Something that'll mollify the right.
Arnold Vinick promises he'll cut taxes.
Then why do economists say that will break his pledge to balance the budget? He says he's pro-choice.
Then why do news reports say he told the far-right he'd pick anti-choice judges.
Arnold Vinick: if he's on both sides, how can he be on your side? Hey.
You hired Donna Moss? No, I picked her off the street and put her on national television.
She was the absolute wrong person for that hit on Vinick.
Didn't we say forty-something with kids? We said a woman, and she was great.
She worked for Russell in the primary.
So did half the available Democratic talent.
She worked for me before that.
Well, that is a strike against her.
I can see why you're concerned.
Debate negotiations are off.
They're off? We walked away.
I gave it to the Times and the Journal.
You better hope this works.
Vinick can live without debates.
If we don't get them we're toast.
That's exactly what we need to even expectations: prove we're willing to walk away.
If we're lucky, the Times is going to call us a roadblock.
Donna Moss gave dozens of bad quotes about Santos during the primary.
You may run Communications but I'm campaign manager.
I sign off on any new spokesperson.
The Women's Alliance for Choice is thinking of endorsing Vinick.
- Okay, very bad news.
- Oh, yeah.
Is it public? Not yet.
- Maybe it'll hurt Vinick with his own right wing.
- Great.
Vinick loses the right, keeps the middle and left, and the only way for us to get votes is to plaster the Ten Commandments all over our campaign bus.
water transportation? What's next, a Congressional earmark for olives? So, back into the breach.
Down the hall, turn left at the crucible.
- If you want to offer any tips - Just follow your instincts.
My instincts say to curl up in a ball in the corner of my office.
Then just follow your job description.
Down the hall, to your left at the So I should tell Legislative Affairs? The President's not signing the bill, not when it looks like Happy Hour at the Algonquin.
See if they can get some of these earmarks out of it.
Today, I am pleased to announce that as part of our upcoming new markets tour, the President Bartlet will visit the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala-Sue nation to talk about the importance of investing in Native American communities.
I'll dodge your questions now.
When was the last time a sitting President visited an Indian reservation? That would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936.
Next question.
Hey, did you talk to Joey Lucas? She's got another version of our flip-flop spot without the monster-chiller theater music.
Yeah, come with me.
Where are we going? Bedroom/office/staffroom.
Okay, I don't want to seem ungracious.
We've all been under a lot of pressure.
It's just that - Hi.
- Hi.
I don't know what the problem is between you two, but she's great on television and I don't care if she worked for Francisco Franco in the primary, right now it's all hands on deck.
So work it out.
What kind of on-the-record experience do you have? Is this a job interview? I'm campaign manager, I hire the staff.
It generally involves an interview.
On-the-record experience? Six hours ago, nationally televised press conference, Santos-McGarry campaign.
References if we want to pursue this? Josh Lyman, campaign manager, try the main switchboard.
Did he tell you that campaigns demand loyalty; you don't go working for the other guy? Who happened to be the Party's front-runner.
You knew I wasn't supporting him; me, your mentor in professional politics.
The guy who taught me to answer the phone, who kept me in grunt-level servitude because I knew he liked his hamburgers burnt like hockey pucks? You ditched me when I gave you a career.
As a short-order cook, I'm still waiting for the spatula to I hope you two are getting along like peas in a pod.
It just broke over the wires: Women's Alliance wants to meet with Vinick.
I need you to spin it bad for him, fine for us.
How is that even possible? Bad for us, worse for him; whatever sticks to the wall.
How's the Congressman? He's been better.
The Women's Alliance? And two more things.
Vinick changed his schedule.
He's flying to New York, speaking at the Al Smith dinner.
We've got 50 reporters out there wondering if we're doing the same.
Why the hell would Vinick do the Smith dinner? Because if he gives an in-your-face, pro-choice speech, he could seal the endorsement.
What was the second thing? The bishop from Camden, New Jersey, issued a statement: 'if Santos comes to mass in Camden, he'll deny him communion.
His views of abortion have placed him in a state of great sin.
' How does that play with values voters? Don't be spooked by the Times.
The staff was right to blow off the debate negotiations.
A bad editorial never killed anyone; not that I won't hear about it at this DCCC dinner.
You heard about the diocese of Camden? So you don't go to mass in Camden.
Lou and Joey are almost done with our first negative ad.
I know you wanted a more substantive campaign.
Well, that's not what bothers me about it.
What, then? Negative ads work.
And the more we run them, the more people believe the worst about us.
And so we pummel each other to the ground and whoever crawls across the finish line wins.
Yeah.
How do I get back the Women's Alliance for Choice? Come to New York tomorrow and meet with them.
Tell them you're taking the stage at the Al Smith dinner right next to Vinick and defending a woman's right to choose.
And be ready for me to be the only guy clapping.
So I'm the abortion-without-limits guy, huh? We're the pro-choice party.
You've got to dance with the one who brung you.
Vinick just landed in New York, too.
Still no intelligence on what he's saying at the Smith dinner.
What kind of hit did we take in last night's tracking poll? Four points on "Shares our values" but Vinick took a bigger hit.
swing voters think he's a typical Republican.
They won't when he's endorsed by the leading pro-choice group in America.
We need a way to spin it if they do endorse Vinick.
It'd be a political earthquake.
From a group that's supposedly on our side.
They're not on our side.
They're on their own side.
They're an interest group jockeying for influence.
You think they're supporters of a Republican no matter what they're leadership says? Pull back.
I bet 85% of them are dyed-in-the-sackcloth Santos supporters.
Phone Joey with that question for tomorrow's poll.
I'm on it.
I need you to talk to Treasury about that debt relief report.
The President's interested in doing an event on it.
Sure.
And he thinks the agency response to new markets has been a bit thin.
You should crack a few sub-cabinet heads.
Did you see today's briefing? Yeah.
We need a better answer on the energy bill.
It's not your fault.
DOE's been dickering around.
Right.
Set up a call with McGinn at Treasury and I need a fresh list of those agency commitments.
Will Bailey.
Seagle, the pressure's all mine.
On the record, I'd say it's something either administration would have to love.
It's pro-business, it's anti-poverty.
The investigation's ongoing.
I really can't comment.
Seagle? No, keep talking.
I'm not going anywhere.
That ad's pretty tough.
The debate's still in the air.
We can't afford to take our foot off the gas.
Vinick will hit back.
He's probably already bought the air time.
He has.
- Leo.
- We'll do the meeting with the Women's Alliance for Choice in the hall up there.
You and Mr.
McGarry don't have to be onstage for a half an hour.
All right.
We'll talk about our ad buy after the dinner.
We'll see you in there, Congressman.
I hope you're going to give a tough speech on partial-birth abortion tonight.
These folks need to hear it.
This story about the Women's Alliance won't even endorse you.
It's a disaster.
Because I'd get more votes for a position I happen to hold? You can't let this communion thing bother you.
Most Catholics are pro-choice.
How do bishops expect politicians to do what they can't do in their own church? And the Bible's silent on the issue; not one word that says it's the destruction of a human life.
It is.
You're pro-life? I believe life begins at conception.
Well ain't that a kick in the pulpit.
Politics is about practicality.
Not if you think abortion is murder.
Whether you do or not, Roe v.
Wade has been the law of the land for decades.
Most of the country is not ready to change that.
Neither am I.
Well, that's not the party's position.
I joined this party because the liberals were the ones who always wanted something from the government.
We just wanted government to leave us alone.
Especially when there's no consensus otherwise.
I'm trying to lead the majority who agrees on that, not the minority who wants to enact their version of Leviticus into law.
We're a big tent, Arnie; room enough for all.
You're going to denounce that ad tonight.
I'm not responsible for making you more palatable with the abortion lobby.
Denounce that ad or I'll do it in my speech in front of two dozen bishops and a tent full of Catholic charities.
Leo tells me that you might defend the right to choose tonight.
Proudly, aggressively; this would be a gutsy place to do it.
We are the pro-choice ticket, Becca.
I still believe that the Women's Alliance needs to encourage pro-choice Republicans and the Democratic Party needs to as well.
What we need to make clear is that we're not hostile to people who are anti-abortion.
Pro-choice means anyone can do what they want.
Yeah, but it shouldn't mean that we're proud of whatever they choose.
Maybe all this chest-beating is the reason the right can get away with that ad; the reason why a leader of my church can exile me for not trying to impose my religion on the rest of the country, and we're surprised that there are people out there who think we're for unlimited abortion.
That there are actually voters, who are pro-choice, that think that we're too extreme.
Political posturing aside, precisely what limits are you for? Do you support abortion to choose the sex of the baby? Of course not.
How about after an IQ test? No.
Well, then you support limits on abortion yourself.
Isn't it all a matter of degrees after that? Who are you, who are any of us, to say where someone should draw the line for themselves? I'd like to know what you're saying tonight.
That abortion is a tragedy.
That it should be legal, it should be safe; it should be a lot rarer than it is now.
If you have a problem with that, then endorse whoever you want.
You'll go in after the intro.
Next time you decide to smear me maybe you'll have the guts to do it yourself.
I had nothing to do with that ad.
You blew off the debates.
It's clear what kind of campaign you want.
Oh, I forgot how eager you were for debates.
And next time you send left-wing lobbyists to my office, don't forget the gift card.
You want an ugly campaign you're going to get one.
I didn't start this.
Nah, you henchmen did it for you.
You're hitting me on partial-birth tonight, aren't you? Here we are, a Presidential campaign, grand national debate, pounding each other on one of the few things we basically agree on.
Then let's negotiate now.
Excuse me.
No backroom tactics.
You and me, a real debate.
Oh, please.
A real debate, really.
No negative ads.
No attacks in our speeches out there.
If we can have a real debate on the issues, just you and me.
How's Sunday night? It's a hell of a way to end your campaign.
Oh, I'm just getting started.
We're delighted to welcome to the Al Smith dinner, Senator Arnold Vinick of California and Congressman Matthew Santos of Texas.