MR. BROKAW: Our issues this Sunday -- the battle for the White House takes on the most negative tone yet.
NARRATOR: (From videotape.) He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?
NARRATOR: (From videotape.) John McCain, his attacks on Barack Obama -- not true, false, baloney, the low road, baseless.
MR. BROKAW: As the McCain campaign claims Obama is playing the race card with this remark.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): (From videotape.) They're going to try to say that I'm a risky guy. They're going to try to say, "Well, you know, he's got a funny name, and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills" ...
MR. BROKAW: And U.S. deaths in Iraq at their lowest point since the start of the war. Is the surge working -- and what now? Both side weigh in on Obama versus McCain, an exclusive debate for the Obama campaign, the 2004 presidential nominee, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. And for the McCain campaign, the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, now an independent Democrat, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.
Then -- insights and analysis on campaign strategy and the search for vice presidential nominees with our political roundtable -- NBC News correspondent, Andrea Mitchell; NBC News political strategist who worked on McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, Mike Murphy; NBC News political director, Chuck Todd; and senior correspondent for PBS's "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," Judy Woodruff.
But, first, here with us, the top two surrogates from each campaign, Senator Joe Lieberman for McCain and Senator John Kerry for Obama. Gentlemen, welcome.
SEN. KERRY: Glad to be with you.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Tom.
MR. BROKAW: The line, of course, is that politics makes strange bedfellows. In this case, bedfellows make strange politics, I think that it's fair to say. There you were, the vice presidential candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2000. John Kerry was the presidential candidate. Now you describe yourself as an independent Democrat, and you're a leading advocate for Senator McCain. This is going to be a discussion of issue but also tone, because tone is an important part of any presidential campaign, and this campaign is running at full throttle already, before we have a vice presidential candidate and before we have a convention.
Senator Lieberman, let me just share with you and with our audience, as well, what Senator McCain had to say earlier about the tone of the campaign.
SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): (From videotape.) This will be a respectful campaign. Americans want the respectful campaigns. They're tired of the attacks, they're tired of impugning people's character and integrity. They want a respectful campaign, and I am of the firm belief that they'll get it, and they can get it, if the American people demand it and reject a lot of this negative stuff that goes on.
MR. BROKAW: And just this past week, you said to The Palm Beach Post, "There's a problem in Washington. The problem is partisanship -- grown people going to Washington acting like children having a mud fight."
Do you think running a campaign ad in which you feature Britney Spears and Paris Hilton with Barack Obama is respectful?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I do. First off, you know, we all ought to relax a little bit. It's a bit of humor. It's a way to draw people into the ad. Incidentally, the McCain campaign has another ad up in which they seem to be comparing Obama to Moses, so, in my book, that's about as good a comparison as you could ask for. I should say, in THE book, it's about as good a comparison as you should ask for.
But, look, there is a very serious point to that ad, and it gets right to it, which is -- is, notwithstanding his celebrity status, Barack Obama ready to lead? And my answer is no, that Barack Obama is a gifted, eloquent young man who can and I hope will give great leadership to America in the years ahead, but the question is who is ready to be president on January 20, 2009, with the economy in a crisis and facing dangerous enemies abroad? It's clearly John McCain. We only have two choices here -- John McCain, Barack Obama.
MR. BROKAW: In the ad, let's stay with the ad for a moment. By including Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, two lightweights who are known primarily as just the targets of paparazzi around the world, with Senator Obama. Isn't that demeaning?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: No. I think it raises a question. First, though, I think it's cute. A lot of people --
MR. BROKAW: What does he have to do with Paris Hilton or Britney Spears?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: The point here is, particularly after the trip to Europe, essentially holding a political rally of 200,000 in Germany, in Berlin, a bigger crowd than he's gotten anywhere here in America, and he's gotten some big crowds. This ad raises the question -- we're not deciding who is our favorite celebrity, who we are fans of. We are doing something very serious at a time when our economy is hurting a lot of people; energy prices are sky high; and we still are in a war against the Islamist terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.
Look beyond the celebrity status, is what this ad is saying. This is a good young man. Is he ready to lead or as ready as John McCain? No. In fact, the ad goes to a specific point, which is Senator Obama is against offshore drilling for oil, to try to do something to stop the flow of $700 billion a year to the Middle East and other places around the world and to try to stop the painful increase in gas prices and home heating oil prices. John McCain is for both of those. John McCain is for alternative energy, for nuclear power, for offshore drilling. Barack Obama, notwithstanding what he said over the weekend, is not. What Barack Obama did over the weekend about offshore drilling is tease. He still hasn't said he's for offshore drilling.
MR. BROKAW: We're going to get that in a moment.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Okay.
MR. BROKAW: But we want to play out this controversy over the two ads, because this is what Senator Obama had to say in response to the ad that included Britney Spears and Paris Hilton:
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): (From videotape.) Since they don't have any new ideas, the only strategy they've got in this election is to try to scare you about me. They're going to try to say that I'm a risky guy. They're going to try to say, "Well, you know, he's got a funny name, and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the $5 bills."
MR. BROKAW: And, right away, the manager for the McCain campaign said that's the introduction of the race card, as he described it, Rick Davis -- "Barack Obama has played the race card, he played it from the bottom of the deck, it's divisive, negative, shameful, and wrong."
Senator Kerry, using the language that he did, saying, "I don't look like the president on a dollar bill or a $5 bill," wasn't he, in effect, saying, "They're picking on me because I'm black."
SEN. KERRY: No. What he was saying is they're trying to scare you; they're trying to scare the American people and, believe me, I'm an expert on how they do that. They are engaged in character assassination. Even John McCain's partner in a number of initiatives in the Senate, Russ Feingold, said yesterday, they've decided they can't win on the issues, so now they're going to try to destroy his character. And that is exactly what this ad is calculated to do.
MR. BROKAW: But it's --
SEN. KERRY: Let me just --
MR. BROKAW: Yeah --
SEN. KERRY: Tom, The New York Times said this is the "low road express." John McCain himself -- you just quoted him -- John McCain said I want to have a campaign not of insults but of ideas. I mean, Joe, what's the idea in that? Where is the idea -- let me just say --
(crosstalk)
SEN. LIEBERMAN: The idea is that Barack Obama is not ready to lead, and he's against offshore drilling. It's a --
SEN. KERRY: I'm going to come to that. No, it doesn't mention not ready to lead, and it doesn't mention offshore drilling. What it talks about, it tries to insinuate that his celebrity is somehow all he has.
Now, I'm going to get to the other, but this is -- you know, this is a complete contradiction in John McCain. John McCain has said he wants a campaign of ideas not insults. John McCain, who said the American people want a campaign that's respectful. Even you, Joe, 10 years ago, you went to the floor of the United States Senate, and you said that our public life is coarsening. You said that society's values are shrinking. That's an ad that plays to the worst instincts in America, which is to diminish someone's character.
MR. BROKAW: But what the senator --
SEN. KERRY: Then Karl Rove turns around, and Karl Rove brings up another statement saying, "Obama is like the guy at the country club with the beautiful date and a martini and a cigarette in his hand." What are they trying to do? They're trying to say to America, somehow he's not like you. He's not like us.
Last point --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Karl Rove doesn't work for the McCain campaign.
SEN. KERRY: Well, they just hired Karl Rove's top protégé to help produce these kinds of ads and, believe me, they talked to Karl Rove.
MR. BROKAW: Let me just ask -- when Senator Obama responded, he didn't talk just about his character. He also talked about his appearance, and that's what prompted the McCain campaign to say he's playing the race --
SEN. KERRY: Everybody has commented, Tom.
MR. BROKAW: When he was talking about a dollar bill or a $5 bill, he wasn't talking about whether he was not wearing a wig and wooden teeth. He was talking --
SEN. KERRY: No, he was talking -- what he was talking about is this campaign to scare about the person, and that's what they do -- they try to scare about the person, they try to attack the character. They can't win on health care, they can't win on the economy. Eighty- five percent of the people in the nation know the country is moving in the wrong direction. They can't win -- in fact, and I want to take Joe on on this -- He just said the question is, is he ready to lead?
Barack Obama has proven that he has the right judgment. What people are electing here is a president who has the judgment to do what's right for America. Barack Obama is right about Iraq. Now George Bush and Prime Minister Malaki think we ought to set a deadline. He was right about Afghanistan. John McCain has been the slowest person to come to the question of Afghanistan and adding more troops. He was right about Pakistan, that we ought to have the ability to go in and take out a terrorist, and John McCain criticized him for taking that position. He's been right about North Korea and Iran and the notion that we ought to negotiate. Now the Bush administration is negotiating.
The Bush administration has moved towards Barack Obama not John McCain, and John McCain's judgment has been wrong, and it's dangerous for America.
MR. BROKAW: We're going to get to all those issues, but I also want to raise what a surrogate for Senator Obama had to say to my friend, Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation." This is former General Wesley Clark talking about John McCain. He said, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualifications to be president." He described him as "untested and untried." With all due respect, Senator Kerry, he could have been talking about your qualifications. Do you agree?
SEN. KERRY: I don't agree -- I don't agree with Wes Clark's comment. I think it was entirely inappropriate. I have nothing but enormous respect for John McCain's service. I had the privilege of standing with John McCain in the cell in Hanoi when we visited there together, when we worked on the issue of Vietnam together. It was an emotional moment. I had awe for John McCain's experience as a prisoner of war, and he does understand duty and service.
MR. BROKAW: But unless I missed it, though, Senator Obama has not specific rebuked Wesley Clark's --
SEN. KERRY: I said -- I did, and others did, and I thought Obama had at the time, but here is what's important, Tom. Let's not get lost in this, you know -- John McCain said this ought to be about big ideas. Medicare is about to implode. You know, John McCain has a health care plan that every expert has said does nothing for the people who have no health care.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Not true.
SEN. KERRY: It does nothing for the people who have no health care, it doesn't have a plan that's comprehensive to provide universal health care to all Americans. He is against the energy plan for tax credits for people in order to help them with the energy crisis. They lie -- he just came out against this plan of the people in Congress on energy because he wants to protect Exxon.
MR. BROKAW: Let's talk about energy for a moment, if we can, because there have been several developments this past week that are important. A bipartisan coalition of 10 senators -- five Democrats, five Republicans -- want to expand offshore drilling, and they want to end a tax credit on oil companies.
Senator Obama, in the past, has often said that he's opposed to offshore drilling and, in fact, we have some comments from you, as well. You said, "Selling off our nation's coastlines to the oil and gas companies won't make a dent in gas prices. If you started drilling tomorrow, you wouldn't even see a drop of oil until 2017. This is a fraud policy and a false choice."
Now, having said that, here is what Senator Obama had to say over the weekend, "My interest is in making sure that we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage, I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done." I can already hear the bloggers saying "flip-flop." Here is guy who said a couple of months ago said, "No way we're going to do this." Now he's opened the possibility of it again.
Two weeks ago on this program, Vice President Al Gore, who is the godfather in the Democratic Party of energy policy said no way should we drill offshore.
SEN. KERRY: I agree with Al Gore, and I don't want to. It was Barack Obama --
MR. BROKAW: So you don't agree with Senator Obama?
SEN. KERRY: Well, I don't agree -- here is what I think his position has demonstrated -- he still believes we should not drill offshore, but he has not changed --
MR. BROKAW: But he would do it, if necessary.
SEN. KERRY: What he is prepared to do, Tom, is break America's gridlock by honoring a bipartisan effort if that is the only way to move us towards alternative and renewable fuels and an energy policy that's comprehensive. I think what you see in the response on this drilling is really the difference in how they might govern. Barack Obama doesn't want to drill offshore, doesn't believe it's the thing to do. There's a four-state carefully circumscribed proposal in that initiative that could conceivably allow some drilling. He doesn't want to do that.
But if that's what gets us to the energy independence and to the other efforts, I think Joe Lieberman actually supports now. He didn't support drilling. He's changed and moves in that direction. But here is the bottom line -- Guess what? John McCain, out of hand, just rejected that proposal, telling The Wall Street Journal that it would result in raising taxes on the oil companies, on Exxon, Exxon Mobil made $12 billion last quarter alone. No American corporation has ever made that much money in history, and John McCain wants to protect that.
MR. BROKAW: Let's give Senator Lieberman a chance to respond to that. In fact, that's what Senator McCain said -- he didn't want to have a rollback of those taxes. Those taxes were originally designed to create jobs. In fact, Exxon Mobil did make $11.16 billion --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Which is outrageous. But, look, here is the point -- The question is offshore drilling. We've got a crisis here. We are not only sending more than $700 billion a year to the Middle East and other places that don't like us very much every time we go to the pump. People are hurting -- $4 a gallon gas, $4 a gallon, plus home heating oil coming -- John McCain sees the crisis and watch the reaction of McCain and Obama here, and it will tell you what kind of president they might be, and it tells you why McCain's experience gives him judgment and strength of decision that we need in a president -- John McCain says, "We need alternative energy. Yes, we're moving toward a low hydrocarbon future." But John McCain says we need to drill offshore. That's American oil, we need to bring it into the market to help lower gas prices and make us energy independent.
Barack Obama says this weekend -- "maybe," "and," "if," "but." He did not endorse -- he did not come out with a strong decision -- Obama -- and say, "I'm for offshore drilling," and I predict to you, he'll find reasons not to be for it if this comes to a vote of the Senate.
SEN. KERRY: Are you for it now? Have you changed? You've changed.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I am for it because of the crisis. That's absolutely right, because of the fact -- I want to take a minute, from a personal perspective --
MR. BROKAW: And you are not for it, Senator Kerry, under any circumstances?
SEN. KERRY: It is an absolutely fraudulent offering to America.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: It is not.
SEN. KERRY: And let me tell you why. We only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves; 65 percent of the oil comes from the Mideast. The problem with global climate change is oil. The problem for our security is our dependency on oil.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: So what you're saying --
SEN. KERRY: If we go out and drill more oil, even temporarily when it doesn't come to the pump for about seven years, you are not dealing with the real crisis, which is moving America's innovation, creativity to create on the new fuels.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Here's the difference -- Senator Obama, Senator Kerry say no to offshore drilling, no to nuclear power, and --
SEN. KERRY: I don't say no to nuclear power.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Okay, hold on, Senator Obama certainly does. John McCain says we've got to have all of the above. In the short term we need to drill for American oil where we can find it and get it safely. That's offshore.
Secondly, John McCain has presented -- and we need nuclear power. Secondly, John McCain has presented the most bold alternative energy -- wind, solar, electric car, hydrogen car -- proposals that are around today.
I want to say just a word about the racial question here, and I speak personally. In the first place, the McCain campaign is, to use Barack Obama's words, raising the question is he a "risky guy?" But it has nothing to do with his name or his skin color, it has to do with his lack of experience and bad judgment, his unreadiness to be president.
When you use the expressions that Senator Obama did three times this week, you're making a personal insult to John McCain. I know John McCain, I've been with him for 20 years, private and public. This man does not have a bigoted bone in his body. His wife and he adopted a baby from Bangladesh, who they love. It's just wrong for Senator Obama to have done that, it was right for the campaign to call him on it.
Let me just add a final word, Tom -- in 2000, Al Gore gave me the extraordinary honor of being the first Jewish American to run for national office, and Al Gore said he had confidence in the American people that they would judge me based on my record not on my religion, and I urged Barack Obama to have the same faith in the American people; that they will judge him on his record or lack of record, certainly not on his name or his race.
MR. BROKAW: We want to move on, if we can. Among other things, Senator McCain has been very adamant about never raising taxes under any circumstances. That prompted this headline on the op ed page of The Wall Street Journal from the commentator, Daniel Henninger. He says, "Is John McCain stupid? Is John McCain losing it? He said on national television that to solve Social Security everything is on the table which, of course, means raising payroll taxes. On July 7th, he said Senator Obama will raise your taxes, I won't." Daniel Henninger concludes, "This is't a flip-flop, it's a sex change operation."
SEN. LIEBERMAN: First, let me say that John remains all male, there is no question about that. Secondly, he's a smart, curious, and intellectually alert as possible -- that's why he loves these town hall meetings. That's why he keeps challenging Barack Obama to come and do a town hall meeting with him, but Obama says no. He wants to stand side-by-side in real confidence with Obama and have a good discussion.
MR. BROKAW: But if everything is on the table for Social Security reform, that does include a raising of payroll taxes, does it not?
SEN. KERRY: Absolutely.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Look, there's two main reasons why I'm for John McCain.
SEN. KERRY: And don't --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: No, no, you gave such a preface to your earlier comments --
SEN. KERRY: Well, I have to, Joe.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Okay, let me -- there are two main reasons why I'm for John McCain. One is that he's ready to be commander-in-chief and to deal with our problems at home and abroad. Secondly, we've got a big problem here in Washington that we have to solve before we get to solve Social Security, health care, jobs, gas crisis, environment, everything else. It's partisanship, and John McCain certainly, as compared to Barack Obama, has a record -- he's a restless reformer. He fights the status quo. He reaches across party lines to get things done. That's why he's been one of the most productive senators in recent years. Senator Obama, with all respect, has no major legislative accomplishments.
SEN. KERRY: Joe, Joe --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: What I'm saying is we need to fix Social Security so it's there for the next generation.
MR. BROKAW: And that may include an increase in payroll taxes.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: John McCain has said very clearly he doesn't want to raise any taxes, but he has also said, because he's a great negotiator, I want to sit down with everybody the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did in the '80s, and we're going to solve this problem just like we're going to make progress on health care and the energy crisis and climate change by breaking through the partisan gridlock. He's going to demand that we start to act not like Democrats or Republicans but like Americans. That's what the people want us to do.
MR. BROKAW: Let's move on, if we can, to foreign policy -- to Iraq -- because this past week President Bush talked about the possibility of drawing down troops, and he's going to shorten the tours from 15 months to 12 months in Iraq. Senator Kerry, why is it so hard for Democrats to say the surge worked? It made a lot of this possible.
SEN. KERRY: Well, components of the surge made a difference. I've just got to answer two things very quickly. First of all, and this is important -- you just said that Barack Obama hasn't passed any major piece of legislation. He just passed the most landmark, comprehensive ethics reform in the United States Senate. It's now the law.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Excuse me, that's Susan Collins and me and Dianne Feinstein -- and John McCain.
SEN. KERRY: Barack Obama led the Democratic side on that. Secondly, secondly, the reason the gas effort is so fraudulent, Tom, is that the oil companies have 68 million acres currently, leases, available to them now -- 40 million of them offshore, and they're not drilling there. Ninety-five percent of the Alaska Oil Shelf is open for drilling today -- they're not drilling. It's a fraudulent issue. Now let me comment on --
MR. BROKAW: But, nonetheless, Senator Obama may endorse the idea of offshore drilling.
SEN. KERRY: No, he doesn't personally, but if it takes a compromise to get America --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: That's what I said.
SEN. KERRY: He's going to have to compromise
SEN. LIEBERMAN: He hasn't endorsed it.
SEN. KERRY: Well, anybody's going to have -- he's not -- he doesn't believe that that's the right course for America. He believes alternative energy is.
But let me come back to Iraq. On the surge -- Joe and John McCain have both alleged that the surge created the Anbar awakening. It did not. The Anbar awakening began in 2005, in 2006. One of the local leaders in the tribe at Anbar Province, a fellow named Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi put together some 32 sheikhs that came together. They organized what was called the Anbar Salvation Council. They then went out and took on al Qaeda, and our military personnel adjusted with that at the time. The fact is, that the Ramadi Construction Conference took place, and the administration didn't get a troop in there until after they had made the political decision to become involved with the Americans. The surge added to that. If you add American troops to the equation, American troops can always provide some -- (inaudible) --.
MR. BROKAW: Many people that it wouldn't have been possible for it to be as successful as it was without the surge.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: It simply would not have been. I mean -- but what, John, in saying this -- I know you don't -- but in saying this, you're showing disrespect for the contribution of service and sacrifice of the American soldiers --
SEN. KERRY: You just cut me off when I was saying our soldiers did an extraordinary job.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: The awakening would not have gone forward without the strength and support that Colonel McFarland that the Army and the Marines gave them.
SEN. KERRY: Which I was in the middle of explaining when you interrupted me.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: That's why the sheikhs don't want our troops to come home on a fixed timetable today. They want us to stay --
SEN. KERRY: Well, the prime minister believes we ought to set a timetable. The president, Mr. Talibani, thinks we ought to set a timetable. I've heard countless numbers of Iraqis say we'd be better off with a timetable.
In fact, I met with the governor of Anbar Province and all of the sheiks who said to me they are very comfortable to have a timetable providing it, obviously, is one that works in the time --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Providing it's based on conditions on the ground. That's the big difference. Malaki and Obama are not on the same page on this.
MR. BROKAW: I have the small, fleeting feeling we are not going to resolve that here this morning, so let's, if we can, move on to the parlor game --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: We should all agree that the surge worked, and I don't know why John Kerry and Barack Obama just can't say that.
SEN. KERRY: On the contrary, I said the surge made a difference but it wasn't because of the awakening. It was a political decision. And here -- this is critical -- Joe just said that judgment is what is critical here.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.
SEN. KERRY: Well, John McCain was wrong about Iraq. He was wrong about why we ought to go there, he bought into a whole liberation theology about the Middle East with Paul Wolfowitz and others. It's wrong.
He was wrong about oil paying for the war, he was wrong about our being greeted as liberationists, he's been wrong about Afghanistan not being a center of activity against us, he said no one threatens us in Afghanistan --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, John McCain was right about the surge, and he had the guts to go up against President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and public opinion in America because he didn't want America to lose in Iraq and al Qaeda and Iran, too, and Senator Obama took the opposite position -- wasn't concerned about losing in Iraq.
SEN. KERRY: He is always concerned about it.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: We are much better positioned there because of the guts of John McCain, and that shows you what kind of president each will be.
MR. BROKAW: Can we talk politics for a moment?
(crosstalk)
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I am talking issues.
SEN. KERRY: We have to understand what the cause of the surge was designed to give the Iraqis the opportunity to make the political decisions so that we could, you know, resolve the fundamental difference between Sunni, Shi'a, the constitution, et cetera. That hasn't happened, Tom.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yes, it has.
SEN. KERRY: The most -- they're reconciled --
MR. BROKAW: It's much closer as a result of the surge.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Sure, they are.
SEN. KERRY: There are certain steps, but the oil law hasn't passed, the election law isn't passed, the reconciliation --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: But, John, you know they passed 15 or 16 of the 18 benchmarks we gave them. This has been an extraordinary success. If you leave it to Obama's president, and he pulls out an affixed timetable without regard to conditions on the ground, I'm afraid there is going to be chaos again, and he has already said if there's chaos again in Iraq, we'll send the troops back in. If John McCain brings American troops home from Iraq, they're staying home.
MR. BROKAW: People who are looking in on this who don't pay a lot of attention to politics may find it hard to believe that you sit on the same side of the aisle --
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yes, also we're friends.
MR. BROKAW: And that you are in the caucus -- is he going to be welcome in the Democratic --
SEN. KERRY: Absolutely. This --
MR. BROKAW: Next year if there is President Obama?
SEN. KERRY: I think he's going to want to be part of the stronger Democratic majority, I'm confident of that.
MR. BROKAW: Incidentally, can we show you a Joe Lieberman website that he may not be welcoming?
SEN. KERRY: Yes.
MR. BROKAW: There's a website out there in which they say, "Get rid of Joe -- Lieberman must go." More than 50,000 signatures have been signed, so far. Do you think you're going to be comfortable next year in the Democratic caucus as a self-described independent Democrat?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, look, I've crossed party lines to support John McCain because this is not an ordinary time in our history, it's not an ordinary election, and I just feel more than following the party line, I've got to go with the guy that I thought would be serve this country, and that's John McCain.
MR. BROKAW: So are you going to speak at the Republican convention?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: That -- I'm going to let the future of politics take care of itself. I feel very good about what I've done. Am I going to speak at the convention? It's not -- that decision hasn't been made. If Senator McCain feels that I can help his candidacy, which I think -- it's so important to elect him our next president, I will do it. But I assure you of this, Tom -- I'm not going to go to that convention, the Republican convention, and spend my time attacking Barack Obama. I'm going to go there, really, talking about why I support John McCain and why I hope a lot of other independents and Democrats will do that and, frankly, I'm going to go to a partisan convention and tell them, if I go, why it's so important that we start to act like Americans and not as partisan mudslingers here.
MR. BROKAW: It sounds like you're going to go.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, we'll see.
SEN. KERRY: It sounds like that to me, too.
MR. BROKAW: Senator Lieberman, Senator Kerry, thanks very much for being with us.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Thanks, Tom.
SEN. KERRY: Thank you.
MR. BROKAW: And we'll continue this conversation throughout the course of the next several months. Okay.
SEN. KERRY: Thank you.
MR. BROKAW: Coming up next -- all eyes on the vice presidential sweepstakes -- who is in, who is out? Our political roundtable will weigh in -- Andrea Mitchell, Mike Murphy, Chuck Todd, and Judy Woodruff, right here next on "Meet the Press."