MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

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It`s been a long, strange journey out here in Iowa. But here we are, just hours away from the Iowa caucuses. We`re going to look into exactly what we can expect tonight right now, and what kind of boost, perhaps, Iowa might provide to the various campaigns.

Steve King is a Republican U.S. congressman from Iowa, where he serves right now. And David Yepsen is the longtime, perhaps permanent, well, expert out here. He`s director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois. He`s a veteran reporter of Iowa politics.

Congressman, I know there`s been a lot of talk about indecisiveness. I`m going to measure yours. You`re going to the caucuses tonight, right?

REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: Mm-hmm.

MATTHEWS: In a couple of hours, right?

KING: Mm-hmm.

MATTHEWS: Who are you going to vote for?

KING: Well, I haven`t made a decision. And I thought...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. You know these guys.

KING: I have decided not to make a decision, and it`s definitive.

MATTHEWS: But when are you going to make a decision?

KING: Well, I made a decision yesterday that I wouldn`t do an endorsement.

And, so, once I reached that level of not doing an endorsement, it really would be foolish to say what decision I might have made.

MATTHEWS: How can you expect the Republican electorate out there, who you will call upon to vote for the Republican nominee come next November, when you, a professional, a public official, can`t bring -- summon up the excitement to say you`re excited for this person?

KING: I am excited. And I can sum it up this way -- and that is, the Founding Fathers envisioned that we would get together and have meetings and have engaging dialogue, and we would make decisions actually
in the room, after we waived the wisdom of our colleagues. And there will be a lot of wisdom waived tonight.

MATTHEWS: But the first thing you do when you go in there is vote. The first thing you do when you go to these caucuses --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Oh, yes. OK. Let me ask you. Is this congressman a good representative to the state right now in terms of indecision? I saw a number today that 41 percent of the people, like, going into the day, today, haven`t made up their mind yet?

DAVID YEPSEN, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: I think that`s true. You know, I do think they take this very seriously. It`s been a hard decision for Republicans. They like a lot of the candidates, so they`re
trying to sort it out.

But there is also something to be said, Chris, for sitting down and talking with your neighbors. You know, those people influence your decision a lot --

MATTHEW: Tonight.

YEPSEN: -- in politics. Yes.

MATTHEWS: You mean the campaign is yet to come?

YEPSEN: They`re going to hear speeches from representatives of the campaign. They`re going to talk to their friends, who do you think, Chris? What do you think, Dave? What do you think of this guy? So, that`s part of the process is --

MATTHEWS: OK, let`s -- we`re not getting anywhere here of who`s going to win tonight.

Let`s go to this. There have been three candidates who have had very successful campaigns so far. Let`s stimulate the fact that Romney has had a good campaign out here. That Paul has run a very good campaign and a long one. And Santorum may be the great hero of tonight.

They all run great campaigns. Santorum, having lost a race for re-election in the Senate for Pennsylvania, has come back out here to possibly winning tonight. Romney wasn`t even going to get in this race until about a month ago. He`s here. And Ron Paul has excited this libertarian base into probably its highest number it`s had so far.

Tell me about it. What`s that say about Iowa, that these three people are doing well out here and the others aren`t?

KING: Well, I would say hats off to all of them for the competition that they provided there.

And Ron Paul`s been here about five years. This is actually his third go-around in Iowa. And so, he has invested money in here. He`s built a good organization and they`re loyal and they`re out everywhere all
the time.

Mitt Romney has that foundation also from four to five years ago. He had an excellent operation four years ago, and he`s reconstructed some of that. But it`s not as good as it was four years ago.

And then Rick Santorum has gone at this the classical way, one county at a time, every county.

MATTHEWS: Ninety-nine.

KING: And when I walk into a room in my own district and he speaks to somebody in the front row by first name, they`re my constituent, and I`ve never seen them before, that tells me something.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: OK. Well, this morning, actually yesterday morning, Mitt Romney confidently predicted a win in Iowa. Well, this morning, he appeared on "MORNING JOE" and sounded on a measure cautious note --
interesting that you said it may not be as good a campaign as last time.

Let`s watch Mitt Romney, who many people consider one of the top three finishers tonight, the way things are going in the polls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If all goes well, I hope I become the nominee and I take on the White House. But at this stage, I think it`s hard to predict exactly what`s going to happen. But I think
I`ll be among the top group. I don`t know if that`s one, two, or three. But all three of us will get a good sendoff going into New Hampshire and South Carolina and Florida. It`s a long road, as you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: You know what? He won`t say, but the people I interview -- I`ve only interviewed so many people, but the anecdotal evidence I get out here is you ask someone why they`re for Romney, they say, I`m a moderate. He doesn`t say it, but they do.
`
The people with Ron Paul are libertarians. They want government off their back and out of their face.

And people who are for Rick Santorum are obviously attracted to his religious commitments, right?

YEPSEN: Right.

MATTHEWS: So, there`s three different wings of the party. The moderate business base, which is sort of the ones that show up one time for things and get things organized. The libertarian people, who basically are
almost romantic about Barry Goldwater Republicanism, like get it, or Bob Taft, get out of my face. And the religious people, who really think about politics as a religious sort of commitment.

How do you put them all together?

YEPSEN: Well, first of all, every one of those groups is looking for somebody who can get elected. I mean -- and that further complicates the equation here. This caucus, to me, is fascinating because this Republican
Party is sorting out itself.

Where does it stand on immigration? How does it want to deal with it? It`s a tough issue. There`s good arguments on all sides of it.

And the internationalists versus the nationalists. I mean, that`s been a fault line in the Republican Party for generations.

MATTHEWS: Yes, sure.

YEPSEN: And so, the Ron Paul bring the troops home message against a more internationalist view. They`re trying to sort that out. And that adds to the complexity of trying to figure out who`s going to win this
thing.

MATTHEWS: What is the Iowa character? Is there a character that distinguishes this state from, say, New Jersey? Massachusetts? What`s different?

KING: Well, one thing is, we are rooted in the land here, in a way that`s a little bit different. And I sometimes explain "Iowa stubborn" by knowing that those of us are decent from those who came across the prairie in a covered wagon are here to live free or die. And they built their foundation here out the agriculture and some industry. There`s a certain independence in that.

The further away you are from government, the more likely you are to be independent from government. They want that.

And we have full-spectrum conservatives here that carry about the libertarian side. They care about the libertarian side. They care about the side that`s more represented by Mitt Romney. But that`s something I
think is emerging in the Republican Party. I think David`s identified the distinctions.

MATTHEWS: OK.

KING: But there`s emerging constitutional conservativism --

MATTHEWS: And you represent them all pretty well?

KING: -- full-spectrum constitutional conservativism --

MATTHEWS: Congressman King, we`re all watching this vote today. We will try to -- you can call me and let me know -- let the announcer vote tonight because it may be the leading indicator. You might be the cow bell for which way this place is going.

Anyway, Congressman King, thank you for joining us. David Yepsen, the monarch of knowledge out here.

Up next, President Obama`s back on the campaign trail, talking to voters in Iowa today and Ohio tomorrow. Has the president crafted a winning re-election strategy yet? Well, he`s had some time, over Hawaii
time, to think of it.

This is HARDBALL from Des Moines, Iowa, only on MSNBC.

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