"Face the Nation" transcripts, July 8, 2012: Sen. McCain, Sen. Durbin, ex-Gov Barbour

(CBS News) Below is a rush transcript of "Face the Nation" on July 8, 2012, hosted by CBS News Bob Schieffer. Guests include: Senator John McCain, R-Ariz.; Senator Dick Durbin,D-Ill.; former Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi; a political roundtable of Norah O'Donnell, Jan Crawford and John Dickerson of CBS News; a roundtable on baseball with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Sports Illustrated senior editor Frank Deford, former All-Star Harold Reynolds, and ESPN's Jayson Stark.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Today on FACE THE NATION, bad numbers and hard choices--an economy stuck in low, but who can fix it?

Ann Romney showed a steady hand on the Jet Ski controls, but can her husband steer the right course on the economy?

MITT ROMNEY: This is the time for America to choose whether they want more of the same, whether unemployment above eight percent month after month after month is satisfactory or not.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The choice in this election could not be clearer and it could not be bigger, the stakes could not be bigger.

MAN #1: You can do it.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I know.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Or can he? We will talk about it with Republican John McCain, who found out in 2008 what it's like to run for President when the economy turns bad.

We'll talk politics with Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican Party, and the Senate's number two Democrat Dick Durbin.

And what's the fallout from the bombshell leak about Chief Justice John Roberts, reversing his position to ensure that the court upheld the President's health care plan? Will it affect the court's future deliberations? CBS News Jan Crawford, the reporter who broke the story, has a follow-up. Plus, political director John Dickerson and chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell will also join us for analysis on that and more.

And in baseball's All-Star break, we'll talk about America's game with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford former All-Star Harold Reynolds and ESPN'S Jayson Stark.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We love each other, we can root for each other until we get to the World Series. Then, it's every man for himself.

BOB SCHIEFFER: He got that right. It's all ahead because this is FACE THE NATION.

ANNOUNCER: From CBS News in Washington, FACE THE NATION with Bob Schieffer.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning, again. It's almost too hot to even fly a kite but some are out there. Last week on this broadcast Jan Crawford set Washington on its ear with a remarkable story and inside look at how Chief Justice John Roberts changed sides and joined liberals on the court to ensure the President's health care plan would be upheld. It was a news leak from an institution that almost never leaks, and this morning she has new details and insights into how it all came about and what it means for future court cases, Jan.

JAN CRAWFORD (CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent): Well, Bob, the discord is deep and it is personal and this could affect this court for a long time. No one has any idea how it's going to be resolved but conservatives feel the sense of betrayal that Roberts changed his mind for the wrong reasons. If he had been with from the liberals from the beginning, my sources say, that would have been one thing but to have switched his position and relatively late in the process infuriated conservatives. Of course we don't know why he switched. He may have been focused solely on the law but that is not what some of his colleagues believe.

Now Roberts initially sided with the four conservatives to strike down the heart of the health care law. The individual mandate that requirement that all Americans buy insurance or pay a penalty and when he changed his mind, he joined with the liberals to instead uphold the law and then he tried furiously with a fair amount of arm twisting, I am told, to get Justice Anthony Kennedy to come along. Now Kennedy sometimes sides with the conservatives, so he would have been Roberts' best hope, but on this issue of federal power Kennedy was firm, the conservatives refused to even engage with Roberts on joining his opinion to uphold the law and they sat out writing their own opinion. They-- they wrote it really to look like a majority decision my sources say because they hoped that Roberts would rejoin them to strike down that mandate and Kennedy was relentless until the end trying to get Roberts to come back, but Roberts did not, so the conservatives' decision instead became a dissent.

Now, interestingly enough, this conflict between these conservatives and within the court has been brewing for some time you could almost trace it back to the first full term of the new Roberts court. That term had several controversial cases such as school busing, abortion and liberal justices then thought Roberts had signaled, when he came on to the court, that he would be open to compromise that he would be more moderate. But in that term he sided with the conservatives and the liberals felt misled, they were furious, as one said at the time he talks the talk, but he won't walk the walk. Conservatives were angry then at Roberts, too. They thought he gave liberals false hope and that just ended up pushing them further away. Now that tension eased over the summer of 2007, but this conflict among the conservatives after Roberts walked the walk with the liberals this time may take much longer to resolve. Of course the court does erupt into conflict occasionally, Bush versus Gore being a famous example back in 2000. But some people believe that you would have to go back nearly seventy years to see this kind of tension almost bitterness, I think you could say that now exists among the justices.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So, Jan, what does this portend for the future? Is this court now going to be a liberal-leaning court?

JAN CRAWFORD: No, no. John Roberts was, is, will be solidly conservative on most of the cases and you're going to see it, I believe next term. When they come back at the end of the summer and sit again to take up a whole new raft of cases, several which will be very controversial.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And why, if he didn't base this change on the law, what was it based on?

JAN CRAWFORD: Well, that's the question that everyone is asking, inside that court and outside the court and some of his colleagues think that he succumbed to the pressure that it was just too great or perhaps he worried about how the court would be perceived by the public, if it had a narrow decision with the conservatives voting to strike down the President's signature achievement, but only John Roberts knows the answer to that and he may not ever want to tell us.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Thank you very much, Jan, an extraordinary story.

Senator John McCain joins us now from Monaco, where he's attending a global economic and security conference. He's also just back from Afghanistan and Lebanon.

Good morning, Senator. I want to start with the news from overnight. Secretary of State Clinton said today, "That the Assad regime in Syria is on the verge of collapse." Here is what she said.

HILLARY CLINTON: The days are numbered and the sooner there can be an end to the violence and a beginning of a political transition process, not only will fewer people die, but there is a chance to save the Syrian state.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So, Senator, I guess the first thing I would ask you is: number one, do you agree with that? And, number two, what should we be doing now?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-Arizona/Armed Services Committee): Well, first of all, I appreciate the remarks of the Secretary of State. I admire her greatly. But the fact is the United States has played no leadership role. Now, fourteen thousand people have been massacred by Bashar Assad. The United States of America's performance so far has been shameful and disgraceful.

Kofi Annan just announced today, that his plan has utterly failed and what do we need to do. We need to show first leadership. The President of the United States should be speaking out for the people of Syria. Second of all, we should get arms to them, so that we can balance the forces. It's not a fair fight. Russian arms are pouring in, Iranians are on the ground, and people are being massacred, tortured, raped, and murdered as a matter of policy by Bashar Assad. We need to establish a sanctuary, so that they can organize, they can resist, and they can prevail. I believe that some day, he, Bashar Assad, will go. My question is to the Secretary of State and the President of the United States is, how many more have to die before we take action to help these people with other nations and I don't mean American boots on the ground? It's shameful, the total lack of leadership that the United States has displayed for the last fourteen months.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator, you talk about getting arms into help the people. How do we know which rebels to help? Because this is kind of a-- a desperate group here, and-- and my understanding is, we don't really know who some of these people are. How do we-- number one, how do we get the arms there and how do we know which of the rebels to give them to?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: First of all, some of the weapons are coming in now, and, you know, I saw that movie before in, Libya, we didn't know who they were, it could be al Qaeda, I heard it even in Bosnia and Kosovo. The fact is that these people are not-- have not been taken over by extremists or al Qaeda, but they could be if this conflict get-- drags on for months and even years, but the fact is that we know who to get arms to, we know that if they had a sanctuary or a safe zone that they could organize better, and there are already some arms flowing in, not thanks to the United States of America, but thanks to some other countries in the region. I am confident that if we overthrow Bashar Assad the people of Syria will do exactly what the Libyan people did yesterday and that is vote for a democratic and freely elected government.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You-- you do not seem to be agreeing with Secretary Clinton when she says Assad's days are numbered; you sound like it may go on for a while?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: How long, I say with great respect? How many times has Secretary Clinton said that in the last fourteen months? Right now, Bashar Assad is able to massacre and slaughter people and stay in power. Thanks to the supply of Russian arms. Thanks to Iranians that are on the ground. We are now have people with Kalashnikovs fighting against tanks, artillery, and helicopter gun ships that are massacring them. So, I believe that his days are numbered but those days could be very large in numbers, and it requires American leadership working with countries in the region. I know these people, these leaders in these other countries. They are crying out for American leadership, and by the way, when was the last time the President of the United States stood up and said, we are with these people. They are fighting for the same things that we believe in and stand for.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You're-- you're also just back from Afghanistan. Senator, in 2009, President Karzai pledged and said that cleaning up corruption would be his number one priority. As far as I know, since 2009, not one single person has been brought to trial and found guilty on corruption charges. Now, you have just met with President Karzai, as I understand it, do you have any indication that he is getting ready to-- to do something about this? Because we're pledging on more billions of dollars, us and NATO, and I think it's fair to say a lot of people think this is just money down a rat hole because he doesn't seem to be changing at all. Do you have any indication that he's going to get serious about this?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: I have a strong indication that President Karzai has pledged to spend the next two years, before the expiration of his presidency, in fighting corruption in his country. Now, whether he'll actually do that or not, it also would come close--so close to him as to members of his family--remains to be seen. He has pledged to do that. We must hold him to that. There are two major challenges to success in Afghanistan. One is the corruption that is permeates the country; and the other, of course, is the Haqqani Network and the sanctuary that the extremists, the Haqqani Network and others have in Pakistan with the active cooperation of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service. We have to go after that Haqqani Network and we have to go after them wherever they are, and we have to see progress in cleaning up in corruption and the President continues to announce withdrawals rather than strategies for victory.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I want to shift a little bit to the campaign. Now you are a Mitt Romney man. He's been getting a lot of advice from fellow Republicans lately. He's also been getting a lot of criticism, especially from Rupert Murdoch and-- and all the people that work for him, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, The Weekly Standard. Do you think this is criticism that is coming from all parts of the Republican Party or is it just confined to the-- the Rupert Murdoch folk?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Well, Bob, as a former candidate for President, albeit a losing one, I can't tell you how many-- how much good advice I got from people, especially when it appeared that maybe things aren't going so well. You're always-- it was always welcome, but the fact is, there is one person in the arena. Mitt Romney has been through a very tough primary. He has not only survived it but prevailed over a number of candidates. He has a good, strong campaign. I will leave it up to the pundits as to who should be fired and who shouldn't. But this campaign and this election is going to come down to jobs and the economy. The latest jobs numbers, obviously, incredibly the President says is a step forward. I would hate to see a step backward.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, in campaigns as you well know appearance is often everything. A lot of Democrats criticized Mister Romney over the Fourth of Ju-- July holiday for riding around in a speedboat, while those numbers were-- were coming out. He's now planning to go to the Olympics and then later he'll go to Israel. Do you think he's going to be criticized for that? Should he be staying closer to home?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: You know it's hard for me to say what-- what a presidential nominee should or shouldn't do, and I know that those decisions are thought through. I really think it's important that Mitt Romney go to Israel, particularly, since these are the most very dangerous times, as you know, the talks with Iran predictably have failed an and we are facing what could be a serious crisis between Israel and Iran, so I strongly support that. The Olympics, you know, Mitt Romney has a history of taking the Olympics in Salt Lake City from total disaster and actual criminal behavior to the most successful in history. But I don't presume to tell him where he should go or where he shouldn't go. And, again, Bob, these are things that are the back and forth and the pundits love to talk about, but I still say again, jobs and the economy, and also national security--

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right.

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: --and America's failure to lead.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, thank you so much, Senator, for joining us. And we'll be back in one minute.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: And joining us now to talk some and politics, Senator Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the senate. He's in Springfield, Illinois, this morning. And here with me at the table, former Mississippi governor and chairman of The Republican National Committee, Haley Barbour.

Governor, let me just start with you. Speaker John Boehner was asked last week by a Romney's supporter can you help me love Mitt Romney, and he said no. Here's his quote, "No. I wasn't elected to play God. The American people probably aren't going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. Ninety-five percent of the people who show up to vote are going to vote for or against Barack Obama. Mitt Romney has some friends, some relatives, some fellow Mormons that are going to vote for him but that's not what this election is about. It's going to be a referendum on the President's failed economic policies. Romney is a solid guy. He is going to do a great job even if you don't fall in love with him. Is that enough, though, just to say let's get rid of Barack Obama. Is it going to take more than that, Governor?

HALEY BARBOUR (Former Mississippi Governor/Former Republican National Committee Chairman): Of course, every presidential election in the United States is a referendum on the incumbent President if the incumbent is running and his record. In this case Obama's economic policies and failure to make the economy grow or help the economy grow, create jobs is going to be the first thing. But at the end of the day, Mitt Romney also has to give people something to vote for. I think that is more a matter of timing. I think right now Romney is smart to wait before he starts laying out proposal after proposal but he ultimately will. But the important thing, Bob, is the American people will then compare that to Obama's record, and that referendum on his record will happen. John Boehner is right about that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you think people don't love Mitt Romney?

HALEY BARBOUR: No, you know--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Is that a problem?

HALEY BARBOUR: --I think a lot of people who know Mitt Romney will really, really like him, fond of him, and think he is-- he is an enormously generous guy. Here's a guy that's given incredible amounts of money to charity, quit a multi-million-dollar-a-year job to go run in the Olympics because of-- he's doing it for his country. There is a lot to love about Mitt Romney. But the election still is going to be a referendum on Obama's policies--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay.

HALEY BARBOUR: --and the results of those policies, which are pretty poor.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator Durbin, started Governor Barbour off with a quote from a Republican. Here's one from a Democrat, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in The Huffington Post this week that President Obama did inherit a bad economy from George Bush. But he says, "The excuse is wearing thin. It is his economy now, and most voters don't care what inherited." And "if the economy stays bad," Robert Reich said "he's not going to be elected." Is that fair? Does he have a point?

SENATOR RICHARD DURBIN (Assistant Majority Leader): Well, I-- I tell you, it's-- it's clear that economy is the number one issue. It's also clear that the month that Obama was sworn into office we lost eight hundred thousand jobs that month. Last month we created eighty thousand jobs in the private sector. In the last twenty-eight months we have seen consistent private sector job growth. It is also clear that when it comes to contrasting, Mitt Romney has no economic plan. He wants to return us to those thrilling days of the bush yesteryears that brought us into this recession. But he has two other problems in his campaign that have really dragged him down, he can't get lift. The second one is the whole question of health care reform. Let's get down to the bottom line here. Mitt Romney is the Obamacare daddy. He gave birth to this baby up in Massachusetts and now he doesn't recognize it; he can't pick out any straight-- strains in the hereditary chain there that looked like anything that he did in Massachusetts. But let me tell you, Bob, there's a third issue looming here and it's all about a lighthouse off Nan-- Nantucket called Sand Katie. If you read the vi-- Vanity Fair piece and The Associated Press piece we understand the following. Mitt Romney has failed to make an economic disclosure that every President and candidate for President has made in the last thirty-six years goes back to his father, who disclosed twelve years of tax returns, he's disclosed one. Secondly, he is the first and only candidate for President of the United States with a Swiss bank account with tax shelters, with tax avoidance schemes that involve so many foreign countries. And the third is that when it comes down to his Swiss bank account, there is just no way to explain it.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay.

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: You either get a Swiss bank account to conceal what you are doing or you believe the Swiss Franc is stronger than the American dollar.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, you're going to be surprised when I tell you this but Governor Barbour is sitting here just shaking his head while he is listening to you, senator-- governor.

HALEY BARBOUR: Well, it is reminiscent of Obama's campaigns and their Super-PAC ads. What's wrong with Mitt Romney from the left is he is a bad person. He doesn't care about people like you. Senator Durbin makes him sound like he's dishonest. Well the fact of the matter is this is a guy who has a spectacular career and record, enormously generous, has given away millions and millions of dollars. That he made not of the government's money but of money he made, but the point that-- that Senator Durbin glossed over is jobs. The idea that somebody can have presided over an economy that has created a couple of million jobs-- if you want to look at a real recovery, Bob, look after the last deep recession 1982. We were creating three, four, five hundred thousand jobs a month. Last month more people went on Social Security Disability than got a job. In April three times more Americans gave up looking for a job because they couldn't find one than got one. And so, yeah, they-- you know, they want to gloss over the economy and jobs. The facts are that this is the worst recovery after any recession in memory, at least since World War II, and the American people understand one of the big reasons is Obama's policies make it harder to create jobs.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, let's see what Senator Durbin says about that.

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: I can just tell you this: let's use a specific example. Let's take a look at the automobile industry and I don't think Governor Barbour wants to talk about it because that's a success story. Here is President Obama making a commitment to put people back to work, good paying jobs in Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin and Illinois, good paying jobs across America. Last month, of the eighty thousand jobs created, seven thousand were in the automobile industry sector which is coming back strong. What was Governor Romney's position? Step away, let them fail. That is not a policy that's going to build America. And secondly, I don't begrudge the fact that Mitt Romney was successful as a businessman, out shoring-- offshoring and in outsourcing jobs, but we also, I think, I hope the governor agrees with me, believe that Governor Romney should be held to the same level, standard of disclosure of every presidential candidate in the last thirty-six years--

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, let me just--

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: --and should give us at least the tax returns he gave John McCain.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Haley Barbour, yes or no?

HALEY BARBOUR: I absolutely think it's great that the automobile industry is recovering, a lot of it's in Mississippi, lot of those jobs were created in Mississippi but let's understand there are alternative ways for the automobile industry to recover without the taxpayers having to do the bailout.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. I'm sorry, the clock has struck. We will be back. I'll have commentary in just a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: So when I left town two weeks ago, people were saying Barack Obama had ruined his chance for reelection because he had been talking about the economy and opined the private sector is fine, which, of course, it wasn't. By Friday, when I got back to town, that had all been washed away by the hubbub over Mitt Romney declaring the mandate and the health care law was a tax, which his staff had previously and vociferously said was not a tax. The first thing I thought of was Bill Clinton's tortured explanation during the Lewinsky scandal when he said it all depended on what the meaning of is is and I thought about how politicians in a tight spot are always in search of good euphemisms. When inflation was skyrocketing in the seventies, then President Jimmy Carter appointed a Cornell economist named Alfred Kahn to be his inflation czar, Kahn immediately warned of the possibility of a serious depression. When the White House through a tizzy about the use of the word depression, Kahn said, okay I'll just call it a banana. That threw the banana growers into a tizzy. So--and I am not making this up--Kahn switched to calling the downturn a kumquat. Other than avoiding fruits as euphemisms, I doubt there is much the President or Romney can learn from this, but Kahn did write a memo to his staff that might be helpful to all politicians. "Try to write," he advised, "in a straightforward prose-way as if you were communicating with real people. Now that might just work in a campaign.

Back in a minute.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, some of our stations are leaving us now, for most of you, we'll be back with our political round-table and a special discussion on baseball with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Frank Deford, MLB Networks Harold Reynolds and Jayson Stark of ESPN. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: And welcome back to FACE THE NATION and we have plenty more to talk about on politics and later, we are going to talk about baseball, but first to this politics. Jan Crawford is back with us, plus Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson. Both of whom are fresh off President Obama's bus trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania this week, and John I-- I want to start with you. Jan Crawford here kind of news machine last week, first, she breaks all these big stories about the Supreme Court and then she had the interview with Mitt Romney, where he-- he reversed his position or at least his campaign's position on whether or not this mandate is a tax. Let me just ask you something. Is this something that's going to make a difference in the campaign or is it just something that everybody on Sunday morning is going to talk around on TV?

JOHN DICKERSON (CBS News Political Director): Well, I think it's so hard to follow the bouncing ball here on this, what Mitt Romney did believe in Massachusetts, what he believes now, it's a question of what do you call this animal that he and President Obama? They did the same thing, but Mitt Romney wants to call it one thing now, called it another thing when he was in Massachusetts. But your question is the crucial one which is, this is a semantic debate that's likely to get lost, Mitt Romney is now for about forty-eight hours he was on the wrong side of the issue from his own party. He has now said he is calling it a tax, he is in the right position with the Romney campaign believes in and I think they're right, is that at the end of the day Mitt Romney will get rid of this individual mandate, call it a tax, call it a kumquat, call it whatever you want. He will get rid of it and Barack Obama will not. That's the message that if this is going to matter politically that's the message they want to give.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, I mean, I would-- I would almost take issue. I don't think he can get rid of it. I mean, he may be able to get rid it, if he can get an overwhelmingly Republican Senate in this election, but even if-- if the Republicans get a one vote majority, they still have got to get sixty votes before they can repeal this thing. I mean--

JAN CRAWFORD: I don't think it's going to be as simple as-- as some of the talk that-- that we have heard from Governor Romney, but his point, as John is saying, is that, well, listen, it is just me now, standing between you, the American people, and this vast government takeover of our-- our medical system, and so the point would be that I am your best hope here because if President Obama is reelected, it's Katy bar the door, everything changes, Supreme Court didn't save it, save, you know, the-- the conservative position. It's up to me, Mitt Romney; and I'll try to do it and do the best I can. I do think, though, that this could have some impact, this issue of the tax in some of the other races, the House and Senate races. You're going to hear a lot in those campaigns about President Obama raising taxes.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Is that basically what Mitt Romney did? He kind of had to get in line with the rest of the Republicans?

JAN CRAWFORD: I think that is exactly right. He had to get in line.

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): He was under enormous pressure here.

NORAH O'DONNELL (CBS News Chief White House Correspondent): Right. He had to get in line with Republicans, people were unhappy. The interesting thing is that when many people thought that President Obama wasn't going to talk about health care reform that on this bus tour he actually brought it up again, in an interview criticizing Mitt Romney for his-- for calling it for six years a penalty and now switching back and calling it a tax and the President used the words, he can't just switch on a dime. Well, I asked some of the President's advisors why are you bringing up the health care thing? They said it's an issue of values and principles that it's a sign once again that Mitt Romney does thing just for politics. He'll say anything to get elected and that was sort of the sub-context of this bus tour that we were on, it was a values debate. I mean we heard the President talking about how he vacationed as a child on Greyhound buses and going to Howard Johnson's or HoJo's and in some ways that was a direct contrast--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Riding the dog--

NORAH O'DONNELL: Right, riding the dog. A contrast to Mitt Romney who was in New Hampshire on his speedboat and on Jet Ski. So I think this interesting subtext of the relate-- of the campaign is coming out about, which is essentially class warfare.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I want to ask all of you--what about this-- this criticism that's coming out of the Wall Street Journal from The Weekly Standard, both of which are-- are owned, obviously by Rupert Murdoch. This-- and basically they say that the campaign is too insular; they've got to make some changes. How did the Romney folks say, you were out there covering Romney, Jan, how did they feel about that?

JAN CRAWFORD: They believe and they are very focused that they can kind of tune out a lot of that outside criticism. They think they have a plan. People are always naysayers. Go back Bill Kristol has been critical of every Republican campaign for the last twenty years. So, I mean, they are really going to stick to this plan of focusing on the economy. They believe they have a plan. They have specifics and they are going to be talking about that. So they are not swayed as much by some of that external criticism as a lot of people might think. They are bringing in a couple of people, as Norah has reported, to help with the messaging. You are going to seeing a few different people on television--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Is he going to lay out more specifics for us because you heard Haley Barbour just now say, yeah, most people go, it's a referendum on-- on Obama, but is he going to lay out more specifics than what we know about?

JAN CRAWFORD: He will, and he has. I mean, he said, that he's, you know, given us this fifty-nine-point plan, go look at it on his website and he will continue to talk about that, but he's-- he-- he wants to again keep the focus on the President and his performance on the economy, and he told me, I mean, flat out told me, if I keep talking about the economy, I'm going to win.

BOB SCHIEFFER: John?

JOHN DICKERSON: Well, we got to remember where this started was out of this hiccup in the Romney campaign on health care. About forty-eight hours where Romney was out of position and ultimately he had to contradict one of his own senior aides about whether this was a tax. But what-- what I hear from my reporting in the Romney campaign is they recognize some things have not gone well but they are a tight-knit group. They are not going to change much. What they are going to do, though, is fix some of these communications problems but then get more specific. They think it's a question of timing. You-- you do it at the right time, but they do recognize that basically there is something more they have to give people other than just saying Barack Obama has done a bad job, they got to give people something as Haley Barbour said, you got to give them something to vote for and that's what they will start focusing on next.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What about the President, Norah? Is he going to give us more of an agenda than he has revealed to us thus far? Because he's getting some of the same criticism from-- from Democrats that Governor Romney is getting from Republicans?

NORAH O'DONNELL: No doubt and I think you saw the President on this bus tour take a hit, certainly because the jobs numbers came out and they are not great job numbers and he didn't introduce any new economic policies instead pushing sort of the same jobs plan that he has been unable to get through the Republican contrast. But these new ideas and the contrast of visions, I think, will come this summer. It's coming in the next month or two. Largely again, we've been about defining the candidates and you see about three-quarters of President Obama's ads have been negative ads against Mitt Romney pointing out his record on Bain, accusing him of being someone who outsources jobs and also sort of the same idea on this bus tour. Then it's going to come this contrasting visions and I'm told by campaign advisors they are just scrap-- they just scratched the surface on Mitt Romney's business record and background. And that's why they want this to be a referendum. They want to make everybody look at Mitt Romney and not at what's happened under President Obama. So that's what's going on.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, we have to bring this to a close because we're going to talk about baseball.

And we'll be back in one minute with that discussion.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, it is summer, it is hot, but the good news is it is time for the All-Star baseball break. The annual midseason battle of the best of baseball, we've invited our own All-Star team to talk about it and the role that baseball has always played in American lives. At the table here, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin who is a baseball fan first and foremost, even though she's a great historian; Sports Illustrated senior editor Frank Deford, author of the book, Overtime: My Life as a Sportswriter. Also with us from MLB Network Studios, former All-Star Harold Reynolds, a former Seattle and Baltimore player, who will be covering the All-Star game for MLB Network. And in Kansas City, ESPN's Jayson Stark, who joins us from the field of Tuesday's game.

Doris, let me just start with you. What is it about baseball that-- that has given it its great staying power? We've been playing baseball in this country since the Civil War, Andrew-- I mean, Abraham Lincoln--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN (Author, Wait till Next Year): My guy.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --played baseball. Yeah, you later wrote a book of some notice about it. What do you think it is about this game?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think it has to do with the fact that it gets passed down from a parent to a child. So it's part of your family memories. I mean in my sake I was six years old and my father taught me that mysterious art of keeping score. So when he went to work in New York during the day, I could record for him the history of that afternoon's Brooklyn Dodger game. And he never told me then that all of this was actually described in the sports pages the next day, so I thought without me, he wouldn't even know what happened to the Brooklyn Dodgers. And then I've my kids, I make them love baseball. They become part of the same fabric. We now have season tickets to the Red Sox. I can sometimes sit at the field and close my eyes and imagine myself a young girl once more in the presence of Jackie Robinson. And then my kids never knew my father because he died before they were born. I've told them so many stories that sometimes I can imagine that he's sitting there instead of them, and they know him through baseball. So I think that's the real treasure at the heart of it it's in a family.

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): You know, I-- I had a more mundane reason for becoming a-- a baseball fan. We didn't have air-conditioning where I grew up down in Texas and it was so hot just like it is now, the ballpark was the coolest place in-- in town. So we went to see the Dodgers Farm Club team, the Fort Worth Cats, and we went every night just to-- just to stay cool--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN (overlapping): Isn't that great?

BOB SCHIEFFER: --and so that's-- you know, once you-- once you get the bug, you have got it.

Harold, this is a great year for baseball. We have had some great surprises among the teams, and we have had some great young ballplayers. I mean, which are the lifeblood of this sport that we all like. Who do you like among these-- among these kids this year that we are just learning about?

HAROLD REYNOLDS (MLB Network Analyst): Well, it did really has been a great year I think the number two guys that stand out are Mike Trout from the Angels and obviously Bryce Harper who's in your hometown there in Washington. These two have taken the-- the season by storm. Trout twenty years old, Harper nineteen, and I always tell Bryce Harper when I see him, you're the Justin Bieber of baseball. I mean we learn about him on the internet, hitting home run derby, and he has just taken off. He has lived up to the whole hype. So that's just a crack in the surface of how many young players we have that are just been unbelievable. This All-Star game, we have got thirty players that are twenty-six and under. So we're seeing a great turn in baseball right now in the young talent.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, what-- what interests me about-- about Bryce is that he came up at age nineteen just like Mickey Mantle and when you go back and read about Mickey's first year as a nineteen-year-old, I mean, there's just remarkable parallels here with this kid. Let's just hope he doesn't get hurt that-- this year like Mickey did during his first year and it was an injury that he lived with for all of his career. Jayson out there in Kansas City. Is it as hot out there as it is here?

JAYSON STARK (ESPN Baseball Analyst): Bob, how could you tell? It was-- it was-- we were hundred and five here yesterday, so--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN (overlapping): Wow.

JAYSON STARK: --it's beautiful, great baseball weather.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What-- talk a little bit about some- we talk about some of these young players, talk about the surprises that we've had this year because we have had some (INDISTINCT) starting with our own Washington senator-- I mean Washington Nationals here in-- in Washington.

JAYSON STARK: Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, we have three teams, Bob, you-- you mentioned the Nationals, add in the Pirates, add in the Orioles, not one of those teams has played a post-season game in this millennium. And if the playoffs started today, they would all be playing which is a very cool thing, you-- you know, there hasn't been a post-season game played in Washington, DC, since 1933, but this could be the year.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Frank, you've seen a lot. I-- I-- I was very struck by something you said. You said that baseball was made for newspapers, and that's one reason that-- because, you know, you play it every day and so forth, and is that one of the reasons that it has lasted so long?

FRANK DEFORD (Sports Illustrated/Author, Over Time): It-- it-- it literally started in the nineteenth century when the urban population was growing, people were moving from the towns, from the farms to the towns and newspapers-- daily newspapers were growing up and they grew up exactly the same as baseball--daily newspaper, daily game. It was a-- it was a tremendous advantage. And-- and-- and baseball is always sold in the newspapers for-- for that very reason, of course, newspapers are struggling now. Baseball--it looks like they're going to outlast newspapers.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Baseball outlast newspaper.

FRANK DEFORD: You know I think so.

BOB SCHIEFFER: It's-- it's interesting, isn't it, that before television, when there were only newspapers, how famous people like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig became and the only pictures, they'd see the occasional picture in a newsreel. But yet they-- they were-- you know, they were larger than life even before there was television, when we got this familiarity in seeing all these players.

FRANK DEFORD: But-- but there is no question now that athletes, not just baseball players, but all athletes are so much more famous than they ever were. I mean someone like Ruth-- Ruthian--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mm-Hm.

FRANK DEFORD: --was-- was a special case. But now you know someone like Bryce Harper right away, and by the way he just made the All-Star team.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Yes, yes.

FRANK DEFORD: And-- and you know him as a nineteen-year-old. I don't think twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago you'd have known somebody quite so quickly as you do today.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, Doris, talking about the surprises this year, I mean, obviously, the Dodgers have been to the post-season before, but they didn't have much of a year last year and here these guys have come back and they got one of the best teams in baseball.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Yeah, I must say, even though I've later become a Red Sox fan, there is still some residual memory there from the Dodgers. You know but I was thinking when you were talking about we do see the faces of our players more today, but we knew those guys in the old days, like when Gil Hodges, one of the Dodgers, was in a terrible slump, entire parishes in Brooklyn prayed for him. I remember I gave him my Saint Christopher's medal blessed by the Pope which I had won by knowing the Seven Deadly Sins. And then he got out of his slump. I thought I made it happen. They lived in Brooklyn. You saw them in the laundry. It's different. Now they're in another whole class than most people. So maybe they're more famous today and you know-- you know their pictures, but we knew those guys, we knew their families, we knew who they were.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, Jayson, the rubber really does hit the road next year when they start voting for who gets into the Hall of Fame, and there're going to be some people connected with steroids, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, what's going to happen? Do you think those guys are going to get in?

JAYSON STARK: I-- I don't think so, not any time soon. You know, Bob, this is really a tough question and it's a tough issue. Reggie Jackson has said last week that he-- what he would like people like me, Hall of Fame voters to do is keep everybody out of the Hall of Fame, whoever used steroids or any performance-enhancing drug. And my question to Reggie would be how exactly are we supposed to do that? We now know that hundreds of players in that era were using something, and there's just no way to look at that ballot without trying to play the guessing game of who did what. So really the only way I think to handle it is you should either vote from no players from that era or vote for the best players from that era and let the Hall of Fame and baseball sort it out. Now you folks have some better ideas. I'd be happy to hear them. I am a confused voter.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Harold, what's your idea on that?

HAROLD REYNOLDS (MLB Network Analyst): Well, I think the main thing is you-- you got a-- the way I look at the Hall of Fame, you do it according to generation. It's not fair to throw everybody out because not everybody was using performance-enhancing drugs. I mean that's the one thing that's great about the drug-testing policy now. What we've seen in the last few years, it doesn't discriminate if you're a star player or not, if you're busted, you're busted. I think that helps. But I agree with Jason, it's going to be a difficult thing, it always will be. But guys that are tied to it, they've-- they've admitted to it or whatever, they're going to find it very difficult to get in. But I think time will tell and-- and, as we've seen this season, the numbers are dwindling. The game is going back to the basic fundamentals. We're seeing more bunting and more steals. We had thirty-eight games this year already going to the sixth inning with a no-hitter you know. So I think we're seeing a big difference already in the direction that baseball is headed. I think the commissioner has done a great job with drug testing. And if we continue to apply it, the strictness to it, the game is going to continue to clean up.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Frank, what do you think about that? Because I mean I've got to tell you, I still think about Babe Ruth as hitting the most home runs and I still think about Hank Aaron being the guy that hit the most home runs in a career--

FRANK DEFORD: Yeah-- yeah-- I think-- I think--

BOB SCHIEFFER: --I-- I just don't--the-- the other guys just don't register with me from this.

FRANK DEFORD: To me, Roger Maris still holds the home run record and-- and-- and Henry Aaron still holds the career record. And they broke the rules; they distorted the game; the guys who used performance-enhancing drugs. And so I think if there is any evidence whatsoever about someone, then he should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. I mean it's the one punishment you can apply. You can't go back and unravel history, you can't do that. The one thing you can do and maybe it's only a-- a symbolic thing, is to keep them out of the Hall of Fame. If they're going to keep Pete Rose out for doing something after he was through playing, then how in the world can you let guys in who distorted the game while they were playing is beyond me.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Doris, do you think it's important for these players to set an example? There's all-- I mean, and I-- I absolutely do. I put my cards on the table. I played baseball in high school. I hurt my arm very badly. I finally ruined it when I got to college. And if someone had told me you can rub a certain cream on your arm. I don't care what the doctors would have told me about whether it's good for me, I would have done it because if these guys had done it, they were the people I would look to and-- and I-- I just think it's-- it's extremely important for them to do that.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: And, I think, they lost that understanding of what examples they were. I mean young kids growing up, they've been watching these players from the time they were five or six years old. They idolize them. They want to be them. And they see exactly that bad example.

I mean it's a wonderful thing now that baseball does have restored its popularity. It's more popular this summer I think than it's been for years. More people are going. There is a sense of going back as was just said to the fundamentals because that era threatened to destroy the integrity of the whole team. The drug testing is now in place. It's harder than most of the other sports and I think we've come out the other end and baseball is back. But these players have to understand their responsibility. My God, they get everything else. They get adulation. They get money. They've got God-given talent that should be enough for them.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you see that as a-- as a player's responsibility, Harold?

HAROLD REYNOLDS: No doubt about it. I think any time you have the opportunity and the platform that we have been given as ball players, you got to understand the position you're in, and no doubt. I think Doris nailed it. The other thing I think what happens when you start looking at the drug test and everything else, too, I've always believed that if you get caught with drug testing, you should forfeit your contract, as simple as that. I mean I think that's the biggest thing. When you start taking money away, then all of a sudden we're going to clean up the game. You're always going to have somebody peeking around the corner trying to figure out how to get ahead because the financial gain is so tremendous. But if you put that kind of penalty on it, I think that will cut out all the temptation to be able to do that. But back to your point real quick before I close, yeah, I mean, we have a platform, you have kids looking at you every day, but not just kids, teammates, friends, everybody else, and there's a huge platform and there is a big reasonability, no doubt.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Jason, what's going to happen in the second half of this season?

JAYSON STARK: Well, Bob, I'm going to make you happy. I'm going to say that the Texas Rangers are going to win the World Series. You know, they-- they have lost the last two World Series and we've never had a team that lost two straight World Series, came back, and won the next year. Really and the closest parallel is Doris's Dodgers.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Yeah.

JAYSON STARK: The Dodgers of the fifties, who kept knocking on that door and finally in 1955, they burst through it. So what do you think, good plotline for you, right?

BOB SCHIEFFER: I tell you. I saw, I guess it was at game six of the World Series last year. I know Harold was down there because I saw him, I believe it may have been the best baseball game I have ever seen, and I am with you. I-- I kind of think the Rangers are going to wind up. I'd love to see, of course, the Rangers and the Nats squaring off and get to see Bryce Harper at age nineteen in a World Series. But I-- I-- I kind of think you're on to something there. Doris.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, I'm just hoping that the Red Sox come back from the dead, so at least I have a season. I mean, it's made me so sad, I feel like summer is gone. So I can't even predict other than we were not in the last place.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Did you go to the game last night?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I did. Last night we won. So all of a sudden, I'm feeling better. I mean there's something wrong with me. I woke up happy this morning because we'd won one game and now we're only eight and a half games out. That's--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: --that's not-- that's not healthy.

BOB SCHIEFFER: As-- as they-- as they said when Roger Mudd got one vote for President when he was covering a National Convention, it's a base to build on. So--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Thank you. I feel better.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I want to thank all of you for being with us. Lot of fun. It is a great season and it really has been a break in this hot weather.

We'll be back in a minute with our FACE THE NATION Flashback.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Baseball was the first of our national institutions to integrate voluntarily but it wasn't until 1974 that baseball named its first black manager.

MAN #1: Frank Robinson, baseball's first black manager.

BOB SCHIEFFER: He was Frank Robinson and he appeared shortly after that on this broadcast. That is our FACE THE NATION Flashback.

MAN #2: Frank, a little over two months ago you said there'd never be a black manager in the Major Leagues. And you said you were very discouraged.

FRANK ROBINSON: Well, actually I don't think I-- I don't think I said it would never be one. I just didn't think it would be one any time soon. Every time a job would open up, I was, you know, my name would pop up in the papers that I would be considered for the job, Maury Wills, Elston Howard, people like that, Larry Doby. But nothing ever happened.

MAN #2: So that was a frustration of yours at that time?

FRANK ROBINSON: Yes, it was. Not only just for me, for black people period. You know, it would-- they would tell you, you know, there's no qualified blacks all round.

MAN #2: Mm-Hm.

FRANK ROBINSON: You know, that was ridiculous, as far as I was concerned. You know you don't really know if someone can manage in the Major Leagues or any place else until he is given an opportunity to try.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Robinson went on to be one of the most successful managers in baseball, the first of fourteen African-Americans to manage in the Major Leagues, including the current manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Dusty Baker and this year's manager of the American League All-Star team, Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers.

Our FACE THE Nation Flashback.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, that's it for us for today. Thank you for being here, and I hope you will come back next week when we will have all the latest news on politics and baseball, right here on FACE THE NATION.

ANNOUNCER: This broadcast was produced by CBS News, which is solely responsible for the selection of today's guests and topics. It originated in Washington, DC.