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COPYRIGHT 2008 Voxant, Inc.
Original Source: ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We are following the "Breaking News;" the high stakes, big-money meeting between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and her money people. You will not get more inside information on any other news program right now.
Take a look at these exclusive cell phone photographs -- we're the only ones who have them -- taken from inside the room at Washington's Mayflower Hotel during the meeting.
We're also expecting audio of the meeting any moment. We'll bring that to you live as well.
You see Terry McAuliffe there on the left, now Hillary Clinton there talking, Barack Obama on the right listening.
Terry McAuliffe introduced Hillary Clinton; Hillary Clinton then introduced Barack Obama.
On stage together for the first time since she dropped out of the race. Tomorrow, they have a joint public debut at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire. But this private meeting tonight may be even more important.
After all, this was a room full of hard core Clintonites, people who write the checks and make the phone calls. So did Barack Obama convince them he can win? Did he soothe their anger?
In a moment, you'll hear from one of them, Clinton supporter Bill White who was in the meeting.
But first, CNN's Candy Crowley on what was said, along with Shailagh Murray of the "Washington Post" who was also inside the room.
Candy, first, the importance of this meeting?
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the importance of this meeting is that money really runs campaigns. Barack Obama's opted out of public financing. He needs to rack that up. Hillary Clinton has some formidable fund-raisers. By and large, they are signed up. They will go with Obama.
There are some hold-outs who didn't show up for the meeting tonight. I talked to a couple of people who came away saying, well, I'm a little under-whelmed. They're nonetheless onboard and others who came on and said, "You know what, it's a good meeting. I'm onboard, let's do it."
I wanted to play you a couple of things because we do have an audio of what went on in this meeting. And what sort of struck me as I looked at this audio was how both of them kind of came around to the same point, and that is that despite what happened, there is a larger picture here.
Here's a little bit of Hillary Clinton as she was introducing Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) NEW YORK: This was a hard-fought campaign. That's what made it so exciting and intense and why we both passionately ran so hard on both sides. You know, I know my supporters have extremely strong feelings, and I know Barack's do as well.
But we are a family. And we have an opportunity now to really demonstrate clearly we do know what's at stake and we will do whatever it takes to try to win back this White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: There was in fact sort of similar sentences from Barack Obama, who talked about, first of all, his grandmother and what she had to say about Hillary Clinton. Also talked about his daughters and how much fun it was that they didn't think it was like such a big deal that a woman and an African-American were running.
But what he got down is basically the same theme as Hillary Clinton and that is we understand this was hard fought but let's look at the long-range picture. Here's a little bit of Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am a better candidate as a consequence of having run against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. And I cannot think of a more important task than the two of us and all of us working to continue the battle that she's been fighting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: Ran into Terry McAuliffe here who as you saw was in that room and introduced Hillary Clinton.
He had in his pocket a check for $2,300 from the Obama finance chairman. And there was another check from Barack Obama for $2,300. That's as much as either one of them can give to Hillary Clinton. It's very symbolic.
Some of the Clinton people were complaining that Obama hadn't even himself sort of reached out to try to help her pay this debt. There's still feeling in the Clinton campaign among those who are closest to her that he needs to sort of say, listen, here's how much I can raise for her. Let's move forward with this. And they say he hasn't done that.
But nonetheless, I got a good sense from people coming out that they in fact were feeling pretty positive about this meeting. And let's face it fund-raisers are fund-raisers because it's the closeness to power. And if there's going to be power it will be with Barack Obama certainly in terms of the White House.
So most of them will move over. And I know you have a reporter that was actually in the room who could probably give you a little more of the atmospherics that were there.
COOPER: Yes.
Shailagh, as we look at these pictures and what was the mood like between the two candidates? What was the crowd like?
SHAILAGH MURRAY, THE WASHINGTON POST: You know, it was pretty striking, because in some ways it was like any other fund-raiser, an enthusiastic crowd. Both candidates were well received. In some ways you didn't know one from the other by the way the crowd responded to each of them.
And it was striking too because a year ago, most people on that room thought they were with the winner of this Democratic primary. And so you could feel sort of an undercurrent of wistfulness and shock and it was all sort of milling around in the atmosphere. And it made it a pretty potent scene for what otherwise was a pretty typical gathering of very wealthy people, out to back the, you know, political candidate of their choice.
COOPER: I heard they were late to the meeting and that there was some grumbling from some of the people who were there saying, we have checks ready and where are they, that kind of thing?
MURRAY: Well, I suppose there -- that was not the feeling that you had in the room. Senator Obama, in some ways, was lower key in his comments. He even said at one point that he accepted the fact and expected that these folks were not necessarily going to fall in love with him.
He understood the strong connection that they had with Senator Clinton just as his supporters had a strong connection with him. So he was sort of the soft-seller and Senator Clinton, in some ways, was more enthusiastic and optimistic about this election and really encouraging her supporters to throw their weight behind this candidate.
At one point, Terry McAuliffe in his introduction noted that these folks had raised $230 million for this candidate. And so that's a lot of fund-raising muscle. And Senator Obama needs that now that he's not going the public financing route.
COOPER: Shailagh Murray, we appreciate your perspective; Candy Crowley as well. We're going to talk at that more throughout this evening, a lot to cover.
As we've mentioned we've got early reaction from one long-time Clinton supporter at the Mayflower tonight.
We're also are going to hear more from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, more of the audio from this meeting throughout the hour tonight.
When I spoke with a long-time Clinton supporter, Bill White by phone just a short time ago. He was in the meeting. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So Bill, you're a big Hillary Clinton supporter. How did the meeting go?
BILL WHITE, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: Well, I think overall the meeting went well, Anderson. I think it was very big of Barack Obama to come into that...
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