Race for the White House

male narrator: You're the junior senator from Illinois,

and you barely know your way 'round the Hill.

And now the party bosses want a meeting.

They have a proposition.

They want you to take a shot at the White House...

not eventually, but now.

Think about it, will you?

narrator: Well, first you'll have to get past her,

the senator with decades of experience

and friends in high places,

already at home in the Oval Office.

And then you'll have to get past him,

a senator and bona fide war hero

backed by a mean political machine.

Let's say you are ready.

Here's the real question.

Is America?

Only one way to find out.

America, President George W. Bush's second term.

At war in Iraq and Afghanistan,

teetering on the brink of a global economic crash,

disillusioned, divided, and desperate for change.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination

looks like a shoe-in for the White House.

Senator Hillary Clinton is ready to roll.

I'm not just starting a campaign, though.

I'm beginning a conversation with you, with America.

We had been working on getting ready

for a potential presidential run for Hillary Clinton

for a very long time.

All the pieces were in place.

Hillary Clinton is a major frontrunner

as she launches her campaign.

She's the former first lady.

She is a well-respected senator.

She is married to Bill Clinton.

And I'm in it to win it.

The team was never overconfident about winning

because a lot of women would vote

for the first woman president.

The question was would men?

narrator: In Hillary Clinton's office

is a photograph of the Obama family,

a gift from the freshman senator from Illinois.

People call me Alabama, or they call me Yo Mama,

but the name's Obama.

Barack Obama really wasn't on our radar

as a candidate in early 2006.

I think the general feeling was he just got to the Senate.

There is no way he's gonna run for president.

That would be pretty, you know, audacious.

I got a call from Senator Obama in the spring of 2006,

and he said, "I just had the most peculiar meeting."

He said, "Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer called me in."

narrator: Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer,

top Democratic dogs on the Hill.

And Harry said,

"You ought to think about running for president."

narrator: Like every overnight success,

Obama's didn't actually happen overnight.

We waged a quiet campaign to get him

the keynote slot at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

Do we participate in a politics of cynicism,

or do we participate in a politics of hope?

He wants to think of himself

as, you know, a case study for the nation.

The hope of the skinny kid with a funny name

who believes that America has a place for him too.

That he is coming from a very distinct background

that represents the American story.

There is not a black America and a white America

and Latino America and Asian America.

There's the United States of America.

I think everybody saw this guy is gonna

be president someday, but so soon? So quickly?

Did I think he had the makings

of a good president? I certainly did.

Did I know he had the makings of a good

presidential candidate? I wasn't sure about that.

My concern was that he wasn't pathological enough,

and then he said, "You know me.

I'm competitive."

He said, "I'm not getting into this to lose."

narrator: And how does the candidate's wife feel?

Michelle Obama's a realist.

She wants to know just how bad it could possibly be

so she can prepare herself for that.

At one point she asked, "What is it that you think

you can contribute that nobody else can contribute?"

And Barack said,

"The day I put my hand up and take that oath of office,

the world will look at us differently,

and there are kids all over this country,

millions of kids who will look at themselves differently."

I stand before you today to announce my candidacy

for president of the United States of America.

From the day that Barack Obama entered,

he was the opponent. We knew that.

It was a puzzle trying to figure out

how to stop that phenomenon.

narrator: One part of that puzzle,

an unpopular war in Iraq.

Obama spoke out against it.

Clinton voted to support it.

Chief strategist Mark Penn's idea

is to double down on Clinton's toughness

by channeling Britain's iron lady.

One of his strong messages to the team and to the candidate,

it was, we need Margaret Thatcher,

not Mary Tyler Moore.

Other people, myself included, felt that American voters

really needed to see the Hillary that we knew,

fiercely loyal, fiercely nurturing, funny,

but we lost that battle.

narrator: In late March 2007, the iron lady

and the skinny kid with the funny name

face off in Las Vegas.

The issue: Healthcare.

She has been studying public policy all of her life.

She's really, really good.

So we can't get universal healthcare coverage

unless we end

insurance discrimination once and for all.

Obama looked ill-informed.

He didn't really have a fully formulated plan.

I would like to--

He always resisted and really resented

the performance part of politics.

As I indicated before--

That really wasn't how he was wired.

We have a plan that we are in the process of unveiling.

He was kinda cut down to size a little bit.

We don't just need candidates to have a plan.

We're all gonna have plans. That's not in doubt.

We need a movement.

She cleaned his clock. Yeah.

Thank you all very much.

I mean, he was very blunt about it, and he said,

"Hillary looked like a president up there,

and I didn't."

I know how to fight, and I know how to make peace.

I know who I am and what I want to do.

narrator: Senator John McCain

is in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

to announce his bid

for the 2008 Republican nomination.

John McCain is a hero of mine,

the insurgent, the smart guy, the fighter,

you know, the truth teller, you know, the underdog.

He is a genuine war hero, prisoner of war,

shot down over North Vietnam, badly wounded.

What is your rank?

Lieutenant Command in the navy.

And your official number? - 624787.

His father was an important figure in the U.S. military,

and he was given the opportunity

to leave captivity early,

and he says, "I'm not gonna go.

I'm gonna sit here in hell with my colleagues."

narrator: McCain is going to need

all his legendary resilience

to overcome the legacy of the current Republican president.

The Iraq War, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners

by American military,

the gross negligence towards the victims

of Hurricane Katrina, the economy is souring,

and Bush's approval ratings are down in the 30s.

George Bush was like a tire that was lit on fire

and hung around John McCain's neck.

Once considered the GOP frontrunner

in the race for the White House,

John McCain is now struggling

to keep his campaign afloat.

The campaign wasn't managed well,

and a lot of money was raised, but it was also spent.

We had a staff of about just under 400 people.

We had a massive campaign office in Crystal City.

We started running out of money.

We started running out of support.

There were genuine divisions and friction.

Strategy, money, a host of things.

John knew the campaign wasn't working.

He was either gonna get out of the campaign

and cut his losses,

or he was gonna have to change the campaign dramatically,

and so John McCain did what was a typical John McCain move.

In order to get a little relaxation and clear his mind,

he went to a battle zone.

He went to Iraq.

narrator: In Baghdad on the 4th of July,

surrounded by the military he so admires,

John McCain attends a reenlistment

and naturalization ceremony.