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Tom Daschle Will Not Run for President
Aired January 07, 2003 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Our latest breaking news, and we have had quite a bit this morning. This one that Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, deciding that he will not run for president. And in fact, he has put out a written statement, according to the Associated Press, which reads: "After careful reflection, I have concluded that this moment in our history with so many important decisions being made about our nation's future, my passion lies here in the Senate."
He says he gave serious consideration to running for president, but his passion lies in the Senate, serving the people of South Dakota and fighting for working families all across America.
So, if you're keeping a list of Democrats who might be jumping into the race for president in 2004, you can cross Tom Daschle off the list.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: I believe that we have -- here are four of the names that we've been talking about in the last week or so. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) John Kerry of Massachusetts.
KAGAN: He's in.
HARRIS: Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
KAGAN: He is not officially, although we're (ph) expecting that.
HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a committee for him already. And Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who also came out recently and made his announcement...
KAGAN: Right.
HARRIS: .. that he is interested, and he has put his committee together. Now, with this other name of Daschle coming out of the mix, they must in their minds be freeing up the money...
KAGAN: Well, we didn't put Dick Gephardt up there, but he's in.
HARRIS: Well, exactly. He's in (ph). And we've also Governor Howard Dean of Vermont who says he's also talking about being in. But the thing is, what we've been talking about before leading into all of this, we'll be talking to Bill Schneider about this, our analyst, about where all of the money is. And that's what these big exploratory committees are all about is to see how much money these guys will actually bring in. KAGAN: I think we have Bill standing by.
HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) coming out, that's got to free up a lot of money.
Is Bill available now?
KAGAN: Yes. Bill, do you want to weigh in on this?
HARRIS: Speak of the devil.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm here, yes.
KAGAN: Yes.
SCHNEIDER: Well, Tom Daschle, it isn't really a surprise. He was on the cuff to deciding whether to come in or go out. It would have been a problem for him to raise money. And I think he has kind of lost the constituency, because the Democrats did so poorly in the midterm election this year.
He was one of the architects of the Democratic strategy to this election, and both he and Dick Gephardt, I think their stock (ph) fell in November after the Democrats suffered a setback. Because it looked like they were too conciliatory with President Bush, and a lot of Democrats out there wanted a leader to show more fight, and Gephardt and Daschle just didn't show it. And that's one reason I think we saw the support just slipping (ph) out there.
HARRIS: All right, we've got Jon Karl checking in from Capitol Hill.
Jon, what do you have -- what are you hearing about all of this? Is there anything here afoot, like perhaps Senator Daschle believing that perhaps maybe the Democrats can retake the Senate and he wants to be there when it happens? What are you hearing there?
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, I have the statement that Senator Daschle put out. It's a one-page statement, so I'll read it to you. But I want to tell you something else that I've just learned.
I just talked to a senior aide to Senator Daschle, somebody who has been an integral part of his effort to look into running for the presidency. And I want to tell you just how close he came to running. They had already made plans for an announcement, a presidential announcement on Saturday in Aberdeen, South Dakota, to be followed by a swing through South Dakota, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- the big, of course, early caucus and primary states, with the exception of South Dakota, his home state.
All of the planning had been under way. Daschle had told his top aides and advisors that he was leaning very strongly towards a run. And then I'm told, late last night, he had what one close advisor called a "depth check," a final depth check of do I really want to do this, and came up with a decision that really surprised his closest aides, a decision not to run.
The one-page statement I'll read you a little bit of. It gives you a little bit of insight into what Daschle was thinking. He says -- quote: "As I've said over the last several days, I've been giving serious consideration to running for president in 2004. I've long believed that in order to be successful as a presidential candidate, one must be 100 percent focused on that single goal. I've given this a lot of thought, talked about it extensively with family, friends, colleagues and supporters, and they were tremendously supportive. They urged me strongly to run, and to be honest, I came very close to deciding in favor of running."
And then he goes on in his statement to talk about the important agenda he had here in the Senate, and he believed that he needed to be more focused on that in a single-minded way, and not off to running for president at the same time. Something that, by the way, Democrats up here were very concerned about -- very concerned about the prospects of their leader in the Senate who will, you know, stand up against a united Republican Party that controls the Senate, the House and the White House, would be distracted by running for president at the same time.
So, Daschle's statement -- anyway, the statement goes on, Leon, to say that he believes that he's got an important agenda here in terms of essentially stopping much of what President Bush is planning to do, especially in the news of today, which is that economic stimulus plan.
HARRIS: Gotcha. And with such an evenly-divided Senate, only one vote there can really gum up the works. This may be what the plan may be there.
Thanks, Jon, on Capitol Hill.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired January 7, 2003 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Our latest breaking news, and we have had quite a bit this morning. This one that Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, deciding that he will not run for president. And in fact, he has put out a written statement, according to the Associated Press, which reads: "After careful reflection, I have concluded that this moment in our history with so many important decisions being made about our nation's future, my passion lies here in the Senate."
He says he gave serious consideration to running for president, but his passion lies in the Senate, serving the people of South Dakota and fighting for working families all across America.
So, if you're keeping a list of Democrats who might be jumping into the race for president in 2004, you can cross Tom Daschle off the list.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: I believe that we have -- here are four of the names that we've been talking about in the last week or so. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) John Kerry of Massachusetts.
KAGAN: He's in.
HARRIS: Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
KAGAN: He is not officially, although we're (ph) expecting that.
HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a committee for him already. And Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who also came out recently and made his announcement...
KAGAN: Right.
HARRIS: .. that he is interested, and he has put his committee together. Now, with this other name of Daschle coming out of the mix, they must in their minds be freeing up the money...
KAGAN: Well, we didn't put Dick Gephardt up there, but he's in.
HARRIS: Well, exactly. He's in (ph). And we've also Governor Howard Dean of Vermont who says he's also talking about being in. But the thing is, what we've been talking about before leading into all of this, we'll be talking to Bill Schneider about this, our analyst, about where all of the money is. And that's what these big exploratory committees are all about is to see how much money these guys will actually bring in. KAGAN: I think we have Bill standing by.
HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) coming out, that's got to free up a lot of money.
Is Bill available now?
KAGAN: Yes. Bill, do you want to weigh in on this?
HARRIS: Speak of the devil.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm here, yes.
KAGAN: Yes.
SCHNEIDER: Well, Tom Daschle, it isn't really a surprise. He was on the cuff to deciding whether to come in or go out. It would have been a problem for him to raise money. And I think he has kind of lost the constituency, because the Democrats did so poorly in the midterm election this year.
He was one of the architects of the Democratic strategy to this election, and both he and Dick Gephardt, I think their stock (ph) fell in November after the Democrats suffered a setback. Because it looked like they were too conciliatory with President Bush, and a lot of Democrats out there wanted a leader to show more fight, and Gephardt and Daschle just didn't show it. And that's one reason I think we saw the support just slipping (ph) out there.
HARRIS: All right, we've got Jon Karl checking in from Capitol Hill.
Jon, what do you have -- what are you hearing about all of this? Is there anything here afoot, like perhaps Senator Daschle believing that perhaps maybe the Democrats can retake the Senate and he wants to be there when it happens? What are you hearing there?
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, I have the statement that Senator Daschle put out. It's a one-page statement, so I'll read it to you. But I want to tell you something else that I've just learned.
I just talked to a senior aide to Senator Daschle, somebody who has been an integral part of his effort to look into running for the presidency. And I want to tell you just how close he came to running. They had already made plans for an announcement, a presidential announcement on Saturday in Aberdeen, South Dakota, to be followed by a swing through South Dakota, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- the big, of course, early caucus and primary states, with the exception of South Dakota, his home state.
All of the planning had been under way. Daschle had told his top aides and advisors that he was leaning very strongly towards a run. And then I'm told, late last night, he had what one close advisor called a "depth check," a final depth check of do I really want to do this, and came up with a decision that really surprised his closest aides, a decision not to run.
The one-page statement I'll read you a little bit of. It gives you a little bit of insight into what Daschle was thinking. He says -- quote: "As I've said over the last several days, I've been giving serious consideration to running for president in 2004. I've long believed that in order to be successful as a presidential candidate, one must be 100 percent focused on that single goal. I've given this a lot of thought, talked about it extensively with family, friends, colleagues and supporters, and they were tremendously supportive. They urged me strongly to run, and to be honest, I came very close to deciding in favor of running."
And then he goes on in his statement to talk about the important agenda he had here in the Senate, and he believed that he needed to be more focused on that in a single-minded way, and not off to running for president at the same time. Something that, by the way, Democrats up here were very concerned about -- very concerned about the prospects of their leader in the Senate who will, you know, stand up against a united Republican Party that controls the Senate, the House and the White House, would be distracted by running for president at the same time.
So, Daschle's statement -- anyway, the statement goes on, Leon, to say that he believes that he's got an important agenda here in terms of essentially stopping much of what President Bush is planning to do, especially in the news of today, which is that economic stimulus plan.
HARRIS: Gotcha. And with such an evenly-divided Senate, only one vote there can really gum up the works. This may be what the plan may be there.
Thanks, Jon, on Capitol Hill.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
