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CNN Live Today
Democrats Debate
Aired September 25, 2003 - 10:16 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as if there isn't enough opposition among the 135 different candidates seeking the governor's seat in California, one of the two Republican front-runners may now face a new challenge. This coming from his own party. The leaders of county GOP groups are meeting today to decide whether to collectively unite behind Arnold Schwarzenegger and further pressure Tom McClintock to drop out of the race. The GOP fears that these two will split the Republican vote, and therefore hand the victory to the Democrats.
So let's get some perspective on the California governor's brawl, and for that we turn now to our senior political analyst Bill Schneider. He is in Washington this morning.
Good to see you, Bill.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: And brawl it was, Leon. That was certainly quite a mixing-it-up scene in California last night.
HARRIS: The big question on most people's lips this morning is, OK, tell me the truth, how did Arnold do last night?
SCHNEIDER: He needed to establish his credibility, and I think he did. He could mix it up with the others. He had a point of view. He had a clear message about getting businesses to come back to California, because that's the source of jobs. Job is the source of revenue. I thought he was entirely credible, and people who want to support him I think feel comfortable doing that now.
HARRIS: But was he specific enough, though, Bill? I'm sorry, was he specific enough?
SCHNEIDER: Well, there wasn't an opportunity really to be terribly specific, and I don't think did he best in the debate, no. He could have used this debate to just knock it out of the park, to close the deal. I don't think that happened. But I think he showed that he could mix it up with the rest of them.
The problem was he kept being enticed into a sparring match and looked very personal with Ariana Huffington. She would goad him, and he would taunt her back. Let's listen to a little piece of the debate with Schwarzenegger and Huffington going at each other in their respective accents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIANA HUFFINGTON (I), CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR CANDIDATE: It's completely hypocritical of Arnold.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIF. GOV. CANDIDATE: Ariana, you're talking about the...
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Let me finish. You know, this is completely the way you treat women, we know that, but not now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a direct and personal attack on Mr. Schwarzenegger, so would you respond?
SCHWARZENEGGER: I would just like to say that I have just realized that I have a perfect part for you in "Terminator IV."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: Well, we might have needed subtitles for some of that, but that distracted a lot of the attention in the debate, because it really did get down, and dirty and personal.
HARRIS: I have to say you're right there about the accents there. If you're just flipping channels, you might think you're listening to a debate at the European Union or something like that.
Well, listen, after all that, who do you think did come out on top? And where does all this leave Gray Davis right now?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I thought that, frankly, in my opinion, Tom McClintock did very well. You may not agree with him, and most voters in California apparently don't agree with the his very conservative views. But he sounded knowledgeable and sounded informed.
So the bottom line is, even though Schwarzenegger did perfectly well and showed that he was able to hold his own, McClintock stood out, I thought, as being serious, knowledgeable, well informed, and that creates a problem for Schwarzenegger, because it means that he's going to be even more competitive for that Republican vote. It is less likely that he'll decide voluntarily to stop campaigning.
And even though I do not think that Cruz Bustamante did particularly well, he was put in the awkward position of having to defend the Davis record, which did he not defend, because in a way, he's running against the Davis record. Bustamante could come out the winner, because McClintock did well enough to continue splitting that vote with Schwarzenegger. So the Republicans are in even more of a bind than they were before.
Davis was not even a factor in this. He looked totally irrelevant. The debate basically was five people jumping on his record, and Bustamante didn't defend his own governor. Nobody depended Gray Davis.
But, Davis might have ended up ahead for the very simple reason that the debate was such a circus, such a carnival, such a free-for- all, as we just saw, that a lot of voters might have looked to that, and said, none of these clowns really looks like a governor, we better stick with the one we have.
HARRIS: Interesting. I was thinking something along those lines watching that, thinking the respective party leaders had to be a bit disappointed to see it look even more circus like. They were trying to get thing a bit to look more serious.
Let's turn now, if we can, Bill, in the next couple of minutes here, to the presidential politics underway. The poll that was released this morning in "The Wall Street Journal," President Bush is going to have to look long, wide and deep in this poll, in this pile of information, to find some good news.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. The poll shows that Bush continues to sink in the polls. He's now at 49 percent; that's below 50. Symbolically, that's very important. When a president sinks below 50 percent in the polls, he's in trouble for re-election, because that means that more than half the American people don't approve of the way he's handling his job and are ready to vote for somebody else. That means -- that ratchets up the Democratic stakes in this debate even higher, because it means the Democrats really have an opportunity to win if they can come up with a winner.
Well, a lot of Democrats think they did last week when the 10th candidate, General Wesley Clark, he's the top right hand guy in these faces that you're looking at. He just got into the race. He's a retired general, former Rhodes scholar, first in his class at West Point, has a good military record. And a lot of Democrats looked at him and said, my God, finally, we have a winner. But he's going to be tested in his debate. It's his debut performance. I think a lot of Democrats were a little disturbed last week when he didn't seem to have his views straight on whether or not he would have supported the Iraq war resolution.
So today his debut, all eyes will be on Wesley Clark.
HARRIS: All right then, good deal. We'll leave it there. We'll get back together tomorrow and talk about this after the Democrats get together and do their thing tonight.
Thanks, Bill. Appreciate that, Bill Schneider
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 September 25, 2003 - 10:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as if there isn't enough opposition among the 135 different candidates seeking the governor's seat in California, one of the two Republican front-runners may now face a new challenge. This coming from his own party. The leaders of county GOP groups are meeting today to decide whether to collectively unite behind Arnold Schwarzenegger and further pressure Tom McClintock to drop out of the race. The GOP fears that these two will split the Republican vote, and therefore hand the victory to the Democrats.
So let's get some perspective on the California governor's brawl, and for that we turn now to our senior political analyst Bill Schneider. He is in Washington this morning.
Good to see you, Bill.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: And brawl it was, Leon. That was certainly quite a mixing-it-up scene in California last night.
HARRIS: The big question on most people's lips this morning is, OK, tell me the truth, how did Arnold do last night?
SCHNEIDER: He needed to establish his credibility, and I think he did. He could mix it up with the others. He had a point of view. He had a clear message about getting businesses to come back to California, because that's the source of jobs. Job is the source of revenue. I thought he was entirely credible, and people who want to support him I think feel comfortable doing that now.
HARRIS: But was he specific enough, though, Bill? I'm sorry, was he specific enough?
SCHNEIDER: Well, there wasn't an opportunity really to be terribly specific, and I don't think did he best in the debate, no. He could have used this debate to just knock it out of the park, to close the deal. I don't think that happened. But I think he showed that he could mix it up with the rest of them.
The problem was he kept being enticed into a sparring match and looked very personal with Ariana Huffington. She would goad him, and he would taunt her back. Let's listen to a little piece of the debate with Schwarzenegger and Huffington going at each other in their respective accents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIANA HUFFINGTON (I), CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR CANDIDATE: It's completely hypocritical of Arnold.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIF. GOV. CANDIDATE: Ariana, you're talking about the...
(CROSSTALK)
HUFFINGTON: Let me finish. You know, this is completely the way you treat women, we know that, but not now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a direct and personal attack on Mr. Schwarzenegger, so would you respond?
SCHWARZENEGGER: I would just like to say that I have just realized that I have a perfect part for you in "Terminator IV."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: Well, we might have needed subtitles for some of that, but that distracted a lot of the attention in the debate, because it really did get down, and dirty and personal.
HARRIS: I have to say you're right there about the accents there. If you're just flipping channels, you might think you're listening to a debate at the European Union or something like that.
Well, listen, after all that, who do you think did come out on top? And where does all this leave Gray Davis right now?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I thought that, frankly, in my opinion, Tom McClintock did very well. You may not agree with him, and most voters in California apparently don't agree with the his very conservative views. But he sounded knowledgeable and sounded informed.
So the bottom line is, even though Schwarzenegger did perfectly well and showed that he was able to hold his own, McClintock stood out, I thought, as being serious, knowledgeable, well informed, and that creates a problem for Schwarzenegger, because it means that he's going to be even more competitive for that Republican vote. It is less likely that he'll decide voluntarily to stop campaigning.
And even though I do not think that Cruz Bustamante did particularly well, he was put in the awkward position of having to defend the Davis record, which did he not defend, because in a way, he's running against the Davis record. Bustamante could come out the winner, because McClintock did well enough to continue splitting that vote with Schwarzenegger. So the Republicans are in even more of a bind than they were before.
Davis was not even a factor in this. He looked totally irrelevant. The debate basically was five people jumping on his record, and Bustamante didn't defend his own governor. Nobody depended Gray Davis.
But, Davis might have ended up ahead for the very simple reason that the debate was such a circus, such a carnival, such a free-for- all, as we just saw, that a lot of voters might have looked to that, and said, none of these clowns really looks like a governor, we better stick with the one we have.
HARRIS: Interesting. I was thinking something along those lines watching that, thinking the respective party leaders had to be a bit disappointed to see it look even more circus like. They were trying to get thing a bit to look more serious.
Let's turn now, if we can, Bill, in the next couple of minutes here, to the presidential politics underway. The poll that was released this morning in "The Wall Street Journal," President Bush is going to have to look long, wide and deep in this poll, in this pile of information, to find some good news.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. The poll shows that Bush continues to sink in the polls. He's now at 49 percent; that's below 50. Symbolically, that's very important. When a president sinks below 50 percent in the polls, he's in trouble for re-election, because that means that more than half the American people don't approve of the way he's handling his job and are ready to vote for somebody else. That means -- that ratchets up the Democratic stakes in this debate even higher, because it means the Democrats really have an opportunity to win if they can come up with a winner.
Well, a lot of Democrats think they did last week when the 10th candidate, General Wesley Clark, he's the top right hand guy in these faces that you're looking at. He just got into the race. He's a retired general, former Rhodes scholar, first in his class at West Point, has a good military record. And a lot of Democrats looked at him and said, my God, finally, we have a winner. But he's going to be tested in his debate. It's his debut performance. I think a lot of Democrats were a little disturbed last week when he didn't seem to have his views straight on whether or not he would have supported the Iraq war resolution.
So today his debut, all eyes will be on Wesley Clark.
HARRIS: All right then, good deal. We'll leave it there. We'll get back together tomorrow and talk about this after the Democrats get together and do their thing tonight.
Thanks, Bill. Appreciate that, Bill Schneider
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
