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American Morning

Skipping Iowa

Aired October 21, 2003 - 09:17   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats Wesley Clark and Senator Joe Lieberman both skipping the Iowa caucuses on the 19th of January. They're hoping to make stands in New Hampshire, possibly later in states like South Carolina. Question this morning, can a candidate win the presidential nomination without doing well first in Iowa, the first state?
Our senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield is here to talk about that. Much of a mystery here, or not?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: No, it's pretty clear. Iowa is a state, they don't just let you go vote. You've got to go to caucuses and firehouses on a freezing January night and sit there for four hours. You need organizational teams to get those people out, and General Clark simply entered the race too late to build that kind of organization. With Senator Lieberman, his centrist stands -- he's still very much for the war in Iraq, for example, they're just unsuited to a state where Democrats are particularly liberal and dovish. New Hampshire and the February 3rd states of Arizona and South Carolina, they fit Lieberman much better.

HEMMER: What do you subscribe to now this theory you can't win the White House unless you win Iowa first. You're shaking your head saying, forget it.

GREENFIELD: Don't get me started, as Billy Crystal says. In the first place, Bill Clinton didn't compete in Iowa, and he won. And Ronald Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses in 1980 and won. We used to hear that no one could win the White House without first winning New Hampshire. Bill Clinton did it and George W. Bush did it, and that one went into the dustbin.

Even more interesting to me is this Iowa bounce. It's about as significant as the bounce you get when you drop a pancake on a floor. You look at Iowa and you find winners from the first George Bush to Walter Mondale to Dick Gephardt to Bob Dole in 1988 to the second George W. Bush, they all got clobbered in New Hampshire and the race starts over again. So the Iowa caucuses as a key to the nomination is completely mythological.

HEMMER: Yes? Depends on who is making the batter in that pancake, though.

Last hour, Kamber and May, I asked the question whether or not Iowa is becoming irrelevant. Is it irrelevant? Is it meaningless?

GREENFIELD: Well, you know, John McCain certainly showed last time you can skip Iowa. But for a guy like Dick Gephardt, who won in Iowa back in 1988, it probably is important for him. It could a state that eliminates Dick Gephardt if he doesn't do well. And it's going to be a chance for Howard Dean to show whether his Internet-based money and organization strategy can play out once the votes are cast.

I also have a tell you, look, Iowa is a state which is very civic-minded, it's very literate. The last time 8.5 percent of the eligible voters showed up for the caucuses, after all the hoopla. Because who wants to leave your home in Iowa on January winter night to sit there for four hours? In New Hampshire, they vote at presidential rates, like 45 percent to 50 percent.

One academic called the whole caucus a contrived event, and he taught at a university in Iowa. I think it's the first in the nation. It's like Brigadoon (ph) -- every four years it rises from the mist. We show up with our money. It's actually a money-maker for Iowa, and they threaten candidates implicitly, if you don't compete in the caucuses and you wind up as a nominee, you're risking our electoral votes.

So I find the whole idea -- the idea of these pronouncements.

One other quick one -- whoever wins Iowa and New Hampshire is unstoppable. That may be true, except for Al Gore. No one in modern history has won Iowa and New Hampshire. So...

HEMMER: The only caveat in this whole argument is -- we got to run because we're out of time -- is you got to get them in at some point. You have you to start somewhere. You have you to start to grow and build.

GREENFIELD: But this calendar with its front-loaded primaries now right after New Hampshire, it doesn't necessarily have to be Iowa or New Hampshire. Nice states, I love you all, but you shouldn't go first every four years.

HEMMER: Go Hawkeyes. Thanks, Jeff. Talk to you later.

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 October 21, 2003 - 09:17   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats Wesley Clark and Senator Joe Lieberman both skipping the Iowa caucuses on the 19th of January. They're hoping to make stands in New Hampshire, possibly later in states like South Carolina. Question this morning, can a candidate win the presidential nomination without doing well first in Iowa, the first state?
Our senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield is here to talk about that. Much of a mystery here, or not?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: No, it's pretty clear. Iowa is a state, they don't just let you go vote. You've got to go to caucuses and firehouses on a freezing January night and sit there for four hours. You need organizational teams to get those people out, and General Clark simply entered the race too late to build that kind of organization. With Senator Lieberman, his centrist stands -- he's still very much for the war in Iraq, for example, they're just unsuited to a state where Democrats are particularly liberal and dovish. New Hampshire and the February 3rd states of Arizona and South Carolina, they fit Lieberman much better.

HEMMER: What do you subscribe to now this theory you can't win the White House unless you win Iowa first. You're shaking your head saying, forget it.

GREENFIELD: Don't get me started, as Billy Crystal says. In the first place, Bill Clinton didn't compete in Iowa, and he won. And Ronald Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses in 1980 and won. We used to hear that no one could win the White House without first winning New Hampshire. Bill Clinton did it and George W. Bush did it, and that one went into the dustbin.

Even more interesting to me is this Iowa bounce. It's about as significant as the bounce you get when you drop a pancake on a floor. You look at Iowa and you find winners from the first George Bush to Walter Mondale to Dick Gephardt to Bob Dole in 1988 to the second George W. Bush, they all got clobbered in New Hampshire and the race starts over again. So the Iowa caucuses as a key to the nomination is completely mythological.

HEMMER: Yes? Depends on who is making the batter in that pancake, though.

Last hour, Kamber and May, I asked the question whether or not Iowa is becoming irrelevant. Is it irrelevant? Is it meaningless?

GREENFIELD: Well, you know, John McCain certainly showed last time you can skip Iowa. But for a guy like Dick Gephardt, who won in Iowa back in 1988, it probably is important for him. It could a state that eliminates Dick Gephardt if he doesn't do well. And it's going to be a chance for Howard Dean to show whether his Internet-based money and organization strategy can play out once the votes are cast.

I also have a tell you, look, Iowa is a state which is very civic-minded, it's very literate. The last time 8.5 percent of the eligible voters showed up for the caucuses, after all the hoopla. Because who wants to leave your home in Iowa on January winter night to sit there for four hours? In New Hampshire, they vote at presidential rates, like 45 percent to 50 percent.

One academic called the whole caucus a contrived event, and he taught at a university in Iowa. I think it's the first in the nation. It's like Brigadoon (ph) -- every four years it rises from the mist. We show up with our money. It's actually a money-maker for Iowa, and they threaten candidates implicitly, if you don't compete in the caucuses and you wind up as a nominee, you're risking our electoral votes.

So I find the whole idea -- the idea of these pronouncements.

One other quick one -- whoever wins Iowa and New Hampshire is unstoppable. That may be true, except for Al Gore. No one in modern history has won Iowa and New Hampshire. So...

HEMMER: The only caveat in this whole argument is -- we got to run because we're out of time -- is you got to get them in at some point. You have you to start somewhere. You have you to start to grow and build.

GREENFIELD: But this calendar with its front-loaded primaries now right after New Hampshire, it doesn't necessarily have to be Iowa or New Hampshire. Nice states, I love you all, but you shouldn't go first every four years.

HEMMER: Go Hawkeyes. Thanks, Jeff. Talk to you later.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com