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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Cheri Jacobus, Margie Omero

Aired November 16, 2003 - 11:14   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush says he's basing his re-election chances on voter perceptions of the U.S. economy. But he's also had to deal with many foreign policy matters. The president sat down with British journalist David Frost for a frank discussion on international issues and his re-election campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the people of this country will make the decision -- you asked about politics. They'll make the decision as to whether or not I've been open and honest with them and whether or not they like my leadership style. A lot of them have to do an economy course, whether I get another four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: That interview with President Bush aired today in Britain, as he and Mrs. Bush get ready to travel to London this week. Mr. Bush is unpopular in Britain where there is growing anti-war sentiment.

So how will this affect the president back home? We will debate that trip with our guests now.

Margie Omero is a Democratic strategist, and Cheri Jacobus is a Republican strategist. Ladies, I want to ask the first question of both of you. Cheri, tell us why the president is going to the UK?

CHERI JACOBUS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The president is going to the UK to obviously show what America is doing and what his policies are so he doesn't just have to be sort of a victim of a one-sided point of view over there. It's going to be a difficult trip, certainly. He doesn't have the support he'd like. But luckily, those aren't the ones that vote for him for re-election. So I don't think there's any problem with him going there, he's facing it head on, and I don't think there will be any long-term effect for him.

COLLINS: Margie, is this trip a good idea?

MARGIE OMERO, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I suppose it's a break for him to go be unpopular someplace other than America for a little while. But ultimately, I agree, it's his unpopularity and the unpopularity of the war here that's going to be a problem for Bush, not how voters feel in the UK. COLLINS: Then let me ask a little bit then, if I could, of both of you about what we saw prior to bringing you ladies on today, some of the Democrats on stage. What do you think of this field of contenders for the U.S. presidency? Cheri?

JACOBUS: Well, I think that it's a very weak field. I think that if there was any strength to this field whatsoever, Hillary Clinton would not have gone to Iowa so confident going in on a cloud. I think she is very confident that she's still the top dog. And I think that's a sign that she doesn't have confidence.

They all pale in comparison to her. That's bad news for the Democrats. Good news for the Republicans, however, because post people in this country or all people in the country pretty much know where they stand on her. Her numbers are in cement. I don't think she can be elected president. I think she can get a Democratic nomination.

These guys running for president cannot break out of the image that they simply can have -- no one's paying attention. They can't have an impact. They're all trying...

OMERO: Two of them have created a single digit race against Bush. At least two of them are in a single digit race against Bush a year out of the election, before we've even had any primaries. I mean, to say this is a weak field when you have several candidates with strong elected backgrounds, strong military backgrounds, not play costume dress-up military backgrounds like Bush...

JACOBUS: You have candidates who don't have control of their own campaigns. They keep having -- showing their foot in mouth disease. And quite frankly, you don't have any of those candidates. Even a faceless Democrat can't do very well against George Bush. The encouraging thing, though, is that the president and his team are taking the campaign very seriously. They aren't taking anything for granted. They expect it to be close, but quite frankly, at this stage in the game, the Democrats are still extremely unimpressive and they keep tripping over themselves.

COLLINS: Let's talk about fund-raising for a moment now, if we could. Margie, it seems like fund-raising is kind of a dirty word for Democrats, except when they're doing a good job of it. What do you make of both Dean and Kerry turning down public financing now?

OMERO: I think this is something that every candidate needs to decide for themselves. It's admittedly difficult to go against a candidate who's in the pocket of oil industries and pharmaceutical industries and drug companies and go in there unilaterally disarmed by taking the matching funds. So every candidate needs to work this out for themselves. Some people use the not taking the funds as a political point. Some people use taking the funds as a way to go up against Bush's huge war chest from special interest groups. But either way, I think it will still be the issues that are going to show the day and show that the Democrats really have a strong advantage over Bush.

COLLINS: Cheri, do the Democrats need every dollar they can get?

JACOBUS: Of course they need every dollar. Anybody running for office needs every dollar. But I would say that the Democrats are clearly pandering to the far let. They need to have the labor union bosses with them on everything. So they're going to do anything that the labor union bosses want them to do, whether it is good for the actual workers in America or not. You see them pandering to the teacher's unions. Talk about special interests. That's where we are there, plus there's a hypocrisy. They take a pledge on...

OMERO: Teachers on one side, oil executives on the other side.

JACOBUS: Then they decide that they're going to change their minds on financing. However, the fact is the American people -- this really is below radar for the American people. They don't really care about the financing, but it will be interesting to see just how much John Kerry dips into his own money. He can't dip into his wife's money, only their joint assets. So we'll see him become frustrated as he tries to figure out how to use his own funds to try and keep up with Howard Dean in terms of financing his primary campaign.

COLLINS: Let's move on to another topic now if we could. Judicial nominations. We saw Republican senators staging sort of an overnight talk, a filibuster, to protest the judicial nominations. Democrats really have only blocked six of president Bush's nominees. What do the Republicans now have to do? What do they have to complain about really?

OMERO: I think that the big surprise to the American people is that there's not a nightly talk-a-thon of senators staying up all night bashing the other party. I think people think that goes on every single night in Washington.

The Republicans, really, this is kind of a bust in terms of PR. They didn't even have a talk about it based on ideological points. Simply to bash Democrats and to say, well, they're talking about their own ideology. That makes us angry; we're going to stay up all night.

You have Democrats that approved a far majority of Bush's nominees. It's the Republicans who have got this train going with the way they handled Clinton's nominees. Now they're saying you'll see next time there's a Democrat for president. This is already the next time from when the Republicans would constantly try to block all Clinton nominees.

COLLINS: Cheri, was this a PR event of sorts?

JACOBUS: I think it was a PR event. I quite frankly wish the Republican senators would go a little bit further and say exactly what this is. First of all, they're supposed to have a majority vote to get these justices into place, not 60 votes. So this is the Democrats basically trying to rewrite the constitution. It's a slap in the face to our founders.

What I wish my senators would say, quite frankly, is what a racist operation this is on the part of the Democrats. I think it is blatant. An African-American woman who is slightly right of center in California, elected by more than 75 percent and she's being filibustered by the Democrats because they are scared to death that this could become mainstream. She's not on the far right. She's a conservative African-American woman judge in California. Lordy, lordy, what if people knew more about her.

Democrats are not colorblind. Democrats do not want Republicans to have success with any minorities in any sort of high profile position because that means that more minorities maybe will start voting Republican. And you guys are scared to death of that.

COLLINS: We're going to have to wrap things here. We appreciate the time from both of you. Margie Omero, Democratic strategist, and Cheri Jacobus, Republican strategist. Thanks both again for your insights on all of this.

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 November 16, 2003 - 11:14   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush says he's basing his re-election chances on voter perceptions of the U.S. economy. But he's also had to deal with many foreign policy matters. The president sat down with British journalist David Frost for a frank discussion on international issues and his re-election campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the people of this country will make the decision -- you asked about politics. They'll make the decision as to whether or not I've been open and honest with them and whether or not they like my leadership style. A lot of them have to do an economy course, whether I get another four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: That interview with President Bush aired today in Britain, as he and Mrs. Bush get ready to travel to London this week. Mr. Bush is unpopular in Britain where there is growing anti-war sentiment.

So how will this affect the president back home? We will debate that trip with our guests now.

Margie Omero is a Democratic strategist, and Cheri Jacobus is a Republican strategist. Ladies, I want to ask the first question of both of you. Cheri, tell us why the president is going to the UK?

CHERI JACOBUS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The president is going to the UK to obviously show what America is doing and what his policies are so he doesn't just have to be sort of a victim of a one-sided point of view over there. It's going to be a difficult trip, certainly. He doesn't have the support he'd like. But luckily, those aren't the ones that vote for him for re-election. So I don't think there's any problem with him going there, he's facing it head on, and I don't think there will be any long-term effect for him.

COLLINS: Margie, is this trip a good idea?

MARGIE OMERO, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I suppose it's a break for him to go be unpopular someplace other than America for a little while. But ultimately, I agree, it's his unpopularity and the unpopularity of the war here that's going to be a problem for Bush, not how voters feel in the UK. COLLINS: Then let me ask a little bit then, if I could, of both of you about what we saw prior to bringing you ladies on today, some of the Democrats on stage. What do you think of this field of contenders for the U.S. presidency? Cheri?

JACOBUS: Well, I think that it's a very weak field. I think that if there was any strength to this field whatsoever, Hillary Clinton would not have gone to Iowa so confident going in on a cloud. I think she is very confident that she's still the top dog. And I think that's a sign that she doesn't have confidence.

They all pale in comparison to her. That's bad news for the Democrats. Good news for the Republicans, however, because post people in this country or all people in the country pretty much know where they stand on her. Her numbers are in cement. I don't think she can be elected president. I think she can get a Democratic nomination.

These guys running for president cannot break out of the image that they simply can have -- no one's paying attention. They can't have an impact. They're all trying...

OMERO: Two of them have created a single digit race against Bush. At least two of them are in a single digit race against Bush a year out of the election, before we've even had any primaries. I mean, to say this is a weak field when you have several candidates with strong elected backgrounds, strong military backgrounds, not play costume dress-up military backgrounds like Bush...

JACOBUS: You have candidates who don't have control of their own campaigns. They keep having -- showing their foot in mouth disease. And quite frankly, you don't have any of those candidates. Even a faceless Democrat can't do very well against George Bush. The encouraging thing, though, is that the president and his team are taking the campaign very seriously. They aren't taking anything for granted. They expect it to be close, but quite frankly, at this stage in the game, the Democrats are still extremely unimpressive and they keep tripping over themselves.

COLLINS: Let's talk about fund-raising for a moment now, if we could. Margie, it seems like fund-raising is kind of a dirty word for Democrats, except when they're doing a good job of it. What do you make of both Dean and Kerry turning down public financing now?

OMERO: I think this is something that every candidate needs to decide for themselves. It's admittedly difficult to go against a candidate who's in the pocket of oil industries and pharmaceutical industries and drug companies and go in there unilaterally disarmed by taking the matching funds. So every candidate needs to work this out for themselves. Some people use the not taking the funds as a political point. Some people use taking the funds as a way to go up against Bush's huge war chest from special interest groups. But either way, I think it will still be the issues that are going to show the day and show that the Democrats really have a strong advantage over Bush.

COLLINS: Cheri, do the Democrats need every dollar they can get?

JACOBUS: Of course they need every dollar. Anybody running for office needs every dollar. But I would say that the Democrats are clearly pandering to the far let. They need to have the labor union bosses with them on everything. So they're going to do anything that the labor union bosses want them to do, whether it is good for the actual workers in America or not. You see them pandering to the teacher's unions. Talk about special interests. That's where we are there, plus there's a hypocrisy. They take a pledge on...

OMERO: Teachers on one side, oil executives on the other side.

JACOBUS: Then they decide that they're going to change their minds on financing. However, the fact is the American people -- this really is below radar for the American people. They don't really care about the financing, but it will be interesting to see just how much John Kerry dips into his own money. He can't dip into his wife's money, only their joint assets. So we'll see him become frustrated as he tries to figure out how to use his own funds to try and keep up with Howard Dean in terms of financing his primary campaign.

COLLINS: Let's move on to another topic now if we could. Judicial nominations. We saw Republican senators staging sort of an overnight talk, a filibuster, to protest the judicial nominations. Democrats really have only blocked six of president Bush's nominees. What do the Republicans now have to do? What do they have to complain about really?

OMERO: I think that the big surprise to the American people is that there's not a nightly talk-a-thon of senators staying up all night bashing the other party. I think people think that goes on every single night in Washington.

The Republicans, really, this is kind of a bust in terms of PR. They didn't even have a talk about it based on ideological points. Simply to bash Democrats and to say, well, they're talking about their own ideology. That makes us angry; we're going to stay up all night.

You have Democrats that approved a far majority of Bush's nominees. It's the Republicans who have got this train going with the way they handled Clinton's nominees. Now they're saying you'll see next time there's a Democrat for president. This is already the next time from when the Republicans would constantly try to block all Clinton nominees.

COLLINS: Cheri, was this a PR event of sorts?

JACOBUS: I think it was a PR event. I quite frankly wish the Republican senators would go a little bit further and say exactly what this is. First of all, they're supposed to have a majority vote to get these justices into place, not 60 votes. So this is the Democrats basically trying to rewrite the constitution. It's a slap in the face to our founders.

What I wish my senators would say, quite frankly, is what a racist operation this is on the part of the Democrats. I think it is blatant. An African-American woman who is slightly right of center in California, elected by more than 75 percent and she's being filibustered by the Democrats because they are scared to death that this could become mainstream. She's not on the far right. She's a conservative African-American woman judge in California. Lordy, lordy, what if people knew more about her.

Democrats are not colorblind. Democrats do not want Republicans to have success with any minorities in any sort of high profile position because that means that more minorities maybe will start voting Republican. And you guys are scared to death of that.

COLLINS: We're going to have to wrap things here. We appreciate the time from both of you. Margie Omero, Democratic strategist, and Cheri Jacobus, Republican strategist. Thanks both again for your insights on all of this.

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