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CNN Live At Daybreak

Carol Moseley Braun Drops Out of Race for President

Aired January 15, 2004 - 06:29   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And now there are eight. Carol Moseley Braun has dropped out of the race for president. It isn't exactly a surprise. She hasn't exactly been burning up the polls. But she is endorsing someone, and that would be Howard Dean.
To the CNN election express. Aboard the bus, Bob Franken.

He joins us live on the phone this morning.

Oh, we have a picture of you on the bus -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, yes, from yesterday.

COSTELLO: You look very happy.

Well, this doesn't come as any surprise, does it, that Carol Moseley Braun has dropped out of the race?

FRANKEN: Not really. It was just -- it wasn't a question of if but when and in retrospect, we got a little bit of a glimmer of it the other night at the debate when after Reverend Al Sharpton had gone very vigorously after Howard Dean, Carol Moseley Braun had, in effect, gone to his defense. And they, we're told now, had a conversation following that debate and she floated the idea and now she's had the time to think about it for a couple of days and we expect that there's going to be a news conference later today, perhaps early afternoon, where she will announce that she's going to endorse Dean.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about this supposed endorsement for Howard Dean. It's not exactly going to help him in Iowa, because Iowa doesn't have a large African-American population. But could it help him down the line?

FRANKEN: Well, it's entirely possible. She has, as you had pointed out, not exactly set the world on fire. She was showing sometimes very low single digits. She was among the asterisked candidates, actually. But the fact of the matter is that one of the things Howard Dean has been trying to accomplish, as you suggest, is that he needs to try and establish a connection with minority voters. He's from a state where there are almost no minorities and it has been an issue that he has tried to deal with throughout.

So it certainly can't hurt him in that regard.

COSTELLO: Oh, no, especially in light of what Al Sharpton did to him in a debate. Might this repair the damage done? FRANKEN: Well, it will -- it remains to be seen. I think that we have to remember, as I said, that she has not exactly created a lot of attention for herself. But it's sort of like the old thing about chicken soup, it can't hurt.

COSTELLO: True.

Let's talk about the polls, because they're all over the place and depending on which poll you look at, Howard Dean is slipping, John Edwards is coming on fast, Gephardt and Kerry are tied for second place.

What's the real deal?

FRANKEN: Well, it's hard to know. I mean you have a, you have a circumstance here where there are an awful lot of variables. We don't know how many people are going to show up. It's really kind of difficult to pin things down enough to have a sample that a lot of people are confident in. So the polls seem to be indicating just exactly what you suggested. They seem to be indicating, both the public polls and the private polls, that John Kerry is moving up a little bit. That's what they seem to be indicating.

But we constantly have to caution people that we can only put a limited amount of credence in the polls.

COSTELLO: All right, Bob Franken reporting live from Iowa this morning.

Many thanks for waking up really early with DAYBREAK.

And don't forget to follow the CNN election express. Today the bus reaches Cedar Rapids, Iowa's second largest city and oatmeal capital of the world. And on Friday it's off to Davenport in the far eastern part of the state along the Mississippi River.

And you can also track the election express online by checking out cnn.com/bus.

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 15, 2004 - 06:29   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And now there are eight. Carol Moseley Braun has dropped out of the race for president. It isn't exactly a surprise. She hasn't exactly been burning up the polls. But she is endorsing someone, and that would be Howard Dean.
To the CNN election express. Aboard the bus, Bob Franken.

He joins us live on the phone this morning.

Oh, we have a picture of you on the bus -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, yes, from yesterday.

COSTELLO: You look very happy.

Well, this doesn't come as any surprise, does it, that Carol Moseley Braun has dropped out of the race?

FRANKEN: Not really. It was just -- it wasn't a question of if but when and in retrospect, we got a little bit of a glimmer of it the other night at the debate when after Reverend Al Sharpton had gone very vigorously after Howard Dean, Carol Moseley Braun had, in effect, gone to his defense. And they, we're told now, had a conversation following that debate and she floated the idea and now she's had the time to think about it for a couple of days and we expect that there's going to be a news conference later today, perhaps early afternoon, where she will announce that she's going to endorse Dean.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about this supposed endorsement for Howard Dean. It's not exactly going to help him in Iowa, because Iowa doesn't have a large African-American population. But could it help him down the line?

FRANKEN: Well, it's entirely possible. She has, as you had pointed out, not exactly set the world on fire. She was showing sometimes very low single digits. She was among the asterisked candidates, actually. But the fact of the matter is that one of the things Howard Dean has been trying to accomplish, as you suggest, is that he needs to try and establish a connection with minority voters. He's from a state where there are almost no minorities and it has been an issue that he has tried to deal with throughout.

So it certainly can't hurt him in that regard.

COSTELLO: Oh, no, especially in light of what Al Sharpton did to him in a debate. Might this repair the damage done? FRANKEN: Well, it will -- it remains to be seen. I think that we have to remember, as I said, that she has not exactly created a lot of attention for herself. But it's sort of like the old thing about chicken soup, it can't hurt.

COSTELLO: True.

Let's talk about the polls, because they're all over the place and depending on which poll you look at, Howard Dean is slipping, John Edwards is coming on fast, Gephardt and Kerry are tied for second place.

What's the real deal?

FRANKEN: Well, it's hard to know. I mean you have a, you have a circumstance here where there are an awful lot of variables. We don't know how many people are going to show up. It's really kind of difficult to pin things down enough to have a sample that a lot of people are confident in. So the polls seem to be indicating just exactly what you suggested. They seem to be indicating, both the public polls and the private polls, that John Kerry is moving up a little bit. That's what they seem to be indicating.

But we constantly have to caution people that we can only put a limited amount of credence in the polls.

COSTELLO: All right, Bob Franken reporting live from Iowa this morning.

Many thanks for waking up really early with DAYBREAK.

And don't forget to follow the CNN election express. Today the bus reaches Cedar Rapids, Iowa's second largest city and oatmeal capital of the world. And on Friday it's off to Davenport in the far eastern part of the state along the Mississippi River.

And you can also track the election express online by checking out cnn.com/bus.

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