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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Bush, Kerry in Virtual Dead Heat
Aired November 01, 2004 - 22:00 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.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Twenty-four years ago on this night as a young reporter I covered then President Jimmy Carter's last stop of the campaign. He landed in Seattle, 11:00, right on time the beginning of the late local news. It was the last speech, the last rally, the last event of a long campaign.
What I didn't know then was that he already knew he had lost. The late polls had all broken for Ronald Reagan, so when President Carter landed in Seattle that night, he knew the next day would bring defeat.
It is possible tonight that aides to Senator Kerry or President Bush also know, possible but doubtful. They will go to bed tonight like the rest of us unsure what tomorrow may bring. Tonight, the last minute polls, some last thoughts from a variety of people on this long and often angry campaign.
The whip begins in Dallas, Texas and our Senior White House Correspondent John King, John before the vote a final headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, this will be the president's final rally, a homecoming celebration here in Texas. He will go to bed tonight uncertain whether this is the path of four more years or farewell -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you.
Cleveland and the Kerry campaign, CNN's Candy Crowley there, Candy the headline tonight.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: A pretty easy one tonight. We'll let the signage do the talking.
BROWN: You got it.
CROWLEY: Aaron.
BROWN: That's a headline.
Next another day in court over challenging voters in Ohio, this is getting very messy, Dan Lothian covering, Dan a headline.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: It is getting very messy indeed. This is a critical state for both President Bush and Senator Kerry. The race is very tight here but there's more than just a political battle. There's also a legal one -- Aaron.
BROWN: Dan, thank you.
And finally the ground game in the state of Florida, John Zarrella there, so John the headline.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, more than a million Floridians, according to state officials, have already voted in early voting and thousands of Democratic and Republican poll watchers are here in the state to make sure everything goes well -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program tonight looking for common ground after a long and bitter campaign, Jeff Greenfield spends the night with us to talk about the campaign past and where tomorrow may take us, also the late polls.
And we'll introduce you to a man who will vote tomorrow for the first time after 25 years in prison.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just voiced, you know, the fact that I'm innocent. I didn't do anything, you know, but it's on the same principles when you get ready to vote you're voicing how you really feel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Michael Austin's (ph) story of freedom and hope.
And politics in the papers, Morning Papers end the hour, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin this election eve on the ground the final hours of the race. For both candidates the last day on the stump meant a final dash through the battleground states where the margins are the thinnest, President Bush sweeping through six states starting his day in Ohio and ending it at home in Texas. With just hours to go until the polls open, we begin tonight with the Bush campaign and Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): In Ohio, to begin the final day of his final campaign, the outcome uncertain, the appeal as urgent as it gets.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you're a voter who believes that the president of the United States should say what he means and does what he says and keeps his word, I ask you to come stand with me.
KING: Marine One still at his disposal, Air Force One too, at issue whether his lease expires in just 79 days or in four more years, a mix of confidence and nostalgia in this rare tarmac visit with reporters in Pittsburgh.
BUSH: The finish line is in sight and I just want to assure you I got the energy and the optimism and the enthusiasm to cross the line.
KING: Ohio and Pennsylvania, then Wisconsin and Iowa, west to New Mexico and a homecoming rally in Texas.
KARL ROVE, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: We're going to win. We will win Florida and Ohio. We will take at least two or three or four states that were won by Gore in the last election.
KING: Democrats call it wishful thinking and history suggests those deciding late tend to choose change. So, Mr. Bush warned one last time that change would be for the worse in more ways than one.
BUSH: Hard-working people of Western Pennsylvania, we are not going to let him tax you for 20 years on the largest national security issues. He has been consistently wrong.
KING: In Iowa and at every stop a reflection on September 11th and how he sees his mission since.
BUSH: I've gotten up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America whatever it takes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: This rally here in Dallas tonight then back to the ranch in Crawford. Mr. Bush will vote near there in the morning. He'll actually stop in Ohio on the way back to Washington, one more get out the vote rally await the results at the White House.
Aaron, aides say the president is confident. He believes he will win tomorrow night but they say most of all as he played cards today he told them he was content no matter what, satisfied in his last campaign he gave it his best shot -- Aaron.
BROWN: That was his last campaign and this is the last day of it. What will you be looking for first tomorrow, John? What will be your indicator?
KING: The early results from Ohio and Florida. Those are the two states the president very much needs to win. One state you might say the first state to change hands in 2000 would be New Hampshire. Bush won it last time. They expect to lose it this time. That's not such a big deal. Ohio is the key for this president.
BROWN: John, thank you, John King on the campaign one more night.
For Senator Kerry the day looked much the same, a swirl of states, many the same as the president. More hands to shake, the stump speech with a final urgency. It is now in the hands of others. Mr. Kerry's day began in Florida, ends in Ohio. In between there was Wisconsin, Milwaukee, which is where CNN's Candy Crowley picks up the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY (voice-over): He spent more than a month of days here since March. He said goodbye on election eve with a little help from family and rockers. The only state that would be sweeter than Ohio is Florida.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've been coming to Florida enough that my brother Cam is thinking of running for governor, how's that?
CROWLEY: It is the longest of long shots that anything John Kerry says now in Florida or Wisconsin, Michigan or Ohio will affect tomorrow. It is about atmosphere now, about creating or keeping the sense of momentum. It has to be in your voice, in your step. It was cold and nasty when he said goodbye to Milwaukee but there they were in an outdoor plaza, the people he needs tomorrow.
KERRY: I'll tell you it may be one more day but I promise you this. I will never forget this rally in the rain here in Milwaukee.
CROWLEY: After a two year blur of small towns and big, rallies and speeches, there is no moment more urgent, more electric than right now. Listen.
KERRY: If you believe as I do that America's best days are ahead of us then join me tomorrow and change the direction of America.
CROWLEY: Kerry aides say they really do feel confident. They call their get out the vote operation the biggest Democratic effort in history. They like what they see in the polls. They claim early voting they've been able to track in battleground states favors Kerry. The truth is they wouldn't tell you if they were not confident. The truth is they aren't any more sure than anybody else.
KERRY: Knock on those doors. Make those phone calls. Talk to friends. Take people to the polls. Help us change the direction of this great nation for the better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: Miles to go before we sleep, Aaron. Tonight here in Cleveland, Ohio where Bruce Springsteen has come along, the Senator is meeting up with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is talking right now and from here on to Toledo. That will be the last moment in Ohio before he heads to Lacrosse, Wisconsin for an overnight. There will be an event in Lacrosse.
And now on a wing and a prayer he heads home to Boston tomorrow afternoon. He's going to go to his favorite restaurant and have a lucky bowl of clam chowder, something he has done every Election Day of his career -- Aaron. BROWN: What's the weather like in Ohio?
CROWLEY: It's great. I mean this is beautiful. I mean this is -- as you know, this can be a drag sometimes doing this but this is one of those nights when you think, oh this is why I do this. It's gorgeous in Cleveland.
BROWN: Weather supposed to be good tomorrow?
CROWLEY: No.
BROWN: OK.
CROWLEY: And so and that has to be a concern.
BROWN: Got it. That's the point. Thank you, Candy.
For the pollsters these are the final hours as well. Tonight, CNN's poll of polls, an average of the major national polling results shows the president with an average two point lead over Senator Kerry. That is the big picture nationwide but, as you know, this is about 50 individual states.
And, in Florida, the largest of the states in play or at least believed to be in play with 27 electoral votes here's what the latest CNN/USA Today Gallup poll shows, President Bush trailing Senator Kerry by a point, 48/47 among the likely voters, among registered voters, Senator Kerry ahead 49 percent to 45 percent, all of this within the margin of error.
Tomorrow the focus shifts to voter turnout and election returns, lots of numbers to crunch tonight and so we turn to our number cruncher, CNN's Bill Schneider. Bill, good evening to you.
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening.
BROWN: I asked you just before we went on when you see the first wave of exit polls about one o'clock tomorrow what we look for there.
SCHNEIDER: Well, I'll be looking for whether the turnout is different from what we usually expect. Are we seeing a surge of turnout among say voters on the religious right or young voters or minority voters? Is there something unusual that seems to be happening in this election? I've seen enough surprises in my day not to be surprised by anything.
BROWN: I was about to ask you about that but I think that pretty much covers it. You can't really go anywhere with I've seen enough surprises not to be surprised. Have the polls showed any sort of tipping point in the last couple of days? Has there been a noticeable, even a small momentum shift?
SCHNEIDER: A little bit in the last week. What you just saw was that Bush maintains a very tiny lead nationally. That doesn't mean a thing. Al Gore came out nationally ahead of George W. Bush in 2000 and of course it came down to the electoral vote as you said. But we've been seeing a little momentum building in many of these polls for John Kerry in the last few days and what we noticed in our own poll is that on important foreign policy issues, Iraq and terrorism, Kerry has been cutting into Mr. Bush's lead. He seems to be making headway on what's supposed to be Bush's issues.
BROWN: Just a number of questions I think that will come up a lot tonight. Is there any evidence, either -- well, is there any evidence in the polling that the bin Laden tape of last Friday or the Iraq story which dominated the week, the story about the explosives changed significantly the dynamic?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I'll tell you what our poll showed. Over the past week, Bush's lead a week ago was 14 points ahead of Kerry for handling Iraq. Now his lead is four points. For handling terrorism, Bush was 22 points ahead of Kerry a week ago. Now he's eleven points ahead. What does that suggest?
It suggests that the controversy over the missing explosives in Iraq appears to have damaged Mr. Bush and a big surprise to a lot of people the Osama bin Laden tape, which a lot of people speculated would create fear and help Bush that seems to have had the exact opposite effect and I think the interpretation is we saw Osama bin Laden taunting President Bush and the clear message was this man is still at large.
BROWN: So much for the conventional wisdom. Mr. Schneider, you'll come back and join us a little bit later in the program. Thank you.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
BROWN: Our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield is here and Jeff Greenfield is here and Jeff will spend the night with us as well. There are so many things. Are there -- when you think about the campaign, it seems like a long time ago that we had dinner in Iowa on the eve of the primary. Are there opportunities -- were there opportunities both guys missed?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Yes, I think serious ones. I think we'll start with the challenger. When you think about people who successfully challenge incumbents, Reagan and Clinton, these were people who had a sense of a broader picture.
With Reagan it was taking on the Soviet Union on moral grounds, tamping the growth of government, reasserting traditional values. Clinton was challenging his own party in a lot of orthodoxies, on welfare, on crime, on the whole role of government.
And my feeling is that what John Kerry has not done, whether he wins or loses, is he's never engaged the country in a conversation about who he is and he's never stepped out and said "Here's what makes me bold enough to be president." For the life of me I was expecting him month after month to go to a group of white evangelicals, like Kennedy did to the Houston ministers.
BROWN: And the sister soldier moment.
GREENFIELD: Or the sister soldier moment or Reagan at the Urban League and saying "You and I disagree about an awful lot but we got to start having this conversation." I think it has been a very tactical, focused group, very cautious campaign. That may have been the right way to win. I think maybe it's going to make it harder for him to govern should he be president.
BROWN: Now.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
BROWN: Missed opportunities for Senator Kerry, missed opportunities for the president.
GREENFIELD: You know it's astonishing the number of conservatives who are about at their wit's end with the president, some of whom said they're voting for Kerry. The "Economist" magazine big Reagan supporters in the Cold War, conservative, backed Bush in 2000, backed the Iraq War and have said this fellow doesn't listen. There is no sense that he's learned a thing in the last four years. If you don't -- if you're not on the bus, you're off the bus. If you're Senator Lugar and you got problems, you're shut out.
And the number of people who are with him on policy and are saying either we can't support him, we just don't think that he has shown us anything about the second term that will be different and that to me is a great missed opportunity in this campaign.
BROWN: Is there any evidence though that the president is losing not among the conservative elite, if you will, the "Economist" magazine, but among conservatives generally?
GREENFIELD: Well...
BROWN: Losing ground I mean.
GREENFIELD: I think one of the reasons why college-age men are less supportive of him than they were in 2000 may have something to do with this. I mean the question I've heard from people who have -- they're really -- they're going to vote for Kerry like this, shutting their eyes.
BROWN: Yes.
GREENFIELD: Say what would it have been like with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld during the Cuban Missile Crisis? That to me is the question that at some level really hurts him the most.
BROWN: You're going to stay around for the rest of the night. We'll draw you in and out as we go along.
GREENFIELD: I'm here.
BROWN: Does that work for you?
GREENFIELD: I'm here. I'll go get coffee, whatever you need Aaron.
BROWN: It will be good practice for tomorrow.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the politics of Florida and Ohio, the Brown table is with us tonight as well, a lot of ground to cover. We'll take a break first.
This is NEWSNIGHT on election eve.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, the candidates have done pretty much what they can do. This is pretty much true of the ad men and women too. Now it is the ground game, some legit, some questionable, Republicans complaining tonight that Democratic callers are telling voters that General Norman Schwarzkopf supports Senator Kerry, Democrats complaining loudly of Republican phone calls telling voters that John Kerry approves gay marriage. The ground game is both naughty and nice it turns out.
CNN's Deborah Feyerick is in Pennsylvania tonight, Dan Lothian in the state of Ohio and, in Florida, John Zarrella.
Deb, let me start with you in Pennsylvania. There has been less controversy there than Ohio. Do you have a sense that there is a huge mobilization effort for tomorrow?
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, there's no question there's a huge mobilization effort. We're talking about tens of thousands of volunteers who have actually been out over the last 72 hours. They have been on the phone for hours. They have been walking miles and miles.
They're gassing up their cars to make sure that everybody gets to the polls, so they definitely want as many people to come to the polls as possible and they want to make sure that once they get to the polls they actually stay there, even if there are delays and cast their ballots.
BROWN: Actually a lot of concern that people are going to spend long lines in all sorts of places tomorrow.
In Ohio, Dan, this has been yet another day spent in courtrooms. Can you just lay the land out in Ohio where it stands on voter challenges right now?
LOTHIAN: Well I will, Aaron, and behind me is Senator Blackwell. He's the secretary of state here in Ohio. He is issuing a statement about tomorrow. But one of the things that continues to be an open question here is whether or not challengers will be allowed inside the polling stations. This is something that Republicans really want.
The current standing right now is that they will not be allowed to go inside to polling places to seek out as they see it fraud but they are appealing it, so it still continues. BROWN: Dan, let's do this. Let me let you listen to the secretary of state and once we have a feel for what he's saying, because he's the top election official, we'll come back to you, OK, Dan Lothian in Ohio.
John Zarrella down in Florida, John, I think about 20 percent of Floridians have already cast their ballots. Do we know anything about how they're voting?
ZARRELLA: Well, pretty close to 20 percent. The state officials say it's closer maybe to one million of the ten million. They don't have exact figures because they're waiting for the individual counties to report.
I can tell you this as far as how they're voting, no we don't know exactly how they are voting other than the polling that shows John Kerry perhaps ahead by three percentage points here in Florida but we do know that there are 1.4 million new voters in Florida since 2000, Aaron, and of those a large percentage are Independent voters.
So, it may very well again come down to Independent voters here tomorrow and they expect enormous turnout, long lines, 75 to 80 percent voter turnout very possible, very likely here in Florida -- Aaron.
BROWN: Seventy-five to eighty percent voter turnout?
ZARRELLA: That's what they are saying. Seventy is about normal. We had that four years ago for the presidential election. We could have up to eight million people total, one million that already voted, perhaps another seven million voting tomorrow here in Florida. That's what they're saying.
BROWN: Just briefly, how suspicious, if that's the right word do you find Floridians about the ability of the voting system to perform tomorrow?
ZARRELLA: Well, there certainly has been any number of lawsuits filed in that regard, the question being of course coming out of Bush v. Gore that the state needed a standardized system. There still is no standardized system.
Half of the voters will be voting on electronic voting machines, which do not produce a paper ballot if they need a recount. Half of the voters are going to be voting on optical scanners, which do.
So, yes, there is certainly concern but state officials from the governor to the secretary of state on down have complete confidence, they say, in the voting equipment as do all of the elections officials in the counties but then again, Aaron, what would you expect them to say -- Aaron?
BROWN: Well, yes, there is that factor isn't there? John, thank you very much, John Zarrella in Florida.
We'll get back to Dan Lothian when he has a feel for what the secretary of state is going to do there. Just briefly the issue there is -- the issues there actually, Republicans want to send challengers into polling places tomorrow. They have lists of people they say should not be registered.
They have taken three adverse federal court rulings today, two in the state of Ohio and one a more complicated case that was decided by a judge in New Jersey but essentially the same issue. The secretary of state has to decide whether to appeal that or not and we'll find out what he has decided as soon as he makes that clear.
We promised to spend the night with the sharpest operators we could find knocking around the big ideas and a few small ones perhaps as well, go where the conversation takes us.
We're joined now by Dana Milbank of "The Washington Post;" Chuck Todd, the editor of "Hotline," a political Bible to be sure; Elizabeth Garrett of the Center for the Study of Law and Politics out west at USC; and John Norris of MTV is with us here in New York and we're glad to see all of you.
Dana, what's your feel on turnout tomorrow around the country?
DANA MILBANK, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, the only thing we can be absolutely confident of is we have absolutely no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, which is kind of humbling for people in our business but all signs are to elevated turnout. The question is how much elevated is it? If we're really tipping the scales at the upper end, then it's almost certainly going to benefit John Kerry.
BROWN: The other end is 60-plus percent, right?
MILBANK: Oh, sure, yes or if you just think in absolutes, if we had 112 million voters last time, if we're going north of 118 million, 120 million that's looking like a huge job and that would probably benefit Kerry.
BROWN: And just for people who don't live this stuff in the way some of us do it will benefit Kerry because?
MILBANK: Well, the polls now are showing rough parity between the two of them, so what the polls cannot reach is those people generally who have not voted before who wouldn't be identified as likely voters.
If all these folks are coming out, these would be a lot of the minorities who have been registered, a lot of the young people who have been registered to vote. We have no idea how many of them are going to turn out and that's the huge variable here.
BROWN: It feels like a segue to John. John, you guys at MTV and Rock the Vote have been urging people to vote. Rock and rollers have been out there urging kids to vote. Are they going to vote tomorrow?
JOHN NORRIS, MTV NEWS: I think they are going to vote, Aaron, and all we have to go on, I guess it's all tea leaves but, you know, six out of ten, 18 to 30-year-olds told us in our most recent MTV poll the words were "definitely plan to vote." Whether they actually get out there and realize that we'll see of course.
And I'd have to agree that the higher the turnout probably does benefit Senator Kerry. He, among 18 to 30-year-olds led in our most recent polling by eleven points. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a poll of 18 to 30-year-olds where he wasn't in the lead by some degree.
BROWN: The question with, and I call them kids at that age, the question with kids is whether they show up.
NORRIS: Right. You're right.
BROWN: And we'll find out tomorrow.
Chuck, give me a sense of whose voters tomorrow do you think are the most passionate? Are Bush supporters more passionate than Kerry supporters or is the reverse true?
CHUCK TODD, THE HOTLINE: Well, I think that's what's so fascinating about this election is that, yes, the enthusiasm feels like it's on the anti-Bush side of the aisle and, you know, it's not necessarily a pro-Kerry vote. It's definitely an anti-Bush vote. But unlike incumbents that we've seen lose, incumbent presidents that we've seen lose, there's a true passion of love on Bush's side of the aisle.
You know Jimmy Carter didn't have this. George Bush's father didn't have this. And that's sort of this unknown variable in this election, you know. It's very easy for all of us to assume higher turnout that's got to mean bad things for an incumbent because normally that's the way it is.
But let me just throw a little bit of caution in, you know. When we start getting to 115, 120 million in turnout I think we do have an idea of which way the election is going to go but if we actually start getting into wilder places, like 125 million to 130 million, which are some estimates that some people are making, then suddenly you've got to throw everything out because then that's going to twist polls like we -- it's just going to twist the electorate like we've never seen and then no result should be a surprise at that point. I mean I always use as an example the crazy Jesse Ventura race in 1998. I mean it was a classic case of where we had no idea what turnout would be.
BROWN: Let me get Elizabeth into this. Elizabeth, you are I think honestly, candidly sort of fascinated by that which we do not know.
ELIZABETH GARRETT, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Right. I think that not only is voter turnout unknown but we really don't know who's going to be coming out to vote. Many of them have never voted before. Voting is going to be new to them. This is an election that has new issues.
We're always told that we're in this post-9/11 world and it's a very different kind of world. One way in which it's different is how much international issues are shaping people's opinions. Typically, it's the pocketbook issues that drive people to the polls. Now it's the international issues. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I think we're going to be surprised. I just don't know how.
BROWN: Just in ten seconds or less do you think we're going to end up in a massive legal brawl in all of this?
GARRETT: There is a chance of that but it depends on how close the election is and whether it's close in states that matter in the Electoral College. So, while I think there's a chance I don't think it's more likely than not that we'll have litigation.
BROWN: It's good to see you. It's good to see all of you. Thanks for joining us tonight.
Still ahead, we'll update the secretary of state's news conference in Ohio.
Then Nina, John and Terry join us, the Brown table.
Jeff Greenfield is still around. Bill Schneider comes back, lots to do.
This is NEWSNIGHT on the eve of the election.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Much as we'd like to believe this is the night the Brown table's been waiting for, we imagine the big night comes Wednesday, assuming there's a winner tomorrow. But we're always glad to see them anyway: Nina Easton of "The Boston Globe," Terry Neal, the washingtonpost.com, John Harwood of "The Wall Street Journal."
It seems like a while now that we've spent our nights together. It's good to see you guys.
I want to go kind of quickly here. Help me out.
John, let me start with you. Impact of the bin Laden tape on Friday -- big, small, insignificant? What do you think?
JOHN HARWOOD, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Pretty small. Hasn't moved a ballot, Aaron, but it's interesting. Bill Schneider made the point that it changed the way people viewed some of these guys on terrorism.
That's true in "The Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll. Confidence in both men in their ability to protect the United States from terrorism went down after Americans saw the bin Laden tape. But it went down a little bit more for George W. Bush than it did for John Kerry.
BROWN: He had more room to drop, if you will. He was higher. So, in that sense, it -- I mean, I don't like to put it this way, it's really inelegant, but it was a plus for Kerry?
HARWOOD: Well, very, very marginal. It has not changed the ballot.
BROWN: OK.
HARWOOD: We were 48-48 last week, 48-47 this week.
BROWN: Terry, you've been a big turnout guy in all of this. You talked with us about turnout a lot. Do you expect that those new voters are going to show?
TERRY NEAL, THEWASHINGTONPOST.COM: I do think that they're going to show. I think that, in any other year, I would be suspicious of people who made arguments that, you know, there are a lot of newly registered people. But I think this year is an emotional year.
I think George W. Bush has politicized the electorate in ways that are both good and bad for him, and I think that the turnout is going to be high, both because people like him a lot and they don't -- and there are a lot of people who don't like him, and they feel strongly about that. I think very few people are going to be coming out because John Kerry is on the ballot.
I really think that the president did a good job for a long time in turning this from the traditional sort of paradigm which is a president's reelection is about -- is about the sitting president. He, for a while, made Kerry the issue, but it's back to being a...
BROWN: A referendum on...
NEAL: ... referendum on the president.
BROWN: Nina, you've literally written a book on Senator Kerry. Anything about the Senator's campaign surprise you, or did it go pretty much the way you thought he would run a campaign?
NINA EASTON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Well, I think if you look at both men that the issue at the end of the day is going to be Iraq. Whether they win or lose is going to turn largely on that issue.
And what was interesting about John Kerry is he cast that vote in favor of the resolution to go to Iraq in 2002, and it was very much at odds with his history as an anti-war politician, dating back to the 1970s when he opposed Vietnam, to the 1980s where he opposed the intervention in central America and quoted John Lennon saying give peace a chance. He voted against the Persian Gulf War.
And so he -- when he voted in that 2002 case, it was a vote that he was always a little uncomfortable with, and I think the Bush campaign was extremely good at using that against him, to show him as an equivocator, as somebody who couldn't be trusted with very serious national security decisions.
So I think that vote that was cast really because a lot of advisers said if you're going to run in a general election against George Bush, you have to vote in favor of this resolution, it was -- became a difficult issue for him all the way around, and he really didn't find his footing on Iraq until just a -- several weeks ago. BROWN: I'm going to ask each of you this, so help me out here.
John, a defining moment in the campaign, as you watched it.
HARWOOD: The first debate. That's easy. It's the only thing that's happened since the two conventions that really moved the numbers in this race. John Kerry came out of the blocks very, very effectively, and George W. Bush had a bad night. That's what turned this into a dead heat at the end.
The second and third debates didn't do all that much. And, actually, the closing days' campaigning hasn't done all that much to move the numbers either.
BROWN: Actually...
EASTON: And if I can add to that, you know, John Kerry was preparing for that debate way back in June, and I think that the Bush campaign understated John Kerry. They saw him windsurfing on Nantucket Bay in August as the Republican Convention was opening. They portrayed him as flaky.
In fact, he was in Nantucket to prepare for that debate. He was prepared extremely rigorously, and it showed. There wasn't a question that came or a word that came out of George Bush's mouth during those three debates that John Kerry hadn't already heard and wasn't prepared to address.
BROWN: Given...
EASTON: So I think they really underestimated him on that.
BROWN: Given Senator Kerry's performance against Bill Weld in Massachusetts in the debates, that was a pretty foolish calculation, if you're right.
Terry, a defining moment for you in the campaign?
NEAL: I'd say a defining moment was at the Democratic Convention when Kerry spoke. It was defining for what he didn't do, not for what he did. I think he had a real opportunity here to present himself, and what he did was focus on Vietnam.
And that was fine, but he really needed to tell the American people what he wanted to do in the future, what he wanted to do as president that was different than George W. Bush, and I think he -- that was a missed opportunity that sort of hurt him, and he played a fairly significant price for that, spent a lot of time trying to catch back up to where he is now.
BROWN: All right. All three of you, one-word answers -- yes or no -- will we have -- will we know the winner by the time we go to bed tomorrow? Nina?
EASTON: Well, Aaron, I raised that question several weeks ago, and you told me that absolutely we would know the question before we went to bed. So I throw it back to you.
BROWN: Thank you. I'll take that as a yes.
John, yes or no?
HARWOOD: Yes, but some of are us going to bed a little later than others.
BROWN: I'll buy that.
Terry, yes or no, will we know the winner tomorrow?
NEAL: Yes. One word.
BROWN: Thank you all, and we'll talk Wednesday.
Just so viewers know, I've asked them all to write down who they think is going to win, and we'll see what they said come Wednesday.
Thank you, guys. You've been terrific.
When we come back, Jeff Greenfield, Bill Schneider come back, and we'll continue our discussion of the campaign which is now quite literally in its final hour.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We said earlier in Ohio it's been a day of court battles. Dan Lothian covering what may be the final chapter, not necessarily the final chapter -- Dan.
LOTHIAN: Still not the final chapter, and now I have my voice back. I don't have to whisper.
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did come out and make a statement earlier tonight, did not take any questions. It was less about all of the legal issues that have been taking place here in the state. Instead, it was more of an appeal to the voters here in Ohio.
He told them that when they go to the polls tomorrow, to be very patient, and if they saw any problems at all, if they felt any intimidation or saw fraud that they should contact the secretary of state's office.
BROWN: Dan, will these challengers, these Republican challengers, be allowed at the polls tomorrow, as best we know it right now?
LOTHIAN: As best we know it right now, they will not be allowed to go into the polling places tomorrow, but Republicans have appealed. So that could change.
BROWN: Dan, thank you very much.
Dan Lothian in Columbus.
Final segment of chat on this election eve. Jeff is still here. Bill Schneider comes back.
Jeff, the -- let's try to do two-sentence answers, if we can.
GREENFIELD: OK.
BROWN: OK. The most -- the biggest story untold of the campaign.
GREENFIELD: The fact that the Democrats and their allies had enough money to compete.
BROWN: And they had enough money because?
GREENFIELD: Because of the loophole in McCain-Feingold that let very, very rich people pour in millions and because the Internet finally came into its own this year and allowed massive sums of money to be raised in small increments.
BROWN: These are the 527s that we've heard so much about.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
BROWN: I've asked others this question. Defining moment in the campaign to you, Bill?
SCHNEIDER: For Kerry, the moment when he said in March when he said I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it, which gave Bush a theme that he ran on for the next eight months.
For Bush, the first debate, which shocked a lot of -- even his own supporters. They were startled to discover a president who was apparently so intellectually unprepared, particularly when he said that we attacked Iraq because we were attacked and Kerry pointed out but not by Osama bin Laden.
BROWN: He thought the debate hurt him as much on substance as style. A lot of the post-debate talk...
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
BROWN: ... was on the style.
SCHNEIDER: Not, it was on substance, too, because he seemed -- I'll put it this way. Kerry seemed more presidential than Bush to most viewers.
BROWN: When you look back on it, Jeff, swift boat controversy big deal, small deal, no deal at all?
GREENFIELD: Significant deal. It threw the Kerry campaign off stride. It also showed me at least that Kerry did not have the instincts of a political street fighter like a Clinton. He didn't in 12 hours say I'm going on Bill O'Reilly -- you should pardon the expression -- I'm going on Rush Limbaugh, if he'll have me, I'll go anywhere, and I'm taking this on.
BROWN: Did either of you think -- Jeff first -- that the senator made a mistake by building so much of his campaign early around Vietnam?
GREENFIELD: Yes, I couldn't agree more that the Democratic Convention is going to be seen, whether he wins or loses, as a huge missed opportunity to define himself. It's, frankly, intellectually incoherent to say I fought in Vietnam, therefore, elect me as president. It was too much.
BROWN: Did he misunderstand that there is considerable anger still in the land about his anti-war activities?
SCHNEIDER: Well, if he misunderstood it, then that's his big problem because those people have been hounding him for his entire career. The swift boat veterans have been after him for decades. Every time he runs for Senate, they would show up in Massachusetts to attack him. He knew this was coming, and he seemed totally unprepared for it.
BROWN: Are you surprised at how either side ran the campaign, that is to say that we talk about the negativity of the campaign, the way the ad war was fought? Anything about it surprise you big?
GREENFIELD: They so focused on battlegrounds and tactics that neither of these people bothered to spend literally five minutes or 30 minutes at the end of the campaign in the traditional address to the nation, and I think whichever one of them wins is going to be...
BROWN: When did someone last do that?
GREENFIELD: Well, I know Reagan did it. I think that the first Bush -- they addressed themselves to the country. I mean, Reagan, of course, loved formal speeches. But neither of them even bothered to talk to three-fourths of the country.
BROWN: Without telling me who, do you believe you know who will win tomorrow?
GREENFIELD: No.
BROWN: Do you believe you know who will win tomorrow?
SCHNEIDER: No.
BROWN: So it's sort of pointless to ask you to write down a name, isn't it?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
BROWN: Yes. OK. Then I won't.
Thank you both. We'll talk tomorrow.
I don't know either. When we come back, a first-time voter's story, and it is a story.
Break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Michael Austin will vote tomorrow, his first chance to vote since 1975. Think about that. In '75, Saigon had just fallen, Gerald Ford was president, and a jury convicted Michael Austin for murder and he was sent away for life plus 15 years.
But Michael Austin was an innocent man, and, 27 years later, the State of Maryland looked at the evidence suppressed at his trial and declared him innocent. Not technically innocent. Really innocent.
Prison changes everyone, of course. It changed Mr. Austin. For one, he thought a lot about freedom, and, for another, he learned to play the horn.
Both are part of his story, the story of a man who will vote for the first time in his life tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL AUSTIN, WRONGLY IMPRISONED: I set the phone down, and I just stood there for a minute, and I said I'm really going home tomorrow, and I walked back to my cell.
And I grabbed my trumpet. I started playing the trumpet a little bit, and then I got on my knees and I prayed. You have no idea how -- you just -- you just can't -- see, you have to imagine -- in a cell for 27 years, and then, one day, they open the door and say you can go home.
And I'm walking out of that door, and, when I walk out that door, in my mind, I'm saying this is a new world, I'm going to have to adapt.
When I came home, one day, I went to the Rite Aids, and I needed some toothpaste, and I wanted to do this on my own. This was the first time I was ever able to buy anything, you know, since I was 26. And I go to the counter, and I pick the toothpaste up, and I just started crying.
And I'm looking around and seeing if anybody's looking at me because they're going to think this guy's crying about a tube of toothpaste. And -- you know, and I asked myself why are you crying because I realized then how important freedom is.
I almost stayed in that cell 10,000 days, you know? And imagine those 10,000 days was enough time for me to either get it together or sink, and I didn't want to sink because, if I didn't voice what had happened to me, I would still be in prison, and that's the same thing about voting.
If you don't voice what is happening to you, then you're subject to the same thing, you know? So I just voiced, you know, the fact that I'm innocent, I didn't do anything, you know? But it's on the same principles when you get ready to vote. You're voicing how you really feel.
See, what was taken from me was a lifetime. We're talking about 27 years. I cannot allow myself to focus on what was taken. I'm focused on now, what am I going to achieve, and what am I going to gain? I'm going to vote right now in the street.
To be able to go in there and to take my place in the booth and push a button or two or three and say this is my selection is power. When you -- when power is taken away from you for such a long time, you can imagine how joyful and exhilarating it is to be able to have the power to do what you want to do.
We're all in this together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So Michael Austin is going to vote tomorrow. You might want to as well.
Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. You'll not be shocked by how the papers are headlining. But we'll go through a bunch of them.
Here we go. It seems fitting that we start with "Stars and Stripes." Where am I going to put my glasses? I'll put them there. "Stars and Stripes." "Frenzied Finish. Bush, Kerry Storm in Battleground States in Final Push" is the way our men and women overseas and at bases around the country will get the news tomorrow.
"Christian Science Monitor." "Can It Really Be This Close Again?" Down here, this is a good story. "Winner's Tough Task Governing." Oh, yes, there is that.
"The Washington Times." "Bush, Kerry Battle Down to the Wire." Down here, "Rehnquist Reveals Chemotherapy Treatment Signs Indicate Cancer." The chief justice of the Supreme Court is severe. That's a story that's -- it's difficult to cover. It's difficult to get information on the U.S. Supreme Court, but I suspect a lot of people are working on it.
Two Pittsburgh papers. "The Post Gazette" first. "Kerry, Bush Sprint to the Finish. Kerry Ends Long, Grueling Road with Sprint. President Relaxed, Jovial at Big Rally." "The Pittsburgh Tribune Review." "Final Countdown. Electoral College Witchcraft Could Spell Trouble, But Colorado's Mixed In." That's because Colorado is voting on an initiative to proportionally allocate their electors. Pretty good, huh?
"Philadelphia Inquirer." "Now the Voters Speak. Divided We Stand in 2004. Record Numbers Expected at Polls in Pivotal PA."
"The Rocky Mountain News." Boy, we -- that's great that they got us a headline. They must have printed this up yesterday. Thank them. "It's Your Turn," they say. "Bush, Kerry a Dead Heat as Election Day Arrives. Experts Predict Record Balloting." We'll see. "Hurry Up and Wait. Colorado Results Not Likely to be Finalized Tonight, Clerks Warn." That's not good.
"Chattanooga Times. "Country Makes Decision. Record Turnout Expected in Tri-State Area."
"San Francisco Examiner." "Divided Nation Goes to the Polls. President, Senator Kerry Finish Momentous Campaign."
Well, two to end. At "The Boston Herald," "Can He Take Bush?" Senator Kerry's picture. "'Not a Chance,' Vows Confident President." Didn't think the "Herald" would give an easy headline. And we end it, as we do, with "The Chicago Sun-Times." "It's This Close. And The Weather in Chicago Tomorrow Undecided."
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Coming up next, a continuation of Paula Zahn's town-hall meeting in the State of Florida, the last chance to hear from undecided voters and a last chance to hear the spinners spin, as they do.
We'll see you tomorrow on election night, and then on Wednesday 10:00 Eastern, we'll try and make sense of whatever it is.
Until then, good night for all of us.
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 1, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Twenty-four years ago on this night as a young reporter I covered then President Jimmy Carter's last stop of the campaign. He landed in Seattle, 11:00, right on time the beginning of the late local news. It was the last speech, the last rally, the last event of a long campaign.
What I didn't know then was that he already knew he had lost. The late polls had all broken for Ronald Reagan, so when President Carter landed in Seattle that night, he knew the next day would bring defeat.
It is possible tonight that aides to Senator Kerry or President Bush also know, possible but doubtful. They will go to bed tonight like the rest of us unsure what tomorrow may bring. Tonight, the last minute polls, some last thoughts from a variety of people on this long and often angry campaign.
The whip begins in Dallas, Texas and our Senior White House Correspondent John King, John before the vote a final headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, this will be the president's final rally, a homecoming celebration here in Texas. He will go to bed tonight uncertain whether this is the path of four more years or farewell -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you.
Cleveland and the Kerry campaign, CNN's Candy Crowley there, Candy the headline tonight.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: A pretty easy one tonight. We'll let the signage do the talking.
BROWN: You got it.
CROWLEY: Aaron.
BROWN: That's a headline.
Next another day in court over challenging voters in Ohio, this is getting very messy, Dan Lothian covering, Dan a headline.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: It is getting very messy indeed. This is a critical state for both President Bush and Senator Kerry. The race is very tight here but there's more than just a political battle. There's also a legal one -- Aaron.
BROWN: Dan, thank you.
And finally the ground game in the state of Florida, John Zarrella there, so John the headline.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, more than a million Floridians, according to state officials, have already voted in early voting and thousands of Democratic and Republican poll watchers are here in the state to make sure everything goes well -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program tonight looking for common ground after a long and bitter campaign, Jeff Greenfield spends the night with us to talk about the campaign past and where tomorrow may take us, also the late polls.
And we'll introduce you to a man who will vote tomorrow for the first time after 25 years in prison.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just voiced, you know, the fact that I'm innocent. I didn't do anything, you know, but it's on the same principles when you get ready to vote you're voicing how you really feel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Michael Austin's (ph) story of freedom and hope.
And politics in the papers, Morning Papers end the hour, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin this election eve on the ground the final hours of the race. For both candidates the last day on the stump meant a final dash through the battleground states where the margins are the thinnest, President Bush sweeping through six states starting his day in Ohio and ending it at home in Texas. With just hours to go until the polls open, we begin tonight with the Bush campaign and Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): In Ohio, to begin the final day of his final campaign, the outcome uncertain, the appeal as urgent as it gets.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you're a voter who believes that the president of the United States should say what he means and does what he says and keeps his word, I ask you to come stand with me.
KING: Marine One still at his disposal, Air Force One too, at issue whether his lease expires in just 79 days or in four more years, a mix of confidence and nostalgia in this rare tarmac visit with reporters in Pittsburgh.
BUSH: The finish line is in sight and I just want to assure you I got the energy and the optimism and the enthusiasm to cross the line.
KING: Ohio and Pennsylvania, then Wisconsin and Iowa, west to New Mexico and a homecoming rally in Texas.
KARL ROVE, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: We're going to win. We will win Florida and Ohio. We will take at least two or three or four states that were won by Gore in the last election.
KING: Democrats call it wishful thinking and history suggests those deciding late tend to choose change. So, Mr. Bush warned one last time that change would be for the worse in more ways than one.
BUSH: Hard-working people of Western Pennsylvania, we are not going to let him tax you for 20 years on the largest national security issues. He has been consistently wrong.
KING: In Iowa and at every stop a reflection on September 11th and how he sees his mission since.
BUSH: I've gotten up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America whatever it takes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: This rally here in Dallas tonight then back to the ranch in Crawford. Mr. Bush will vote near there in the morning. He'll actually stop in Ohio on the way back to Washington, one more get out the vote rally await the results at the White House.
Aaron, aides say the president is confident. He believes he will win tomorrow night but they say most of all as he played cards today he told them he was content no matter what, satisfied in his last campaign he gave it his best shot -- Aaron.
BROWN: That was his last campaign and this is the last day of it. What will you be looking for first tomorrow, John? What will be your indicator?
KING: The early results from Ohio and Florida. Those are the two states the president very much needs to win. One state you might say the first state to change hands in 2000 would be New Hampshire. Bush won it last time. They expect to lose it this time. That's not such a big deal. Ohio is the key for this president.
BROWN: John, thank you, John King on the campaign one more night.
For Senator Kerry the day looked much the same, a swirl of states, many the same as the president. More hands to shake, the stump speech with a final urgency. It is now in the hands of others. Mr. Kerry's day began in Florida, ends in Ohio. In between there was Wisconsin, Milwaukee, which is where CNN's Candy Crowley picks up the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY (voice-over): He spent more than a month of days here since March. He said goodbye on election eve with a little help from family and rockers. The only state that would be sweeter than Ohio is Florida.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've been coming to Florida enough that my brother Cam is thinking of running for governor, how's that?
CROWLEY: It is the longest of long shots that anything John Kerry says now in Florida or Wisconsin, Michigan or Ohio will affect tomorrow. It is about atmosphere now, about creating or keeping the sense of momentum. It has to be in your voice, in your step. It was cold and nasty when he said goodbye to Milwaukee but there they were in an outdoor plaza, the people he needs tomorrow.
KERRY: I'll tell you it may be one more day but I promise you this. I will never forget this rally in the rain here in Milwaukee.
CROWLEY: After a two year blur of small towns and big, rallies and speeches, there is no moment more urgent, more electric than right now. Listen.
KERRY: If you believe as I do that America's best days are ahead of us then join me tomorrow and change the direction of America.
CROWLEY: Kerry aides say they really do feel confident. They call their get out the vote operation the biggest Democratic effort in history. They like what they see in the polls. They claim early voting they've been able to track in battleground states favors Kerry. The truth is they wouldn't tell you if they were not confident. The truth is they aren't any more sure than anybody else.
KERRY: Knock on those doors. Make those phone calls. Talk to friends. Take people to the polls. Help us change the direction of this great nation for the better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: Miles to go before we sleep, Aaron. Tonight here in Cleveland, Ohio where Bruce Springsteen has come along, the Senator is meeting up with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is talking right now and from here on to Toledo. That will be the last moment in Ohio before he heads to Lacrosse, Wisconsin for an overnight. There will be an event in Lacrosse.
And now on a wing and a prayer he heads home to Boston tomorrow afternoon. He's going to go to his favorite restaurant and have a lucky bowl of clam chowder, something he has done every Election Day of his career -- Aaron. BROWN: What's the weather like in Ohio?
CROWLEY: It's great. I mean this is beautiful. I mean this is -- as you know, this can be a drag sometimes doing this but this is one of those nights when you think, oh this is why I do this. It's gorgeous in Cleveland.
BROWN: Weather supposed to be good tomorrow?
CROWLEY: No.
BROWN: OK.
CROWLEY: And so and that has to be a concern.
BROWN: Got it. That's the point. Thank you, Candy.
For the pollsters these are the final hours as well. Tonight, CNN's poll of polls, an average of the major national polling results shows the president with an average two point lead over Senator Kerry. That is the big picture nationwide but, as you know, this is about 50 individual states.
And, in Florida, the largest of the states in play or at least believed to be in play with 27 electoral votes here's what the latest CNN/USA Today Gallup poll shows, President Bush trailing Senator Kerry by a point, 48/47 among the likely voters, among registered voters, Senator Kerry ahead 49 percent to 45 percent, all of this within the margin of error.
Tomorrow the focus shifts to voter turnout and election returns, lots of numbers to crunch tonight and so we turn to our number cruncher, CNN's Bill Schneider. Bill, good evening to you.
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening.
BROWN: I asked you just before we went on when you see the first wave of exit polls about one o'clock tomorrow what we look for there.
SCHNEIDER: Well, I'll be looking for whether the turnout is different from what we usually expect. Are we seeing a surge of turnout among say voters on the religious right or young voters or minority voters? Is there something unusual that seems to be happening in this election? I've seen enough surprises in my day not to be surprised by anything.
BROWN: I was about to ask you about that but I think that pretty much covers it. You can't really go anywhere with I've seen enough surprises not to be surprised. Have the polls showed any sort of tipping point in the last couple of days? Has there been a noticeable, even a small momentum shift?
SCHNEIDER: A little bit in the last week. What you just saw was that Bush maintains a very tiny lead nationally. That doesn't mean a thing. Al Gore came out nationally ahead of George W. Bush in 2000 and of course it came down to the electoral vote as you said. But we've been seeing a little momentum building in many of these polls for John Kerry in the last few days and what we noticed in our own poll is that on important foreign policy issues, Iraq and terrorism, Kerry has been cutting into Mr. Bush's lead. He seems to be making headway on what's supposed to be Bush's issues.
BROWN: Just a number of questions I think that will come up a lot tonight. Is there any evidence, either -- well, is there any evidence in the polling that the bin Laden tape of last Friday or the Iraq story which dominated the week, the story about the explosives changed significantly the dynamic?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I'll tell you what our poll showed. Over the past week, Bush's lead a week ago was 14 points ahead of Kerry for handling Iraq. Now his lead is four points. For handling terrorism, Bush was 22 points ahead of Kerry a week ago. Now he's eleven points ahead. What does that suggest?
It suggests that the controversy over the missing explosives in Iraq appears to have damaged Mr. Bush and a big surprise to a lot of people the Osama bin Laden tape, which a lot of people speculated would create fear and help Bush that seems to have had the exact opposite effect and I think the interpretation is we saw Osama bin Laden taunting President Bush and the clear message was this man is still at large.
BROWN: So much for the conventional wisdom. Mr. Schneider, you'll come back and join us a little bit later in the program. Thank you.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
BROWN: Our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield is here and Jeff Greenfield is here and Jeff will spend the night with us as well. There are so many things. Are there -- when you think about the campaign, it seems like a long time ago that we had dinner in Iowa on the eve of the primary. Are there opportunities -- were there opportunities both guys missed?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Yes, I think serious ones. I think we'll start with the challenger. When you think about people who successfully challenge incumbents, Reagan and Clinton, these were people who had a sense of a broader picture.
With Reagan it was taking on the Soviet Union on moral grounds, tamping the growth of government, reasserting traditional values. Clinton was challenging his own party in a lot of orthodoxies, on welfare, on crime, on the whole role of government.
And my feeling is that what John Kerry has not done, whether he wins or loses, is he's never engaged the country in a conversation about who he is and he's never stepped out and said "Here's what makes me bold enough to be president." For the life of me I was expecting him month after month to go to a group of white evangelicals, like Kennedy did to the Houston ministers.
BROWN: And the sister soldier moment.
GREENFIELD: Or the sister soldier moment or Reagan at the Urban League and saying "You and I disagree about an awful lot but we got to start having this conversation." I think it has been a very tactical, focused group, very cautious campaign. That may have been the right way to win. I think maybe it's going to make it harder for him to govern should he be president.
BROWN: Now.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
BROWN: Missed opportunities for Senator Kerry, missed opportunities for the president.
GREENFIELD: You know it's astonishing the number of conservatives who are about at their wit's end with the president, some of whom said they're voting for Kerry. The "Economist" magazine big Reagan supporters in the Cold War, conservative, backed Bush in 2000, backed the Iraq War and have said this fellow doesn't listen. There is no sense that he's learned a thing in the last four years. If you don't -- if you're not on the bus, you're off the bus. If you're Senator Lugar and you got problems, you're shut out.
And the number of people who are with him on policy and are saying either we can't support him, we just don't think that he has shown us anything about the second term that will be different and that to me is a great missed opportunity in this campaign.
BROWN: Is there any evidence though that the president is losing not among the conservative elite, if you will, the "Economist" magazine, but among conservatives generally?
GREENFIELD: Well...
BROWN: Losing ground I mean.
GREENFIELD: I think one of the reasons why college-age men are less supportive of him than they were in 2000 may have something to do with this. I mean the question I've heard from people who have -- they're really -- they're going to vote for Kerry like this, shutting their eyes.
BROWN: Yes.
GREENFIELD: Say what would it have been like with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld during the Cuban Missile Crisis? That to me is the question that at some level really hurts him the most.
BROWN: You're going to stay around for the rest of the night. We'll draw you in and out as we go along.
GREENFIELD: I'm here.
BROWN: Does that work for you?
GREENFIELD: I'm here. I'll go get coffee, whatever you need Aaron.
BROWN: It will be good practice for tomorrow.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the politics of Florida and Ohio, the Brown table is with us tonight as well, a lot of ground to cover. We'll take a break first.
This is NEWSNIGHT on election eve.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, the candidates have done pretty much what they can do. This is pretty much true of the ad men and women too. Now it is the ground game, some legit, some questionable, Republicans complaining tonight that Democratic callers are telling voters that General Norman Schwarzkopf supports Senator Kerry, Democrats complaining loudly of Republican phone calls telling voters that John Kerry approves gay marriage. The ground game is both naughty and nice it turns out.
CNN's Deborah Feyerick is in Pennsylvania tonight, Dan Lothian in the state of Ohio and, in Florida, John Zarrella.
Deb, let me start with you in Pennsylvania. There has been less controversy there than Ohio. Do you have a sense that there is a huge mobilization effort for tomorrow?
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, there's no question there's a huge mobilization effort. We're talking about tens of thousands of volunteers who have actually been out over the last 72 hours. They have been on the phone for hours. They have been walking miles and miles.
They're gassing up their cars to make sure that everybody gets to the polls, so they definitely want as many people to come to the polls as possible and they want to make sure that once they get to the polls they actually stay there, even if there are delays and cast their ballots.
BROWN: Actually a lot of concern that people are going to spend long lines in all sorts of places tomorrow.
In Ohio, Dan, this has been yet another day spent in courtrooms. Can you just lay the land out in Ohio where it stands on voter challenges right now?
LOTHIAN: Well I will, Aaron, and behind me is Senator Blackwell. He's the secretary of state here in Ohio. He is issuing a statement about tomorrow. But one of the things that continues to be an open question here is whether or not challengers will be allowed inside the polling stations. This is something that Republicans really want.
The current standing right now is that they will not be allowed to go inside to polling places to seek out as they see it fraud but they are appealing it, so it still continues. BROWN: Dan, let's do this. Let me let you listen to the secretary of state and once we have a feel for what he's saying, because he's the top election official, we'll come back to you, OK, Dan Lothian in Ohio.
John Zarrella down in Florida, John, I think about 20 percent of Floridians have already cast their ballots. Do we know anything about how they're voting?
ZARRELLA: Well, pretty close to 20 percent. The state officials say it's closer maybe to one million of the ten million. They don't have exact figures because they're waiting for the individual counties to report.
I can tell you this as far as how they're voting, no we don't know exactly how they are voting other than the polling that shows John Kerry perhaps ahead by three percentage points here in Florida but we do know that there are 1.4 million new voters in Florida since 2000, Aaron, and of those a large percentage are Independent voters.
So, it may very well again come down to Independent voters here tomorrow and they expect enormous turnout, long lines, 75 to 80 percent voter turnout very possible, very likely here in Florida -- Aaron.
BROWN: Seventy-five to eighty percent voter turnout?
ZARRELLA: That's what they are saying. Seventy is about normal. We had that four years ago for the presidential election. We could have up to eight million people total, one million that already voted, perhaps another seven million voting tomorrow here in Florida. That's what they're saying.
BROWN: Just briefly, how suspicious, if that's the right word do you find Floridians about the ability of the voting system to perform tomorrow?
ZARRELLA: Well, there certainly has been any number of lawsuits filed in that regard, the question being of course coming out of Bush v. Gore that the state needed a standardized system. There still is no standardized system.
Half of the voters will be voting on electronic voting machines, which do not produce a paper ballot if they need a recount. Half of the voters are going to be voting on optical scanners, which do.
So, yes, there is certainly concern but state officials from the governor to the secretary of state on down have complete confidence, they say, in the voting equipment as do all of the elections officials in the counties but then again, Aaron, what would you expect them to say -- Aaron?
BROWN: Well, yes, there is that factor isn't there? John, thank you very much, John Zarrella in Florida.
We'll get back to Dan Lothian when he has a feel for what the secretary of state is going to do there. Just briefly the issue there is -- the issues there actually, Republicans want to send challengers into polling places tomorrow. They have lists of people they say should not be registered.
They have taken three adverse federal court rulings today, two in the state of Ohio and one a more complicated case that was decided by a judge in New Jersey but essentially the same issue. The secretary of state has to decide whether to appeal that or not and we'll find out what he has decided as soon as he makes that clear.
We promised to spend the night with the sharpest operators we could find knocking around the big ideas and a few small ones perhaps as well, go where the conversation takes us.
We're joined now by Dana Milbank of "The Washington Post;" Chuck Todd, the editor of "Hotline," a political Bible to be sure; Elizabeth Garrett of the Center for the Study of Law and Politics out west at USC; and John Norris of MTV is with us here in New York and we're glad to see all of you.
Dana, what's your feel on turnout tomorrow around the country?
DANA MILBANK, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, the only thing we can be absolutely confident of is we have absolutely no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, which is kind of humbling for people in our business but all signs are to elevated turnout. The question is how much elevated is it? If we're really tipping the scales at the upper end, then it's almost certainly going to benefit John Kerry.
BROWN: The other end is 60-plus percent, right?
MILBANK: Oh, sure, yes or if you just think in absolutes, if we had 112 million voters last time, if we're going north of 118 million, 120 million that's looking like a huge job and that would probably benefit Kerry.
BROWN: And just for people who don't live this stuff in the way some of us do it will benefit Kerry because?
MILBANK: Well, the polls now are showing rough parity between the two of them, so what the polls cannot reach is those people generally who have not voted before who wouldn't be identified as likely voters.
If all these folks are coming out, these would be a lot of the minorities who have been registered, a lot of the young people who have been registered to vote. We have no idea how many of them are going to turn out and that's the huge variable here.
BROWN: It feels like a segue to John. John, you guys at MTV and Rock the Vote have been urging people to vote. Rock and rollers have been out there urging kids to vote. Are they going to vote tomorrow?
JOHN NORRIS, MTV NEWS: I think they are going to vote, Aaron, and all we have to go on, I guess it's all tea leaves but, you know, six out of ten, 18 to 30-year-olds told us in our most recent MTV poll the words were "definitely plan to vote." Whether they actually get out there and realize that we'll see of course.
And I'd have to agree that the higher the turnout probably does benefit Senator Kerry. He, among 18 to 30-year-olds led in our most recent polling by eleven points. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a poll of 18 to 30-year-olds where he wasn't in the lead by some degree.
BROWN: The question with, and I call them kids at that age, the question with kids is whether they show up.
NORRIS: Right. You're right.
BROWN: And we'll find out tomorrow.
Chuck, give me a sense of whose voters tomorrow do you think are the most passionate? Are Bush supporters more passionate than Kerry supporters or is the reverse true?
CHUCK TODD, THE HOTLINE: Well, I think that's what's so fascinating about this election is that, yes, the enthusiasm feels like it's on the anti-Bush side of the aisle and, you know, it's not necessarily a pro-Kerry vote. It's definitely an anti-Bush vote. But unlike incumbents that we've seen lose, incumbent presidents that we've seen lose, there's a true passion of love on Bush's side of the aisle.
You know Jimmy Carter didn't have this. George Bush's father didn't have this. And that's sort of this unknown variable in this election, you know. It's very easy for all of us to assume higher turnout that's got to mean bad things for an incumbent because normally that's the way it is.
But let me just throw a little bit of caution in, you know. When we start getting to 115, 120 million in turnout I think we do have an idea of which way the election is going to go but if we actually start getting into wilder places, like 125 million to 130 million, which are some estimates that some people are making, then suddenly you've got to throw everything out because then that's going to twist polls like we -- it's just going to twist the electorate like we've never seen and then no result should be a surprise at that point. I mean I always use as an example the crazy Jesse Ventura race in 1998. I mean it was a classic case of where we had no idea what turnout would be.
BROWN: Let me get Elizabeth into this. Elizabeth, you are I think honestly, candidly sort of fascinated by that which we do not know.
ELIZABETH GARRETT, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Right. I think that not only is voter turnout unknown but we really don't know who's going to be coming out to vote. Many of them have never voted before. Voting is going to be new to them. This is an election that has new issues.
We're always told that we're in this post-9/11 world and it's a very different kind of world. One way in which it's different is how much international issues are shaping people's opinions. Typically, it's the pocketbook issues that drive people to the polls. Now it's the international issues. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I think we're going to be surprised. I just don't know how.
BROWN: Just in ten seconds or less do you think we're going to end up in a massive legal brawl in all of this?
GARRETT: There is a chance of that but it depends on how close the election is and whether it's close in states that matter in the Electoral College. So, while I think there's a chance I don't think it's more likely than not that we'll have litigation.
BROWN: It's good to see you. It's good to see all of you. Thanks for joining us tonight.
Still ahead, we'll update the secretary of state's news conference in Ohio.
Then Nina, John and Terry join us, the Brown table.
Jeff Greenfield is still around. Bill Schneider comes back, lots to do.
This is NEWSNIGHT on the eve of the election.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Much as we'd like to believe this is the night the Brown table's been waiting for, we imagine the big night comes Wednesday, assuming there's a winner tomorrow. But we're always glad to see them anyway: Nina Easton of "The Boston Globe," Terry Neal, the washingtonpost.com, John Harwood of "The Wall Street Journal."
It seems like a while now that we've spent our nights together. It's good to see you guys.
I want to go kind of quickly here. Help me out.
John, let me start with you. Impact of the bin Laden tape on Friday -- big, small, insignificant? What do you think?
JOHN HARWOOD, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Pretty small. Hasn't moved a ballot, Aaron, but it's interesting. Bill Schneider made the point that it changed the way people viewed some of these guys on terrorism.
That's true in "The Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll. Confidence in both men in their ability to protect the United States from terrorism went down after Americans saw the bin Laden tape. But it went down a little bit more for George W. Bush than it did for John Kerry.
BROWN: He had more room to drop, if you will. He was higher. So, in that sense, it -- I mean, I don't like to put it this way, it's really inelegant, but it was a plus for Kerry?
HARWOOD: Well, very, very marginal. It has not changed the ballot.
BROWN: OK.
HARWOOD: We were 48-48 last week, 48-47 this week.
BROWN: Terry, you've been a big turnout guy in all of this. You talked with us about turnout a lot. Do you expect that those new voters are going to show?
TERRY NEAL, THEWASHINGTONPOST.COM: I do think that they're going to show. I think that, in any other year, I would be suspicious of people who made arguments that, you know, there are a lot of newly registered people. But I think this year is an emotional year.
I think George W. Bush has politicized the electorate in ways that are both good and bad for him, and I think that the turnout is going to be high, both because people like him a lot and they don't -- and there are a lot of people who don't like him, and they feel strongly about that. I think very few people are going to be coming out because John Kerry is on the ballot.
I really think that the president did a good job for a long time in turning this from the traditional sort of paradigm which is a president's reelection is about -- is about the sitting president. He, for a while, made Kerry the issue, but it's back to being a...
BROWN: A referendum on...
NEAL: ... referendum on the president.
BROWN: Nina, you've literally written a book on Senator Kerry. Anything about the Senator's campaign surprise you, or did it go pretty much the way you thought he would run a campaign?
NINA EASTON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Well, I think if you look at both men that the issue at the end of the day is going to be Iraq. Whether they win or lose is going to turn largely on that issue.
And what was interesting about John Kerry is he cast that vote in favor of the resolution to go to Iraq in 2002, and it was very much at odds with his history as an anti-war politician, dating back to the 1970s when he opposed Vietnam, to the 1980s where he opposed the intervention in central America and quoted John Lennon saying give peace a chance. He voted against the Persian Gulf War.
And so he -- when he voted in that 2002 case, it was a vote that he was always a little uncomfortable with, and I think the Bush campaign was extremely good at using that against him, to show him as an equivocator, as somebody who couldn't be trusted with very serious national security decisions.
So I think that vote that was cast really because a lot of advisers said if you're going to run in a general election against George Bush, you have to vote in favor of this resolution, it was -- became a difficult issue for him all the way around, and he really didn't find his footing on Iraq until just a -- several weeks ago. BROWN: I'm going to ask each of you this, so help me out here.
John, a defining moment in the campaign, as you watched it.
HARWOOD: The first debate. That's easy. It's the only thing that's happened since the two conventions that really moved the numbers in this race. John Kerry came out of the blocks very, very effectively, and George W. Bush had a bad night. That's what turned this into a dead heat at the end.
The second and third debates didn't do all that much. And, actually, the closing days' campaigning hasn't done all that much to move the numbers either.
BROWN: Actually...
EASTON: And if I can add to that, you know, John Kerry was preparing for that debate way back in June, and I think that the Bush campaign understated John Kerry. They saw him windsurfing on Nantucket Bay in August as the Republican Convention was opening. They portrayed him as flaky.
In fact, he was in Nantucket to prepare for that debate. He was prepared extremely rigorously, and it showed. There wasn't a question that came or a word that came out of George Bush's mouth during those three debates that John Kerry hadn't already heard and wasn't prepared to address.
BROWN: Given...
EASTON: So I think they really underestimated him on that.
BROWN: Given Senator Kerry's performance against Bill Weld in Massachusetts in the debates, that was a pretty foolish calculation, if you're right.
Terry, a defining moment for you in the campaign?
NEAL: I'd say a defining moment was at the Democratic Convention when Kerry spoke. It was defining for what he didn't do, not for what he did. I think he had a real opportunity here to present himself, and what he did was focus on Vietnam.
And that was fine, but he really needed to tell the American people what he wanted to do in the future, what he wanted to do as president that was different than George W. Bush, and I think he -- that was a missed opportunity that sort of hurt him, and he played a fairly significant price for that, spent a lot of time trying to catch back up to where he is now.
BROWN: All right. All three of you, one-word answers -- yes or no -- will we have -- will we know the winner by the time we go to bed tomorrow? Nina?
EASTON: Well, Aaron, I raised that question several weeks ago, and you told me that absolutely we would know the question before we went to bed. So I throw it back to you.
BROWN: Thank you. I'll take that as a yes.
John, yes or no?
HARWOOD: Yes, but some of are us going to bed a little later than others.
BROWN: I'll buy that.
Terry, yes or no, will we know the winner tomorrow?
NEAL: Yes. One word.
BROWN: Thank you all, and we'll talk Wednesday.
Just so viewers know, I've asked them all to write down who they think is going to win, and we'll see what they said come Wednesday.
Thank you, guys. You've been terrific.
When we come back, Jeff Greenfield, Bill Schneider come back, and we'll continue our discussion of the campaign which is now quite literally in its final hour.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We said earlier in Ohio it's been a day of court battles. Dan Lothian covering what may be the final chapter, not necessarily the final chapter -- Dan.
LOTHIAN: Still not the final chapter, and now I have my voice back. I don't have to whisper.
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did come out and make a statement earlier tonight, did not take any questions. It was less about all of the legal issues that have been taking place here in the state. Instead, it was more of an appeal to the voters here in Ohio.
He told them that when they go to the polls tomorrow, to be very patient, and if they saw any problems at all, if they felt any intimidation or saw fraud that they should contact the secretary of state's office.
BROWN: Dan, will these challengers, these Republican challengers, be allowed at the polls tomorrow, as best we know it right now?
LOTHIAN: As best we know it right now, they will not be allowed to go into the polling places tomorrow, but Republicans have appealed. So that could change.
BROWN: Dan, thank you very much.
Dan Lothian in Columbus.
Final segment of chat on this election eve. Jeff is still here. Bill Schneider comes back.
Jeff, the -- let's try to do two-sentence answers, if we can.
GREENFIELD: OK.
BROWN: OK. The most -- the biggest story untold of the campaign.
GREENFIELD: The fact that the Democrats and their allies had enough money to compete.
BROWN: And they had enough money because?
GREENFIELD: Because of the loophole in McCain-Feingold that let very, very rich people pour in millions and because the Internet finally came into its own this year and allowed massive sums of money to be raised in small increments.
BROWN: These are the 527s that we've heard so much about.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
BROWN: I've asked others this question. Defining moment in the campaign to you, Bill?
SCHNEIDER: For Kerry, the moment when he said in March when he said I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it, which gave Bush a theme that he ran on for the next eight months.
For Bush, the first debate, which shocked a lot of -- even his own supporters. They were startled to discover a president who was apparently so intellectually unprepared, particularly when he said that we attacked Iraq because we were attacked and Kerry pointed out but not by Osama bin Laden.
BROWN: He thought the debate hurt him as much on substance as style. A lot of the post-debate talk...
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
BROWN: ... was on the style.
SCHNEIDER: Not, it was on substance, too, because he seemed -- I'll put it this way. Kerry seemed more presidential than Bush to most viewers.
BROWN: When you look back on it, Jeff, swift boat controversy big deal, small deal, no deal at all?
GREENFIELD: Significant deal. It threw the Kerry campaign off stride. It also showed me at least that Kerry did not have the instincts of a political street fighter like a Clinton. He didn't in 12 hours say I'm going on Bill O'Reilly -- you should pardon the expression -- I'm going on Rush Limbaugh, if he'll have me, I'll go anywhere, and I'm taking this on.
BROWN: Did either of you think -- Jeff first -- that the senator made a mistake by building so much of his campaign early around Vietnam?
GREENFIELD: Yes, I couldn't agree more that the Democratic Convention is going to be seen, whether he wins or loses, as a huge missed opportunity to define himself. It's, frankly, intellectually incoherent to say I fought in Vietnam, therefore, elect me as president. It was too much.
BROWN: Did he misunderstand that there is considerable anger still in the land about his anti-war activities?
SCHNEIDER: Well, if he misunderstood it, then that's his big problem because those people have been hounding him for his entire career. The swift boat veterans have been after him for decades. Every time he runs for Senate, they would show up in Massachusetts to attack him. He knew this was coming, and he seemed totally unprepared for it.
BROWN: Are you surprised at how either side ran the campaign, that is to say that we talk about the negativity of the campaign, the way the ad war was fought? Anything about it surprise you big?
GREENFIELD: They so focused on battlegrounds and tactics that neither of these people bothered to spend literally five minutes or 30 minutes at the end of the campaign in the traditional address to the nation, and I think whichever one of them wins is going to be...
BROWN: When did someone last do that?
GREENFIELD: Well, I know Reagan did it. I think that the first Bush -- they addressed themselves to the country. I mean, Reagan, of course, loved formal speeches. But neither of them even bothered to talk to three-fourths of the country.
BROWN: Without telling me who, do you believe you know who will win tomorrow?
GREENFIELD: No.
BROWN: Do you believe you know who will win tomorrow?
SCHNEIDER: No.
BROWN: So it's sort of pointless to ask you to write down a name, isn't it?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
BROWN: Yes. OK. Then I won't.
Thank you both. We'll talk tomorrow.
I don't know either. When we come back, a first-time voter's story, and it is a story.
Break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Michael Austin will vote tomorrow, his first chance to vote since 1975. Think about that. In '75, Saigon had just fallen, Gerald Ford was president, and a jury convicted Michael Austin for murder and he was sent away for life plus 15 years.
But Michael Austin was an innocent man, and, 27 years later, the State of Maryland looked at the evidence suppressed at his trial and declared him innocent. Not technically innocent. Really innocent.
Prison changes everyone, of course. It changed Mr. Austin. For one, he thought a lot about freedom, and, for another, he learned to play the horn.
Both are part of his story, the story of a man who will vote for the first time in his life tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL AUSTIN, WRONGLY IMPRISONED: I set the phone down, and I just stood there for a minute, and I said I'm really going home tomorrow, and I walked back to my cell.
And I grabbed my trumpet. I started playing the trumpet a little bit, and then I got on my knees and I prayed. You have no idea how -- you just -- you just can't -- see, you have to imagine -- in a cell for 27 years, and then, one day, they open the door and say you can go home.
And I'm walking out of that door, and, when I walk out that door, in my mind, I'm saying this is a new world, I'm going to have to adapt.
When I came home, one day, I went to the Rite Aids, and I needed some toothpaste, and I wanted to do this on my own. This was the first time I was ever able to buy anything, you know, since I was 26. And I go to the counter, and I pick the toothpaste up, and I just started crying.
And I'm looking around and seeing if anybody's looking at me because they're going to think this guy's crying about a tube of toothpaste. And -- you know, and I asked myself why are you crying because I realized then how important freedom is.
I almost stayed in that cell 10,000 days, you know? And imagine those 10,000 days was enough time for me to either get it together or sink, and I didn't want to sink because, if I didn't voice what had happened to me, I would still be in prison, and that's the same thing about voting.
If you don't voice what is happening to you, then you're subject to the same thing, you know? So I just voiced, you know, the fact that I'm innocent, I didn't do anything, you know? But it's on the same principles when you get ready to vote. You're voicing how you really feel.
See, what was taken from me was a lifetime. We're talking about 27 years. I cannot allow myself to focus on what was taken. I'm focused on now, what am I going to achieve, and what am I going to gain? I'm going to vote right now in the street.
To be able to go in there and to take my place in the booth and push a button or two or three and say this is my selection is power. When you -- when power is taken away from you for such a long time, you can imagine how joyful and exhilarating it is to be able to have the power to do what you want to do.
We're all in this together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So Michael Austin is going to vote tomorrow. You might want to as well.
Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. You'll not be shocked by how the papers are headlining. But we'll go through a bunch of them.
Here we go. It seems fitting that we start with "Stars and Stripes." Where am I going to put my glasses? I'll put them there. "Stars and Stripes." "Frenzied Finish. Bush, Kerry Storm in Battleground States in Final Push" is the way our men and women overseas and at bases around the country will get the news tomorrow.
"Christian Science Monitor." "Can It Really Be This Close Again?" Down here, this is a good story. "Winner's Tough Task Governing." Oh, yes, there is that.
"The Washington Times." "Bush, Kerry Battle Down to the Wire." Down here, "Rehnquist Reveals Chemotherapy Treatment Signs Indicate Cancer." The chief justice of the Supreme Court is severe. That's a story that's -- it's difficult to cover. It's difficult to get information on the U.S. Supreme Court, but I suspect a lot of people are working on it.
Two Pittsburgh papers. "The Post Gazette" first. "Kerry, Bush Sprint to the Finish. Kerry Ends Long, Grueling Road with Sprint. President Relaxed, Jovial at Big Rally." "The Pittsburgh Tribune Review." "Final Countdown. Electoral College Witchcraft Could Spell Trouble, But Colorado's Mixed In." That's because Colorado is voting on an initiative to proportionally allocate their electors. Pretty good, huh?
"Philadelphia Inquirer." "Now the Voters Speak. Divided We Stand in 2004. Record Numbers Expected at Polls in Pivotal PA."
"The Rocky Mountain News." Boy, we -- that's great that they got us a headline. They must have printed this up yesterday. Thank them. "It's Your Turn," they say. "Bush, Kerry a Dead Heat as Election Day Arrives. Experts Predict Record Balloting." We'll see. "Hurry Up and Wait. Colorado Results Not Likely to be Finalized Tonight, Clerks Warn." That's not good.
"Chattanooga Times. "Country Makes Decision. Record Turnout Expected in Tri-State Area."
"San Francisco Examiner." "Divided Nation Goes to the Polls. President, Senator Kerry Finish Momentous Campaign."
Well, two to end. At "The Boston Herald," "Can He Take Bush?" Senator Kerry's picture. "'Not a Chance,' Vows Confident President." Didn't think the "Herald" would give an easy headline. And we end it, as we do, with "The Chicago Sun-Times." "It's This Close. And The Weather in Chicago Tomorrow Undecided."
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Coming up next, a continuation of Paula Zahn's town-hall meeting in the State of Florida, the last chance to hear from undecided voters and a last chance to hear the spinners spin, as they do.
We'll see you tomorrow on election night, and then on Wednesday 10:00 Eastern, we'll try and make sense of whatever it is.
Until then, good night for all of us.
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