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Democrats Prepare for Pennsylvania; McCain Hopes to Gain Conservative Support; How Long Will Obama and Clinton Battle?

Aired March 06, 2008 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, I'm Mary Snow. Welcome to this Thursday edition of CNN's BALLOT BOWL.
Over the next hour you'll have a chance to hear from the presidential candidates, sometimes live, sometimes on tape, but always unfiltered. Today is kind of a rare day, it's relatively quiet on the campaign trail, though that is not expected to last very long.

There is a lot though going on behind the scenes. Joining me in the next hour to bring it all to you is my colleague, Dana Bash who's in Atlanta right now for the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain.

Hi, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Mary.

You're right, Senator McCain is actually going to come here later this afternoon to do really what he is going to be doing intensely and has been for the past couple of weeks, and that is try to raise money. He has a fundraiser here, just like he did yesterday in Florida.

That is going to be the name of the game, get as much cash in his coiffeurs as possible to go up against the Democrats, whoever the Democrat is going to be. But you know Mary, you talk about it being a quiet day on the campaign trail that is something that is very rare, especially given the conundrum that the McCain campaign is in right now.

Senator McCain talked about this earlier today in Florida, whether or not it helps or hurts for the Democratic battle to be going on so intensely still and with no end in sight, whether or not it helps him because of the fact that they are going to bloody each other up and that could give Senator McCain more time to unite his party and to get his message right or whether it hurts him because they're basically sucking up all the oxygen and the narrative of this incredibly gripping campaign.

Senator McCain talked about that and a whole bunch of other things this morning. He was campaigning in the state of Florida. He was in West Palm Beach, and he was there with the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, he is a man who endorsed Senator McCain right before Florida's primary, really helped push him over the edge there and frankly gave him the momentum likely to capture the Republican nomination. Let's go to some of what Senator McCain was talking about earlier today, it included talk, speculation, about who his vice presidential pick would be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... We have begun that process and we expect to not even outline how we're going to go about this, talking about how that process was conducted by other candidates and nominees. I know one thing about Governor Crist and that is that he is a great governor, he does a great job and I think that despite his -- the allegations otherwise, I think there are many ways to (INAUDIBLE).

I also I know that in the state of Florida when he ran to be governor of the state of Florida, so the process is really open here. I know that Governor Crist will continue to serve this country in many respects. (INAUDIBLE)

I think there is two ways of looking at this. One, is that having secured the nomination of my party, then in order for me to keep visibility nationally, it's going to be more difficult obviously because (INAUDIBLE) it is a competitive race and there will understandably be more attention to Senator Obama and Senator Clinton.

But at the same time, it does present us with an opportunity to go around and shore up our base of support, unite our party and energize our party and spend time, as Charlie and I have this morning, both with our financial backers, as well -- so something like this has never happened before. It's hard to predict how it's all going to play out. I'm sure knowing the importance of the state of Florida, it's going much better in the last few days. I'm sure it will continue to get better but we have a lot of work to do.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's Senator John McCain speaking this morning in West Palm Beach, Florida. A little bit hard to here there. We bring you the candidates unscripted and raw. That was definitely raw from Senator McCain.

But the gist of what he was talking about was this idea that he is going to have to remain in the headlines. He's going to have to find a way to do that. And what we're told from his campaign is that their approach is going to be, not just spending a lot of time raising money and holding press conferences but they are also trying to devise a series of policy initiatives, policy speeches.

I'm told that Senator Phil Graham, a former senator from Texas, who is a very close adviser of Senator McCain, he is working on an economic plan for the senator, one that we're told they insist is going to be bold. The other thing that Senator McCain is going to do is foreign travel, he is going to do that as soon as this month, going to travel the world, some of the world's hot spots in order to really give the sense, the perception and the idea, that he is, and could be, a commander in chief with the command of the issues on the world stage.

That is something that is absolutely critical, the McCain campaign thinks, to his campaign especially as he tries to run as he did in the primary season in the general election as somebody with the most national security experience.

So, Mary, you have been watching Senator McCain like I have -- I'm bringing in my colleague Mary Snow in New York and it is going to be very interesting, very interesting to see how even in terms of temperament and mentality they transition from the small band of campaign advisers that really is his comfort zone that he has been dealing with for the past couple of months, into what has to be a much more structured, general election campaign in order to deal with and really combat the Democrats who saw him begin to do that when he went to the Republican National Committee yesterday and basically adopted a huge staff of about 150 people. They hope that will help.

SNOW: Really, it's going to be so interesting to watch Dana. And as you mentioned, with Senator McCain there with Governor Crist of Florida, Governor Crist right now smack in the middle of a debate of whether or not the Democrats should have a do-over in both Florida and Michigan.

We have more on that later, but on the Democratic side, Senator Clinton is going to be returning to the stump later today. She does so with some new big bucks. Clinton advisers telling CNN this morning that Senator Clinton has raised nearly $3 million online since her victories on Tuesday.

She is in Washington now, she is going to be heading over to Mississippi later today. Of course Mississippi has its primaries next Tuesday. Her husband, President Bill Clinton, headed out west. He is campaigning in Wyoming. That is the site of Saturday's caucuses. Senator Barack Obama is not on the campaign trail today. He is back home in Chicago.

No public events, however, he did speak to reporters on the plane home last night from San Antonio to Chicago. Some of the things he's been asked about obviously in the past couple of days, is the number of delegates he has, since he's leading the delegate race against Senator Clinton. Here's a little bit of what Senator Obama had to say last night on his press plane.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Clinton and her team asserted that they had to win Texas and Ohio, and the truth was they had to win them handily (ph). We were down 20 points. We closed the gap. Didn't close it completely, and they deserve congratulations for being tenacious and working hard.

But the delegate count is essentially unchanged from where it was yesterday. So now we go to Wyoming and Mississippi. We think we'll do well this week. We feel that there is a strong possibility that we gain substantially more delegates out of Wyoming and Mississippi than Senator Clinton gained last night.

And so we will continue to build our delegate lead. We will continue to campaign in every state. We will not be cherry-picking which states we deem important, because our attitude is every state is important. And by taking that approach, I'm pretty confident that we're going to end up with more delegates, having won more state, won more primaries, won more caucuses and have more of the popular vote.

And I think that going into the convention with more votes, more states, more primaries, more caucuses, more delegates, we're going to be in a pretty strong position. By the way, with respect to super delegates, I think it's important to note that over the last couple of weeks we've gained scores of delegates and Senator Clinton has actually lost some delegates.

Even that advantage that she had has been drastically diminished. There's no doubt that Senator Clinton went (INAUDIBLE) over the last week and the kitchen sink strategy I'm sure had some impact, particularly in a context where many of you in the press corps have been persuaded that you had been too hard on her and too soft on me.

So complaining about the rest apparently worked a little bit this week, and so in addition to my call to Loren Michaels, hopefully now people feel like everything's evened out and we can start actually covering the campaign properly.

(END VIDETAPE)

SNOW: You have Senator Obama talking last night on his way home to Chicago. You hear him also talking about the fact that the Clinton campaign has thrown what he says everything but the kitchen sink at him.

The Clinton campaign is fighting back this morning -- issuing a memo saying that Senator Obama's negative attacks just make the case that he really can't make an affirmative case for his candidacy. This keeps getting so heated.

Senator Obama heading back to the campaign trail tomorrow in Wyoming. Caucuses will be held there on Saturday. Behind the scenes there is a heated debate over whether or not Democrats should redo the contest in Florida and Michigan. We're going to have a lot more on that as we come back.

Stay with us, you're watching BALLOT BOWL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL '08. I'm Dana Bash in Atlanta.

The voting is over, but the counting of the votes on Tuesday is still going on in the state of Texas. The Democrats, everybody who covers politics -- follows politics I should say, knows by now the Democrats had been called the Texas two-step in Texas and they had a primary but they also had a caucus. We still don't have final results yet two days later from those caucus results. We want to tell you what our latest numbers are though, 40 percent are reporting right now from the Texas Democratic caucus. Senator Obama according to our count has 56 percent and Senator Clinton has 44 percent.

Remember, Senator Clinton actually won the primary in Texas. It was a big win, a big upset for -- an important upset for Senator Clinton. But there you see with 40 percent reporting, Senator Obama is leading in the caucus in that very same state.

Now we talk about the caucus, this is something that really threw Democrats for a loop in the state of Texas. It was absolutely chaotic and for that part of the story we go to CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to say it one more time -- clear this airway now! Move!

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Police officers were called into this Houston school to control the crowds, frustrated voters who waited until 3:00 in the morning, eight hours, to finish the caucus.

ROSITA BROUSSARD, TEXAS VOTER: We all feel that our vote doesn't count and they are not worried about our vote.

LAVANDERA: Across Texas there were scenes of chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got people walking off and leaving.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's disorganized and people are getting frustrated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is not right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The process is extremely confusing. No one seems to be in charge.

LAVANDERA: Clinton and Obama supporters also accusing each other of playing games with caucus rules.

TRACEY CARTER, TEXAS VOTER: They told us at first to just -- it wasn't enough writing material so just sign your name and then you're free to go. And then after people had signed their names and they had left, then we get someone else that comes in and says, OK, if you leave then your vote doesn't count.

LAVANDERA: Then there is the story behind these pictures, a Clinton supporting precinct captain leaving a caucus site with sign-in sheets. Several witnesses claim she refused to take 27 sheets with Obama supporters' signatures. That's when Dallas Democratic Chairwoman, Darlene Ewing, was called in.

DARLENE EWING, DALLAS CO. DEMOCRATIC CHAIRWOMAN: They kind of got into a little bit of a car chase over the sign-in sheets.

LAVANDERA: A car chase?

EWING: They all ended up in the police station and they called us. We went out this morning at 1:00 and took possession of the paperwork.

LAVANDERA: Texas Democratic officials say several incidents of voter fraud will probably be investigated but that these were isolated incidents, especially considering there were more than 8,000 caucus sites statewide.

HECTOR NIETO, TEXAS DEMOCRATIC PARTY: When you put a million people in across the state into caucuses, of course you're going to have some problems.

LAVANDERA (on camera): We're also told Democratic officials are looking into an incident where an Obama supporter flew in from New York and took control of a precinct and the sign-in sheets. Clinton supporters are saying at this particular location that all of the sheets with the Clinton supporters' names on them have mysteriously disappeared. Now the Clinton campaign is also talking about filing a lawsuit.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Now the count is still going on of course in Texas. We could have results today.

We also want to switch over to another hot spot, and that is the state of Florida. Florida and Michigan now in the spotlight as the debate on the Democratic side is centered around whether or not the Democratic contest should be done over.

We want to bring in John Zarrella in Miami.

John, it seems that when it comes to politics and elections, Florida is never really that simple, is it?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Mary, it absolutely is not. Here's the question -- you had 1.7 million Democrats who voted in the primary on January 29th here in Florida, and now you're going to say well maybe we need to do a re-do because the Florida delegation of course is not being seated, nor is the Michigan delegation being seated, because the two states violated Democratic party rules by moving up into January.

That was against party rules so the party stripped them of all their delegates and said, that's it, you are not going to be allowed to seat your delegates at the convention. Well, nobody really thought that, come March, that it would matter that much, that there would be a nominee already, and that Florida and Michigan might not matter.

Well guess what? Here we go again. Florida does matter. Now yesterday the two governors of Florida and Michigan, Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Charlie Crist of Florida each sent a letter together to the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, and said, look, you folks have got to come up with a solution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHARLIE CRIST, (R) FLORIDA: -- how important it is, at least in a fair, open, free election, and so how important it is for the citizens of Florida, and the citizens of Michigan, to have their voice heard. It's unconscionable to me that some party boss in Washington is not going to permit the people to be heard. That's not what America is all about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: Now this morning on our "AMERICAN MORNING" program, the chairman of the DNC said, look, we already offered help and now it's too late.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: We actually offered to help the Democratic Party in Florida a long time ago and they turned us down. Now, unfortunately, that time is gone. We've got to focus our resources on winning and frankly on John McCain who, yesterday, promised to give us another four more years of George Bush in Iraq and the economy and so forth. So our job now is to elect a president of the United States and we're not going to have a reason to run a primary in Michigan and Florida.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: One thing that's important to remember in Florida is that it was a Republican legislature and a Republican governor who passed the legislation a year ago to move the primary up. And this legislation basically was part of -- the moving up of the primary was part of an overall bill that was an election reform bill that provided for a paper trail in Florida.

Now, remember what happened when we didn't have that, the mess back in 2000. So they were trying to eliminate a problem in future elections with this paper trail bill and they ended up causing a bigger problem now by moving the election up. The Democrats say, look, we had to support the paper trail, the Republicans had the numbers anyway in the legislature, the bill was going to pass, there was nothing they could about it to try and stop the bill.

So now who's going to pay for a re-do here, Mary? The Democratic Party is saying we're not paying for a re-do. The Democratic National Committee says we're not. The state of Florida doesn't have the money to pay for a re-do. You can't do a caucus in Florida. They've never had one before so that's a real problem. There has been some talk of perhaps going to the two candidates who are raising all kinds of money and maybe asking them to ante up some cash to do re-do in Florida and perhaps in Michigan.

How do you think that would fly, Mary?

SNOW: Something tells me we're going to be seeing a lot of you in the near future. John because it's no easy answer, right?

ZARRELLA: It's a mess. It's still a mess.

SNOW: Sounds like it. All right John Zarrella, thank you very much.

We're going to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to take a look at other headlines making news, including the very latest on that explosion this morning in New York's Times Square.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone I'm Don Lemon live at the CNN World Headquarters here in Atlanta.

O'BRIEN: re BALLOT BOWL in just a few minutes but first a quick check of stories making headlines this hour.

Targeting New York's Times Square, the FBI and joint terrorism task force is investigating an early morning blast at a military recruiting station. Luckily no one was hurt but the detonation did stifle all surrounding traffic for a while. Police say the crude explosive device was about the size of a lunch box. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says they are tracking down leads on a possible suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK: There was a bicyclist here earlier that somebody said acted suspiciously. Those are the facts that we know. There is no evidence of any connection to anybody else, but that's all we know and we don't want to get ahead of the story here. We'll only tell you what we know, and we're not in the business of speculating.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: The office was described as the busiest walk-in recruitment office in the nation. As a precaution the U.S. Army has alerted all its recruitment centers after today's explosion.

And we have a developing story from California and the college campus of U.C. Davis. Authorities there say a student is in custody after explosive devices were found in a dorm room, that's according to a "Sacramento Bee" report.

It says the drama began last night when a woman reported several students had what appeared to be explosives. A school spokesman says that led to the evacuation of more than 400 students from eight dorm buildings. The suspect is 19-years-old, he's a freshman from Torrance. In Alabama this morning police are stepping up patrols at Auburn University after a freshman's murder. Authorities say there are no signs others on campus are in danger. Lauren Burke was found shot on a highway several miles from school, her car was later found burning on campus. Burke died at a hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had been talking just this weekend about how we needed to meet up, we hadn't hung out at all this semester. In fact the last comment she made was, scolding me for not having called her when I said I would. That's been really hard to deal with.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Police say they haven't identified a suspect in this case. Burke's sorority is planning a memorial.

We're keeping a close eye on this developing story, it's happening in Los Angeles. Look at that. These pictures from our affiliate KTLA showing an apparent mudslide in the Westwood area of the city. They are trying to track down the water's source. The utility provider says they have no reports of a water main break and a few people have been evacuated but no injuries so far. We'll keep you posted on that one.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LEMON: A 9-year-old girl is at the center of a first of its kind medical finding. For the first time federal health officials have concluded that a vaccine contributed to the girl's autism symptoms. Will this case impact other children with autism? CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta will have details on it in the 1:00 p.m. hour of the CNN NEWSROOM.

Meantime I'm Don Lemon. I'll see you again live at the top of the hour for the "CNN NEWSROOM."

Until then, back to "Ballot Bowl" after a quick break though.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Welcome back to this Thursday edition of CNN's BALLOT BOWL. I'm Mary Snow in New York.

This is a chance for you to hear directly from the presidential candidates, whether it be live, on tape, but it's always unfiltered.

And I want to bring in my colleague, Dana Bash, who is in Atlanta today.

And, Dana, kind of a rare day. It's pretty light on the campaign trail, but a lot going on behind the scenes.

All right. We're having a little bit of a microphone issue there. Until we get Dana back, we want to take a closer look at what's been going on in Florida because as the Democratic race becomes so heated, there are real questions about what to do next in Florida because the delegates were not counted. The rules were, after Florida decided to move up its primary, that Florida's Democratic delegates would not be seated. The candidates did not campaign in the state.

Now with that race so heated, there is a big push to perhaps re- do what the primary there. Governor Charlie Crist. You saw him earlier with Senator McCain. He has endorsed Senator McCain. He is the governor of Florida. And he is pushing to have voters' voices heard. Here's what he had to say earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRIST: Well, ideally, we want the votes that were already cast to be counted. I mean that's just the logical thing to do. On January the 29th we had a record turnout for both Republicans and Democrats in Florida.

The argument that Governor Granholm of Michigan and myself are making that is that the people of our respective states voted, they cast that precious right, they made their voice heard and those delegates who represent them should be seated at both conventions.

This is not just a Democratic issue, it's also a Republican issue. The Democratic Party has said that none of the Democratic delegates from Florida will be seated an the Republican Party has said that only half of the Republicans will be seated. We want them all to be seated because democracy matters. It is important.

And common sense would dictate that these votes should be counted. Every vote should count. This should make a difference and the people should be heard. Not the party bosses in Washington. The people in Michigan and Florida need to be heard.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: There are, obviously, differing points of view on this. One is that, you know, voters were told -- I mean, they knew that their votes might not count because of the back-and- forth that took place between the DNC and your state and so candidates didn't campaign there.

Some would argue that it was an unfair advantage to Hillary Clinton who had more name recognition than Barack Obama. That they all signed pledges not to campaign there, not to run ads there. So is it really a fair election?

CRIST: Well, we think so. I mean ads were, in fact, run here. As I understand it, there were national ads on the Obama side that were run. What matters is that we set a date for the people to be able to vote, to have their vote make a difference, to put Florida, in our case, at the forefront of choosing the next leader of the free world. That's our right that our founding fathers put forward when they founded this country. So many Americans have fought for that precious right.

You know, in Florida, just 90 miles south of Key West, there's a place -- there's an island called Cuba where they don't have that precious right. We exercise that right. We did it in a fair way. Michigan did the same thing.

The governor of Michigan is a Democrat. I happen to be a Republican. This is not a partisan issue. This is about common sense and people having the right to vote. It is unconscionable that people's votes will not count. They should count. They should be seated.

I've already had communications with Senator Bill Nelson, who happens to be a Democrat, and Senator Mel Martinez from Florida, a Republican. They both agree that the right thing to do is to have those votes that were already cast count.

If not, then they both make the argue that the Democratic National Committee should pay for it and it should be overseen if there is a recount by the state of Florida, which we'd be happy to do. But it's not fair that the taxpayers should pay for it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: The fact of the matter is, you cannot violate the rules of the process and then expect to get forgiven for it. What happens here has a big effect on what happens at the nominating convention. Could determine, as you pointed out, the nominee.

We've got to play by the rules. If you didn't do that, then half of the people in the Democratic Party whose candidates doesn't win this nomination are going to go away believing they've been cheated. I've got to run a process where everybody believes it is an honest result. And the only way to do that is to stick to the rules that were agreed to by everybody at the beginning.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Governor Crist is suggesting that he might be open to the idea of holding another primary down there in Florida but he's not willing to foot the bill. He's says, if anybody should foot the bill, it's the Democratic National Committee. Are you willing to open up your pocketbook and pay out what some people estimate could be as much as $25 million for it?

DEAN: We actually offered to help the Democratic Party in Florida a long time ago and they turned us down. Now, unfortunately, that time is gone. We've got to focus our resources on winning. And, frankly, on John McCain, who yesterday promised to give us another four more years of George Bush in Iraq and the economy and so forth.

So our job now is to elect a president of the United States and we're not going to have the resources to run a primary in Michigan or Florida. So we hope they can comply with the rules, but they're going to have to figure out how to pay for it.

ROBERTS: You know, when you look at the players involved here, Governor Crist is a Republican. It might be in his interest to have Hillary Clinton become the nominee because Republicans would like to run against her. Governor Granholm of Michigan is a Hillary Clinton supporter. She got the most number of votes there during the primary in Michigan. Are there really any honest brokers involved in this decision?

DEAN: Well, that's the big problem, John. You put your finger on exactly the problem. If you argue this after the fact, then you're arguing to advantage one campaign or another. The honest -- I have to be the referee. I have to be the honest broker. I have to say, we're going to stick to the rules. It's the only way that you can maintain the integrity of the process.

Look, the rules may be wrong, maybe Florida and Michigan wish they hadn't done that now. I suppose they thought they were going to do it and then they were going to come and push us into violating the rules. If I violate the rules, I essentially throw the integrity of the nominating process out the window and half the Democratic Party goes away angry. That is the only thing that could make John McCain president, if the Democrats get divided.

This is a Democratic year. Americans want change. We've had record turnouts on the Democratic side, including support from Republicans and independents. We've got to keep that going. And that's my job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: There you have Howard Dean, the DNC Chairman, on the Democratic side, giving his argument and Charlie Crist, the Republican governor of Florida, giving his argument over what should happen.

Here to help us now sort it all out, our Bill Schneider.

And, Bill, honestly, what are the options that Florida and Michigan right now have?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they have a number of things they could do. I mean they're pressing for the votes already cast to count. That seems unlikely. Certainly the Obama campaign will resist that because Hillary Clinton won the Florida and Michigan primaries without any campaign.

The candidates themselves agreed not to campaign there. And in Florida, most of the candidates, not Hillary Clinton, but the other candidates, including Obama, kept their name off the ballot. So it's hard to say that was a fair campaign.

What's the other option? To have some sort of do-over contest. It could be a caucus. The Obama people might go for that because they tend to win caucuses. The Hillary Clinton campaign doesn't want to caucus.

There's some talk of having a new primary. The Clinton campaign might agree to a new primary. The Obama people may be a little reluctant to support that because, of course, these are states that have already voted for Hillary Clinton and they might again.

But there's another issue. Who's going to pay for it? Charlie Crist, the governor, says the taxpayers shouldn't bear that burden. And the Democratic National Committee says, yes they should because their state violated the rules and he doesn't want the Democratic Party to spend tens of millions of dollars to pay for these primaries because they want their funds to be used for the general election campaign. So there's another issue, who's going to pay for it.

And the states may want to have a primary simply because they now realize having a primary, even as late as June in Florida and Michigan, suddenly they'll matter. These are two big states and those primaries could be the climax of the whole contest. So there's suddenly renewed interest in doing just that.

SNOW: Yes, all these states wanted to move up to matter and now it is the reverse that's happening. And, you know, Bill, in these primaries that were already held, though, there was very high turnout. And how does that factor in now to this whole debate?

SCHNEIDER: Well, Governor Crist, Governor Granholm argued that over two million people voted in those primaries. Their votes should count. This was a huge turnout. And it was.

But let me point out something unusual that happened in Florida and Michigan. Florida and Michigan were two of only four states that I know of -- I haven't check all of them in the last couple of weeks -- but as of a couple of weeks ago there, they were two of only four states that held primaries in which Democratic turnout was less than Republican turnout.

What were the four states? Republican turnout was higher in Arizona, because a lot of Republicans came out to vote for John McCain. It was higher in Utah because a lot of Utah voters, primarily Mormon voters, came out to support Mitt Romney. And Florida and Michigan.

What that says is, Florida and Michigan had unusually low Democratic turnout. It did not surpass Republican turnout because the Republican votes counted. At least half their delegates would be seated and there was a real contest and a real campaign.

There was no campaign in Florida and Michigan. The delegates weren't supposed to be seated. So the evidence suggests, even though over two million people voted, a lot of voters did not show up in those two states. So it's hard to argue it was a fair contest.

SNOW: All right, Bill Schneider, sorting it you a out for us. Thank you, Bill.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

SNOW: We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going (INAUDIBLE) at the next big showdown. That is the state of Pennsylvania. That contest coming up in six weeks.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Welcome back to CNN's Thursday edition of BALLOT BOWL. I'm Mary Snow in New York.

We're going to take a little bit of a diversion just for a second to bring you Brett Favre's retirement announcement that's going on right now in Green Bay. He's officially retiring from the Green Bay Packers. Since this is BALLOT BOWL, there is somewhat of a football theme. So we thought we'd bring you a little bit of what he has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT FAVRE, GREEN BAY PACKERS QUARTERBACK: I am officially retiring from the NFL and Green Bay Packers. And as much as I've thought about what I would say and how -- I promised I wouldn't get emotional...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: That was Brett Favre getting emotional there in his retirement -- his official retirement from the Green Bay Packers. We're going to hear more of him on CNN's "NEWSROOM" coming up.

But now we want to switch back to politics. I want to bring in my colleague, Dana Bash.

Dana, I'm not quite sure how that's going to affect the presidential election, but we thought we'd bring it to everybody.

BASH: But as our producer said, you know, a little football during BALLOT BOWL is not the worst thing in the world right now. So it's interesting and certainly noteworthy for sports junkies, as much as political junkies, Mary, thank you very much.

Speaking of political junkies, you know, political junkies do have a little bit of time, not until April, for the next contest, for the next really important contest on the Democratic side, and that is the state of Pennsylvania. Chelsea Clinton was campaigning yesterday in Pennsylvania. She was in Philadelphia.

She has been more and more active on the campaign trail, talking about her mother, giving the personal side of her mother, but also talking about some of the experience she thinks that she has and the reasons why she thinks her mother should get the nomination. She has been the Clinton campaign thinks particularly helpful in getting the youth vote out to try to combat that kind of momentum that Barack Obama has had, big-time momentum that Obama has had with the youth. So there you see Chelsea Clinton yesterday campaigning in Philadelphia for her mother.

Now speaking of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, as we said, that is going to be the next big, big battleground for Democrats. And for more on that story we go to our Jim Acosta.

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Less than 12 hours after the ballots were counted in Ohio, Hillary Clinton's volunteers at this Pittsburgh union hall were already taking her blue collar message from the buckeye state to a steel city that's showing signs of rust.

COURTNEY PELLIGRINO, CLINTON CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEER: I feel that people in Pennsylvania, like the people in Ohio, are looking for a hard worker. They're looking for a fighter. They're looking for someone who can really get results for the working people.

ACOSTA: Across town, team Obama is also just getting warmed up.

MARK ELLERMEYER, OBAMA CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEER: What I don't get is the way Senator McCain and Senator Clinton criticize him. I'm glad to be inspired. I'm looking to be inspired.

ACOSTA: But there are still plenty of undecideds. Take Pittsburgh's 28-year-old Democratic mayor, Luke Ravenstahl. He wasn't old enough to vote for Clinton's husband in 1992 or '96, but that doesn't mean he's just another young voter leaning toward Barack Obama.

MAYOR LUKE RAVENSTAHL, (D) PITTSBURGH: While I am a young mayor and represent certainly the youth of our city, I also represent the entire population. And I need to make sure that before I make a decision, my decision is based on what I think is going to be best for Pittsburgh.

ACOSTA: That could mean another race that turns on the economy. While three-quarters of the population is urban and could go Obama, a quarter of the work force is blue collar, a number that may favor Clinton.

MARK HALPERIN, SR. POLITICAL ANALYST, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Pennsylvania, on paper, is a good state for Clinton. It's a lot like Ohio demographically. Like in Ohio, she has the support of the very politically active governor, Ed Rendell. So I think Obama's got his work cut out for him.

ACOSTA: When it comes to gaining some delegate ground, Pennsylvania is a good bet for Clinton. There are 158 pledged delegates up for grabs here, making it a bigger prize than Ohio.

Jim Acosta, CNN, Pittsburgh.

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BASH: All you political junkies will have to wait six weeks for the Pennsylvania primary and that is going to be -- certainly there is going to be a lot of attention focused on that state between now and then. Even John McCain is going to be spending time there. Because it's not just an important state for the primary, it is a critical, critical state for the general election as well.

Now after a break, we are going to talk about a Republican candidate who bowed out of the race earlier this week. And that is the former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee. He always gave us some quips, some laughs and some interesting comments here on BALLOT BOWL. We're going to go to perhaps one of his final events for BALLOT BOWL. He spoke to reporters at his home in Arkansas yesterday. We're going to bring you some of that, some of his thoughts on dropping out of the race. Stay with us.

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SNOW: Welcome back to this Thursday edition of CNN's BALLOT BOWL.

And we want to go now to Mike Huckabee. And as Dana Bush just said, this could be his perhaps last appearance on BALLOT BOWL as a candidate. Of course, he withdrew from the race one day after dropping out.

He held a dinner at his home in Little Rock, Arkansas, for his staff. Also invited members of the press to come along. And he did speak quite openly about what his day was like and we want to take a listen to Mike Huckabee from yesterday.

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MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm disappointed and certainly, obviously, not pleased with the final outcome. But also, you know, I have to put it in perspective. And you don't sit around and say, let me think who didn't support me.

I looked out there in the faces of those people last night, as I have every single day, dozens of times a week, and I just remember the many people who have supported us, who have faithfully stuck with us through all of it, made huge sacrifices for us to be there.

So rather than, you know, think about what I wish hadn't happened, I'm just grateful for what did happen. I'm thrilled with it. The extraordinary journey we've had. And when I look at the resources we had compared to anybody else, I mean they -- everybody else virtually, you know, had a dollar to our dime.

And it's pretty remarkable. We went further than anybody but the nominee. You know, to get, if you will, to the final four. An NCAA play and March Madness, that's pretty good.

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SNOW: That was Mike Huckabee talking with reporters last night at his home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Also saying that he spoke with President Bush yesterday.

We want to bring back Dana Bash, who really covered Mike Huckabee extensively in the -- especially in the early days when he won in Iowa.

And, Dana, I wanted to also get your thoughts about this. You know, Ed Rollins yesterday, his campaign director, has said, no, we don't expect Mike Huckabee to be asked to be John McCain's vice presidential choice. But he also added that, you know, when someone is asked, it's really hard to say no. Are you seeing that he's kind of keeping a door open there?

BASH: You know, possibly. It's so hard to tell whether or not he's really going to be taken seriously for the second slot. But, you know, I thought, first of all, Mary, I mean how emotional was Mike Huckabee there? That was so interesting just to see him like that. He obviously lots of time says what he thinks but he really, given what he was thinking there, it was so fascinating to hear him reflect like that.

But you know what I was thinking. We were talking about how you might not see Mike Huckabee on BALLOT BOWL. Actually after I said that I thought, you know, maybe that's wrong because, as you know, because you have been also covering him recently, what his plan is right now is really to go out and campaign hard for John McCain.

And talking to McCain advisors, they are very much hoping that he does that because they really need help from him with the kind of Republican conservative voters that he reaches in an unbelievable way, almost unprecedented in recent history. And so he has promised to do that.

McCain and Huckabee really are genuinely friends. They actually really do like each other. And so, for that reason, and also because Huckabee understands the tradition of the Republican Party, and that is you run once, you don't do well and next up you are definitely considered one of the top contenders, especially if you're a team player.

If you're a team player. And that's what Mike Huckabee is absolutely intending to do. So maybe we are going to see him out and about on the campaign trail with John McCain, or even on his own, going into some of those red states, ginning up the conservative vote for him, don't you think?

SNOW: Yes, you're right. It's funny. After saying that it might be his last time, I rethought that.

And, you know, the candidate also repeatedly mentioned that Ronald Reagan didn't win the first time that he ran.

BASH: Exactly.

SNOW: So perhaps this could lay the groundwork.

Do you think that he could help John McCain specifically with conservatives?

BASH: Yes. I mean, I think that's what the McCain campaign is really hoping. And clearly, you know, Mike Huckabee understands that he is somebody who can do that and he can get that going for John McCain and it's something that John McCain really needs.

But the other thing is, you know, we had a little bit of a discussion during the campaign about how Mike Huckabee kept his speaking engagements, his paid speaking engagements. I would imagine his speaking fees are going to go way up. He's probably going to have some fun doing that. Fun making a little bit of money at this point. And maybe even there's talk about him getting a radio show. I mean he is somebody who is a personality. So we are definitely going to see him out and about.

And for that, we are going to finish this edition of BALLOT BOWL. "NEWSROOM" is up next with that breaking news about Brett Favre retiring from the NFL. We're going to get you that after a break.

Stay with us.

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