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Hillary Clinton Will Releases Her Delegates; McCain Launches New Attack Ads; No More Income Tax?

Aired August 24, 2008 - 18:00   ET

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

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: The ticket is named. The push is on. Barack Obama trying to convince the country that he and Joe Biden are the right choice. This is a staple of political gatherings. The protestors are already there. DNC organizers say they are ready, but are they?
And an unwelcome visitor still refusing to leave. Where is Fay headed now? This has been the storm of storms, and you are now in the CNN NEWSROOM.

When you hear the breaking news music, that means that there is new information to share with you that we have just learned of. And here it is. We at CNN can now confirm that Hillary Clinton will, in fact, release -- that's an important word in this case - release her delegates. She will do so, we understand, on Wednesday. So many had been speculating that there was a possibility that there could some kind of tussle on the floor between so many of the delegates that Hillary Clinton had acquired. And Barack Obama's camp who is trying to make sure that, in fact, the show wasn't stolen by them.

There had been talks about chants, of some folks in Hillary Clinton's camp actually trying to scream down the delegation as they went into the roll call. But, again, the information we're learning right now -- let me tell you, folks, this just came to us moments ago, just as I got ready to go on the air here, our political unit said they had just received this information, making it official.

And also possibly, in consideration of the McCain attack ad that came out today that seems to be trying to drive a rift between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That, in fact, she will release her delegates. I understand we have -- is Mr. Gergen ready to go here? All right, the first question I guess has to be about this -- how important do you think this decision is?

DAVID GERGEN, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's symbolically very important because there has been this sense that one of the dramas that might play out at this convention is a rift, a tension between the Clintons personally and Barack Obama. And the fact I think that Hillary Clinton is doing this on the eve of the convention, passing this word which says that the delegates can vote for her but she's not asking them to be bound by their pledges, that means some will vote for Barack Obama. It means her numbers are likely go down is a sign of graciousness on her part, a generous gesture, that also sends a signal to her supporters that she wants peace at this convention.

You know, there's still some very hard feelings among some of her activist supporters, a sense that Barack Obama at the end not only didn't consider her seriously but didn't reach out to her, wasn't gracious to her. So I think she is -- this is important. She is reaching out in a symbolically important way.

SANCHEZ: Is she sending a message as well to McCain's people who had put out this ad that maybe some of our viewers may not be familiar with, but essentially seemed to be trying to drive wedge right between Obama and Clinton and if not Hillary Clinton herself, certainly Hillary Clinton supporters?

GERGEN: Well, the McCain campaign has been very aggressive and I think has been moving much more quickly than anyone might have imagined and done it pretty darn well from a political standpoint.

But yes, I do think she's trying to head that off. She's trying to head off all the demonstrators, the sort of hard feelings on the part of her supporters. She's trying to bring people in. It's extremely important of course to remember that going into this convention, polls were showing that only about half of the people who voted for Hillary Clinton said they will vote for Barack Obama at this moment. He needs a far bigger percentage than that to win the election. Everybody knows that.

So for her to take one of these early symbolic steps before the convention even starts, taking and making it clear, there's not going to be a lot of suspense about her speech or Bill Clinton's speech they're both going to be supportive, I think that takes -- it moves the story away from the Clinton-Obama fight to the Obama-Biden ticket. That's what the Obama folks want to get out to the American people. They don't want this to be about a fight between Hillary Clinton and her husband. They want this to be about unity and people coming together and rallying around this new ticket of Obama and Biden.

SANCHEZ: And David, you said I think what really seems to be the key word here, moves the story.

Up to now, journalists are always looking for that new hot thing. The new hot thing in this convention was the possibility that there could be a rift between these two. This does seem to, if not dismantle that story, certainly push it down to perhaps page five or six, doesn't it?

GERGEN: Absolutely because conventions have become so scripted. Everybody knows that. The press is naturally looking for -- you're always looking -- the story is, where's the tension? That's what journalists look for. Naturally enough, that's what's news.

So there was going to be a real chance that this convention could be overshadowed by this so-called rift, that it would be -- that Hillary's supporters would stage large-scale demonstrations and they still -- you're still going to see a major, major celebration of Hillary Clinton here.

That's important, but it's going to be -- it looks now with her taking this kind of step and to various people around her saying, wait a minute, she's OK about Joe Biden. She understands that. She's going to support it. She respects Joe Biden in the Senate.

That it's taking the air out of that story and allowing the cameras, if you would, and the conversation to shift over to, can Obama-Biden beat John McCain and his vice president? And that's much more important. That's a very positive thing for Democrats to show, to start bringing and making this -- they need -- the Democrats in this extraordinarily close race now, they need party unity, they need to rally behind.

SANCHEZ: David Gergen, able to put things in perspective as well as anybody with his own experience. We thank you for available to us just at the beginning of the show as we were getting this new information. David, appreciate it, thank you.

We're getting in some new polls as well, and this is important information. ABC and the "Washington Post" just released some figures. We took those numbers, plugged them into our poll of polls, as we often do which is essentially taking all the polls and putting them together and trying to come up with something that pretty much shows you a good picture of where things are.

This gives Obama a four-point lead over John McCain. Now, why is this different? It is. Yesterday we were talking about a two point increase. Now it's a four-point difference between the two.

So, again, yesterday it was a two-point separation, now it's a four- point separation. Keep in mind, though, the surveys were taken before Obama named Joe Biden as his running mate. We do expect things to change later on today when we get another poll that actually reflects the Biden change, if there is, in fact, a Biden bounce.

Something else is changing as well. Tonight, Barack Obama's tone. It was evident today at a campaign stop in Wisconsin. I want you to watch this. This is CNN's Jim Acosta who has put this story together for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Barack Obama was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin today, but he did not have the half of his ticket by his side. Joe Biden was sent back to Delaware to pack his bags and get his speech ready for the upcoming convention. Obama here at this park in Eau Claire was introduced by a local resident here who urged the senator from Illinois and Democrats in general to play it nice. He obviously has not been looking at the Obama campaign playbook from the last 24 to 48 hours, starting with Joe Biden's rollout at the selection announcement that was unveiled in Springfield, Illinois, all the way heading into today's event.

The senator from Illinois is marking a sharply different tone out here on the campaign trail. He went right after John McCain on several different fronts from the economy to the war in Iraq. He again tried to link Senator McCain to the Bush administration, and he went back once again to some talking points that we've seen from the Obama campaign over the last several days, not just how many houses John McCain owns but also that comment that John McCain made at the Saddleback Forum a week ago with Pastor Rick Warren in that forum that was held in front of Evangelical Christians in California, that event where John McCain said he define being rich as someone making $5 million a year. Barack Obama went right after that today.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: John McCain was asked at the Saddleback Forum, what's your definition of rich? He said, I don't know, $5 million, which means if you're making four, then you're scrimping.

ACOSTA: As for Barack Obama, he is not heading straight to the convention. He is instead going to be campaigning in several battle ground states. He's leaving Wisconsin, which is a state that he desperately needs to stay in the Democratic column. Then it's off to Iowa, then Missouri and Montana. Missouri and Montana are states that Barack Obama would definitely like to see turn blue this fall. Montana, in fact, a state that has voted Republican for many, many years, has a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators. It's a state the Obama campaign has set its sights on for November.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: That's Jim Acosta following that story for us.

Senator John McCain and his wife Cindy attended a church service in Phoenix this morning. Afterward they headed to an Arizona Diamondbacks game. The senator had mostly good things to say about Obama's running mate choice when he talked to CBS today

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think he's a good selection. Joe and I have been friends for many, many years, and we know each other very well and so I think he's probably made a very wise selection. I know that Joe will campaign well for Senator Obama and so I think he's going to be very formidable. Obviously Joe and I have been on different philosophical sides, but we have been -- I consider him a good friend and a good man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: A good friend and a good man, but I should note that if you go to the RNC Web site, they actually have a gaffe meter where they're measuring the time it will take for Joe Biden to have another slip of the tongue.

Another interesting note. During the church service, the minister ran clips from Pastor Rick Warren's faith forum. This is the church service where John McCain was with his wife Cindy McCain, where the candidates were asked what their biggest moral failing was. It was probably best described as an awkward choice with the McCains there looking on as everyone in the congregation got to see this and hear this, especially since John McCain said his biggest moral failing was his failed first marriage. The minister says he was simply trying to get his congregation to, all of them together, confront their own morality. Let's talk about Fay now. Why? Because she simply will not go away. The storm's been a nightmare for so many people. For more than a week now, check out these folks, they're trying to get rescued by boat. This is in Tallahassee. Fay has been downgraded now to a tropical depression, but it could still drop a foot of rain over that region. Today President Bush declared four Florida counties major disaster areas.

These are cows in Tallahassee who are trying to get through as well. There's standing water like this all over parts of northern Florida. And folks in New Orleans are sandbagging just as a precaution. The low lying city has its own canal flood watch teams on alert just in case part of those waters end up in that region. So where in the world is Fay headed now? I guess we just showed parts of New Orleans, so maybe there, Jacqui Jeras?

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: A train erupts into a ball of fire in a region where violence has been erupting for weeks now.

And there you have it, the politics meets the protests. This is Denver. We're going to be bringing you these pictures throughout this newscast as we continue to follow the goings on there.

New security concern, Democratic National Convention. Twitter us. Let us know what you think about this spectacle. We are on twitter.com/RickSanchezCNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We are on Facebook, we are on MySpace and we are of course on Twitter, as we normally are when we do our newscasts. We just mentioned that Hillary Clinton story. We're getting some of our very first reaction. This is Marty. Let me use a pen. Maybe it's a little easier to go that way. See it? This is Marty and Marty says, "Hillary's finally falling into place. Opportunity for the Dems to unite."

That certainly seems to be the flavor out there in Denver as this thing comes together. Obama and McCain, by the way, the gloves have been coming off for some weeks now. But it's brutal now, at least according to many of the experts who have been watching this thing. Despite the cross-party lovefest we saw yesterday, today's new McCain ad is by all indications a direct if not nasty one. Wait until you see who does most of the talking in it. We've got it for you. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She won millions of votes, but isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth on his plans.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: You never hear the specifics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the Rezko scandal. CLINTON: We still don't have a lot of answers about Senator Obama.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On his attacks.

CLINTON: Senator Obama's campaign has become increasingly negative.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The truth hurt, and Obama didn't like it.

MCCAIN: I'm John Mccain, and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Just to be fair, Hillary Clinton's camp put out an immediate response to that where they said it's funny that John McCain didn't use all the positive stuff that I had to say about Barack Obama, only the negative.

CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider is joining us now, rocking the hat today in the Mile High City. There is not a man in America who would look more handsome than you in that hat, Bill. I'm telling you right now.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, thank you.

SANCHEZ: Seventy-six trombones and a big parade. Big parades there in Denver, I expect, huh? How big of a spectacle is this thing going to be, Bill?

SCHNEIDER: Oh, it's going to be bigger than usual because you've got about 4,400 delegates and a couple of thousand alternates in that hall, 17,000 members of the press, my god. More of the press than delegates. And on Thursday night when Barack Obama delivers his acceptance speech, he's going to do it right around the corner at Invesco Stadium, which seats 75,000 people. It's -- you know, John Kennedy did that in 1960 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. He's going to do it again. It there will be a vast crowd of Obama fans in that stadium to hear his acceptance speech. It's going to be quite a spectacle.

SANCHEZ: You heard, Bill, what we've been talking about here. We talked about that McCain ad that obviously as politicians will do, they can create a rift between two of the rivals, great.

And now we hear, we led this newscast with the news that Hillary Clinton is now saying that Wednesday she's going to release her delegates after the roll call. Is this an effort by the Barack Obama/Hillary folk to say, look, we're going to come out united and can they pull it off, Bill?

SCHNEIDER: That's exactly what it is. Both sides, the leadership on both sides, is determined to come out of this convention with a dramatic show of unity. Bill and Hillary Clinton will both be speaking, and they're going to be good soldiers. I can assure you, urging their supporters, Clinton supporters to rally behind Barack Obama. There are still some Clinton people out there who are unhappy, not particularly with the choice of Joe Biden. You don't hear very many objections to that choice. Senator Clinton is very respectful of Senator Biden. They're colleagues and they're friends.

But it's the process that's irritated them a little bit. They say why wasn't Hillary Clinton vetted properly with all of the other people being considered? Why wasn't she consulted? Why did Obama call her after he had indicated what his choice was? So there's some unhappiness with the process and what some of her supporters feel is a show of disrespect after her remarkable achievement in doing so well in those primaries.

SANCHEZ: It will be fun to see how this thing plays out. Although all the signs at least today so far seem to indicate that there's some push toward unity. There he is, Bill Schneider, part of the best political team in the business, and, my golly, does he have good hat selections. Thank you, Bill, appreciate it.

We get it going for you CNN style this evening at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. The best political team on, did I mention live from Denver, the pre- convention kickoff. Again, that's at 8:00 Eastern.

Enough speculating about what's going on in the McCain camp. Let's go right to the source. Nancy Pfotenhauer is joining us now, Senator McCain's senior policy adviser. She is in Arlington, Virginia, today. How go things at this point from your end of the table, Nancy?

NANCY PFOTENHAUER, MCCAIN SENIOR POLICY ADVISER: Well, I think we're having some fun and we're staying in the mix, which is quite an achievement given the fact that this is ostensibly the Democrats' moment in the sun, if you will. And so we're pretty happy with the fact that we're able to engage in the debate and have a few important things to say right now.

SANCHEZ: Nancy, let me ask you. There is a direct ad that was put out that our viewers just saw a little while ago where the aim of the ad seems to be politically speaking to drive a wedge between Hillary Clinton supporters and Barack Obama's campaign. Given the fact that Hillary Clinton has just announced moments ago, we reported it here, that she will now release all-her delegates, does that put a bit of a kabosh on the effect of that ad, do you believe?

PFOTENHAUER: I think it just shows that Senator Clinton has been playing this by the book, and unfortunately Senator Obama hasn't done himself any favors in this. He really has been borderline disrespectful to her just in the not vetting her, no phone call. We hear from a lot of Hillary Clinton supporters, and I think the polls back this up, who say they're not ready to go into Senator Obama's column. And he just kind of handled this in a bit of a ham handed fashion, I think. Really, Senator Clinton and Senator Biden, his own running mate, raised very serious concerns about whether or not Senator Obama was ready to lead.

SANCHEZ: But hold on a minute. Should you be speak for Hillary Clinton? If Hillary Clinton comes out and says, I'm fine with Senator Obama and I want everybody to support him and I'm going to be there holding his hand and now I'm going to release all my delegates to him, I guess some folks in America would say, who are you to be speaking tore what she may thinking? PFOTENHAUER: Actually, Rick, I think most folks in America have figured this out, regardless of however the media wants to portray it. Most people in understand that Senator Clinton won 18 million votes and she would have been kind of the natural vice presidential pick and that Barack Obama simply wasn't willing to reach the olive branch out and bring her on. That's his choice, that's fine. But it would be political malpractice on our part not to shine a light on that.

SANCHEZ: No no, I get that. I get that and I respect you for it. But I guess the question is this -- do you think when Hillary Clinton says these things that she's not being truthful?

PFOTENHAUER: I would never project to be inside her head. I would say that she is a remarkably disciplined individual and her campaign and her tenacity and her professionalism throughout the campaign I think has backed that up. Even though I disagree with her on most of her policy perspectives, she's a very disciplined individual and she has showcased that I think -- it's harder to be -- it's easy to be graceful in victory, it's harder to be gracious in defeat.

It's interesting to me that she clearly is being gracious. I'm not -- it's not that evident to her supporters that Senator Obama is returning the favor. But we want to talk about what Senator McCain can do in his path for this country and how it differs dramatically from Senator Obama's.

SANCHEZ: I get it. You know what? You make your case very well. I really enjoyed having this conversation with you.

PFOTENHAUER: Thank you, Rick. It was a pleasure.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

A deadly plane crash in Utah takes 10 lives. What's really heartbreaking is why they were on that plane. Wait until you find out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Let's check real quick if we can on some of the comments that are coming in from you. We'll go to MySpace, we're going to Facebook and we're going to Twitter.

Here is one of the latest comments. This comes in from Irmiconia (ph). She says "McCain's ad starts to say what all HRC, Hillary Clinton supporters know, go McCain, Barack Obama is a disaster for this country."

There's another one that says, "go Barack Obama. Glad Barack Obama chose Joe Biden."

So we're kind of getting comments from both sides as we continue here to follow some of the social networking sites that are watching this newscast and talking to us at the same time while we're delivering the news to you. Still no official word on what caused that plane crash to go down late Friday in Utah. All 10 people on board the Beach King Air died when the twin engine plane crashed near Moab. Investigators say so much of the wreckage was so badly burned, finding clues to the crash are so much more difficult. The passengers who died were a medical team providing cancer care to people in remote parts of Utah.

Dissenters descend on Denver. Protests heat up on the eve of the Democratic Convention. We will take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: The Democratic National Convention starts tomorrow, but the protestors descended on Denver today. Before we go there, there's one quick thing I have to show you. If you could, give me a shot over here, Roger. We just did that interview with a McCain surrogate moments ago. We got a response that says, this is from Ryan. He says, "I'm so tired of listening to Nancy's spin," that was the McCain surrogate. "Would she be this kind to Hillary if she, Hillary, were the candidate?" Interesting question, huh?

CNN's Joe Johns covering convention security for us. Joe, we know the protestors are out there. We saw the pictures just a little while ago. The question is, how secure will they make the facility for all these famous people so that the protestors keep a good distance from them?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pretty secure. I mean, there are a lot of people out there complaining about the security, they're saying it's too much. The police are going too far. The police say they're not going too far at all. Now, you looked at that tape, quite a few people there. It was a pretty good-sized crowd.

But here's the thing. This stuff gets kind of tricky, Rick, because when you have, what, 150, 200, 300 people who show up at one of the gates to the convention, which is the only gate that lets people in at a certain time, there's no arrests, no tear gas, nobody's head gets busted but they had to shut that entrance to the convention down, so that's a bit of a problem.

It's one of the things they have to deal with. And what the authorities tell me they're trying to do is sort of take every of situation and react to it as it comes, OK. We look at this situation. It's a little noisy. We're going to shut it down for a while. Then we reopen it, which is what they did. But it's tricky. As a matter of fact, at that very same gate, we had a different problem yesterday. There were a lot of people in that line and, in fact, some people told me it took up to an hour and a half to get from the end of the line into the complex.

That's something obviously they don't want to have happening here with delegates trying to get into this convention over the next four days, Rick?

SANCHEZ: It will be fun to watch. Joe Johns, thanks so much for that report. The Obama campaign heads to Denver now for the event that will make the Democratic nomination official. Robert Gibbs is Senator Obama's communications director. He is in Denver, convention town. Let me ask you, straight to the point -- this new announcement that we heard just as we were getting ready to go on the air here, Bob, that Hillary Clinton will release her delegates, is this an announcement that was staged as a result of the McCain ad this morning?

ROBERT GIBBS, OBAMA'S COMMUNINICATIONS DIRECTOR: You know, I don't know the specifics behind it, but I can tell you this, Rick. This party has been united for many months now, and what we're going to have here in Denver is a coming together. Look, there's been passion on every side of this, and that's understandable. Hillary Clinton was a passionate advocate for working Americans fighting for better health care and better education. What we're going to have here is a united Democratic Party coming out of Denver, united for change because we can't afford four more years of the same. That's what we're going to have here over the course of the next several days.

SANCHEZ: Bob, can you --

GIBBS: And that's what been seeing for a long time.

SANCHEZ: Can you say that with certainty? Do you have a real good sense -- I know you have a good sense from Hillary Clinton herself, unless she's not telling the truth. Everything she said seems to lead us in the direction that she will, in fact, embrace Barack Obama in every possible way -- but can you say that about all her supporters and some of the delegates that are going to be there? Are you a little worried about them?

GIBBS: Well look, we're going to fight every day for the rest of this campaign to convince Democrats, Independents, Republicans, anybody that will vote for us in November. We're going to convince them that Barack Obama is the candidate for change, that John McCain is the candidate of more of the same. That's what we're going to fight for every day.

SANCHEZ: Is this decision to, switching gears with you because I'm just thinking about Joe Biden. Is the decision to use Joe Biden, name Joe Biden as the vice presidential nominee, was that one based on Barack Obama's gut and his apparent liking for him? Or was it a strategic decision to win states like Pennsylvania and possibly Indiana where he seems to be a better fit than Barack Obama?

GIBBS: Well, look, I think Joe Biden was a great choice. He has an unparalled resume, national security experience, cops and firefighters that know him just call him Joe. He's got a record of working across the aisle. You see the statements from Senator Lugar in Indiana, Republican senator, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska yesterday lauding the pick.

And quite frankly, you look at him. He's someone who's never forgotten where he's from, that working middle class background, pull yourself up by the bootstraps background that we think makes Joe Biden a unique pick, one that we think can help us throughout the Midwest and the south and all over country. We're excited to have him as the pick.

SANCHEZ: That's the number you've got to hit after the convention? If you're four up now, at least according to our poll of polls, where would you like to see it when this convention closes?

GIBBS: Look, I don't expect that there's going to be a big bounce because these candidates are -- the electorate is closely divided. There aren't a ton of swing voters left. Look, we have two jobs here. We want to tell Barack Obama's American story and we want to put in front of every voter in this country the choice in this election. Are we going to rebuild this economy? Are we going to rebuild our standing in the world? Are we finally going to take the steps that are necessary to make this energy independent or are we going to go with John McCain and have another four years for what we've had for the last eight?

SANCHEZ: Got it, Bob.

GIBBS: And put this country in exactly the wrong direction.

SANCHEZ: Got it. I was so hoping you would bite on my question so I can come back and hold you to it later.

GIBBS: That's exactly why I didn't.

SANCHEZ: Bob, thanks so much. You are obviously a smart better. We appreciate it. Thanks so much, we'll see you again.

A massive fire, thick, black smoke right in the center of the Republic of Georgia. What happened? It has nothing to do with Biden, by the way. That does. We'll show it to you. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Look what you were saying about the stories that we are talking about right now. Let me open my laptop here. This is Steve from La Costa Canyon. He says, "John McCain should pick Hillary Clinton to be his vice president."

Wouldn't that be interesting?

Willie from Jackson Hole says, "I think that John McCain's attack ads show his reluctance to discuss politics."

And finally, this is Manny from Miami. He says, "Rick, so many thoughts go through my mind when I found out that Obama did not pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate. At the end of the day, it's Obama who's going to be sorry he did not choose the Clintons."

Interesting comments coming in. Those are coming in on Facebook, right? Yes. Those are coming in on Facebook as we are delivering this newscast just minutes ago while we were in commercial.

Now to this story over here. Senator Joe Biden has a small town blue collar roots, something Obama's campaign is planning to take full advantage of. CNN's Mary Snow has this interesting story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From churchgoers in St. Paul's Catholic Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Senator Joe Biden lived until he was 10 to the town's hoagie shop where he's been known to visit even now, Scranton has turned its attention to its native son being Barack Obama's running mate. And both Obama and Biden are playing up Biden's roots.

OBAMA: He's still that scrappy kid from Scranton.

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DE), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I was an Irish Catholic kid from Scranton with a father who like many of yours in tough economic times fell on hard times.

SNOW: To make it even clearer, Biden offered this guidance to "Scranton Times-Tribune" veteran political reporter Borys Krawczeniuk shortly after his speech Saturday.

BORYS KRAWCZENIUK, SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUTE: Tell them that he's the kind of guy we grew up with, he's the kind of guy who would have your back. If we were playing with him you'd want him on your team.

SNOW: That message comes after Obama was trounced in primary voting in Lackawanna County, which is blue collar, heavily Democratic and has a large Catholic population. "Forbes" magazine recently named Scranton one of the fastest dying cities in the U.S. Biden says Scranton never leaves you. It's also home to Democratic Senator Bob Casey. We met up with him outside Biden's childhood home.

SEN. BOB CASEY (D), PENNSYLVANIA: I grew up just four blocks away.

SNOW: Casey is a popular Democrat in this state where his father was governor. He is Catholic and anti-abortion. He campaigned with Obama leading up to the Pennsylvania primary.

Yes, he had a tough time, even with your help.

CASEY: Well I think part of it was, unlike me and unlike Senator Clinton, he had no one in his family running in Pennsylvania before.

SNOW: Senator Hillary Clinton touted her family's Scranton roots and voters were familiar with her husband's campaign.

Nada Gilmartin was a Hillary Clinton supporter but says she is now leaning toward Obama.

NADA GILMARTIN, SCRANTON RESIDENT: I am going to pay attention, though. I don't know that my mind is made up.

SNOW: Eddie Carrill, a construction worker, is a lifelong Democrat who supported Clinton and says he is voting for Obama.

EDDIE CARRILL, SCRANTON RESIDENT: Unemployment is rampant for everybody here. It's been that way for a long time so that's got to change. SNOW: Democrats here expect Biden to help Obama's prospects. In the last presidential election in 2004, John Kerry won Lackawanna County and carried the state, but Senator Casey calls this a barely blue state.

CASEY: It's always a tough state. This region will be a battle, battle ground within the battleground so to speak. So we've got a lot of work to do.

SNOW: As much as a quarter of Hillary Clinton supporters say they'll support John McCain and not Barack Obama. And it's in places like this where Hillary Clinton did well and Barack Obama did not that Obama has his work cut out for him. Mary Snow, CNN, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: A massive fire, thick black smoke right in the center of the Republic of Georgia. No, it may not be what you thought. What happened? We'll tell you in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We've got a couple of interesting tweaks here coming on in twitter.com. And this is interesting because it's something a lot of people have been talking about. I want you to see if you can make sense of this. This is from Maria Creal (ph). She says, "I think the pollsters are going to be so shocked when they finally figure out landlines are a way of the past." What she's saying is that a lot of young people who will vote for Barack Obama - and this has been part of the big talk -- they only have cell phones. So pollsters can't poll them because they only poll people with regular telephones. True or not, we'll wait and see.

And this then there's one from Mistress Reba (ph). She says "If McCain picked Clinton, it would be a landslide for McCain, in my humble opinion."

Food for thought, she goes on to say. There you go, people reacting to what we are talking about.

A massive cloud of black smoke caused by an oil train fire in the Republic of Georgia today. Georgian authorities initially said the train hit a Russian mine planted on the tracks but now they're not sure about the cause. Huge explosion and fire in central Georgia shut down a major rail line for hours. No reports yet on any of the injuries. There is an investigation under way.

Meantime, European leaders remain in crisis mode over the Russia- Georgia conflict. Georgian troops have retaken a major military base in western Georgia after most of the Russian troops pulled out of the region. But European Union officials want a total withdrawal in line with the EU brokered cease-fire. Russian troops are still maintaining some checkpoints in Georgia and tensions, we understand, do remain high as they have for the last 200 years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling a special EU meeting on September 1st over complaints Russia is not obeying the cease-fire deal.

There's this story. You're about to hear a fascinating discussion. I'm going to be talking to some extremely influential people about getting rid of the income tax system in this country as we know it. Getting rid of the income tax, making sure that you no longer have to pay a payroll tax. You keep every single penny that you're given by your employer. The only thing you will pay in the future is a consumption tax, a fair tax. Is it fair? That's what we debate when I come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: I mentioned we were going to be talking about this on Facebook and on Twitter.com and all throughout the day, people have already been corresponding with me about what they think of this thing called the fair tax. So tonight, we're talking to you about something that a lot of Americans are convinced will change this country for the better. These are grassroots organizations, all over this country, who say we need to not just change, but revolutionize our tax system. They say how would you like to stop paying payroll taxes, all together? Keep every penny and stop paying income taxes as well? The only tax they say that all of us would have to pay is a 23 percent tax every time you go out and buy something. That's it. That's why it's called a consumption tax.

Tonight's League of First Time Voters features a congressman, Neal Boortz, the famous radio host, and a nationally syndicated newspaper man, along with other concerned citizens. The question, should Americans incorporate the fair tax?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. JOHN LINDER, CO-AUTHOR, THE FAIR TAX: The current system is broken and can't be fixed. We have a GAO study that says in 32 years the entire federal revenue stream will be insufficient to pay the interest on the debt unless we have more growth in the economy. We may not have the perfect system. We may not even have the best system. But it's a better system than we had.

SANCHEZ: Is it a better system than what we have?

HAYDEN KEPNER, FAIR TAX CRITIC: Our system is full of problems, but the problem with the fair tax is that the rate would need to be far too high in order to do what they want to do.

SANCHEZ: Hold on, they're saying they can do this at 23 percent and that at 23 percent it would pretty much equate whatever it is that the government is getting now.

KEPNER: That's right. And every single independent study over the last 10 years has found the exact opposite.

NEAL BOORTZ, SYNDICATED RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: You see, every one of those independent studies that I looked at, and I challenge to show me one that doesn't, creates exceptions. Well, they can't tax this, they can't tax that. They're not going to be able to put a tax, so they have to take this out of the tax base. They're going to have to take that out of the tax base. And of course, every time you create an exception, it starts throwing the rate up.

LINDER: No one who has scored this as the bill is written came up with 40 percent.

ALLEN BUCKLEY, LIBERTARIAN GA SENATE CANDIDATE: In the year 2000, the joint committee on taxation, an arm of Congress, studied HR-2525, which is the predecessor of HR-25, virtually identical. They said in the first five years, the revenue rate was 59.5 percent, which mean it is something cost $1 without any tax, it would cost $1.60 with tax.

LINDER: You have two things wrong. First of all, you're substituting your view of exclusive tax versus an inclusive tax, so the numbers are considerably different. But secondly, they did not score what was written.

BOORTZ: What the opponents to the fair tax do, in order to boost the rate and make it appear to be less palatable, is they'll continue to quote the income tax, which we have, on an inclusive basis and then quote the fair tax on an exclusive basis.

JAY BOOKMAN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Fair tax is a national sales tax in essence. So when you quote people the percentage that they're going to pay on that sales tax, they will automatically assume that it's like a state sales tax, if you say it's 23 percent sales tax, it's $1.23 on that purchase. It is not, it's $1.30.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: One of the first things people will say it's a regressive tax. How can the poor guy who's at the poverty level, how is he going to be able to pay 23 percent on everything that he needs, including the diapers for his child. And all the money that he's going to get.

BOORTZ: He's paying 22 percent right now.

LINDER: The embedded cost of the IRS is 22 percent of what you spend. The fact of the matter is that a prebate makes this a very progressive tax, probably more progressive than the current tax system.

SANCHEZ: And a prebate is a way getting money back to those people before they spent it?

LINDER: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Can you explain that to me?

LINDER: Everybody, based on the size of the household is going to get a cash distribution at the beginning of every month sufficient to totally untax them up to poverty level spending.

BOORTZ: You spend up to the poverty level and you have already been reimbursed ahead of time for the fair tax up to that poverty level.

SANCHEZ: A single mother living at home with two children trying to do the best she can, but doesn't make a lot of money, that's going to be a wonderful thing for her, we all agree?

LINDER: Yes.

SANCHEZ: She's getting money so she can spend it and take care of her kids.

BOORTZ: She ought to be demonstrating for the fair tax right now.

BOOKMAN: That's why a lot of conservatives oppose this bill, because every month, every household will be getting a check from the government. They're going to make the whole country dependent on checks coming from the federal government.

SANCHEZ: So you're saying we're expanding the bureaucracy?

BOOKMAN: And getting people addicted to government checks.

LINDER: Everybody that I know wh0 pays income taxes can't wait until that check comes on April 15th. And they judge their lives how they are going to spend their money. We're dependent on it now. There's one thing I didn't like about it, having that check on everyone, but I can't think of a better way to equalize what's not punitive on the poor.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: It's a complicated topic, but one that's so important to every one of us. We'll be continuing this debate. We're going to have that tonight at 10:00 Eastern.

There's something I want to show you, by the way. I talked to people about their taxes and suddenly their juices start flowing. Look what happened while we were doing that. I put out a message and I said let me know what you think about this fair tax. It's really interesting whether you're on one side or the other. I started Googling it using the Google as they say and I found a lot of information. People started writing to us. Twitter is now over capacity. So many people are trying to get in that the system is kind of locked up and jammed. We'll get it back open hopefully in just a little bit and we'll read some of your responses.

I'm Rick Sanchez. See you tonight at 10:00.