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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Politics California-Style, From Governor Schwarzenegger to Ballot Initiatives; Favorite California newspaper headlines from the past

Aired September 29, 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, NEWSNIGHT: That sounds good. That works for me. I will see you tomorrow in L.A., Larry. Thank you very much.
KING: Right here, baby.

BROWN: Right here baby. We're in California, talk like that. Good evening again everyone. We're on the roof top of the beautiful Fairmont Hotel, in beautiful San Francisco. The two go together quite nicely thank you. There's much to do tonight. California stories to tell. And perhaps the most important moment in the presidential campaign so far to preview. So we'll keep this page brief.

In a time of national polarization, California does seem to have a lesson to teach, that there still can be consensus in politics and moderation is not necessarily dead. It may just be a honeymoon but the governor, Governor Schwarzenegger, seems to have done what no national political leader has been able to do -- or even tries very hard to do, to bring both sides together, somewhere in the middle, to get things done, to get the state's bills paid, get the schools teaching, get the state working. The governor's story is one of the stories we'll look at tonight. But "the whip" begins on a partisan note, the debate and all that surrounds it. CNN's Candy Crowley has one piece of the picture. So Candy, a headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Kerry strategists say tomorrow night's debate is not the be and end all. But it is getting awfully close and there's lots that John Kerry has to accomplish.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. A different set of circumstances for the president with a lead in the polls. John King, our senior White House correspondent with that side of things. So John, a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president rode his bike today. He went fishing. He toured some hurricane damage. It's as if, at least in public, there's no debate at all tomorrow night. Trust me, the president knows very well there is and it's a big one.

BROWN: And finally, the debate about the debate. CNN's Dan Lothian with that. So Dan, the headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right Aaron. It is the debate over the debate. Both of the candidates have signed on to an agreement but the networks don't want to play by all the rules. Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest in a moment.

Also coming up on the program tonight -- possibly a fire behind us. Also tonight, immigrants and the jobs they create, in this case, in California's important and prosperous Silicon Valley.

We'll also revisit perhaps the most eventful moment in the state's young history, the day back in 1906 that the world and this city, turned upside down.

Also some of the other stories that have made headlines in San Francisco, around the bay over the years. Morning papers at the end of the hour. All that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the 90 minutes on stage, in Coral Gables, Florida, that both presidential campaigns have been planning for, perhaps obsessing about, for days. Success, it's been said, is being ready when opportunity knocks. Tomorrow, on cue, it will. We have several reports tonight on tomorrow's debate beginning, first, with CNN's Candy Crowley.

CROWLEY: The Kerry campaign sees Thursday night's debate as another chance at a first impression.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm looking forward to tomorrow night for an opportunity to be able to share with Americans the truth, not the sound bytes, not the advertisements, but the truth.

CROWLEY: After three days at a golf resort in Wisconsin, reading, resting, mock debating, John Kerry arrived in Miami, to the more standard stuff of campaigns and a debate night to-do list.

KERRY: I'm taking this energy in and I'm going to use it tomorrow night. I'm going to use it.

CROWLEY: First, create doubt about the president as commander in chief, doubt about his ability to do the job. The ad men are all over it.

CAMPAIGN AD: Maybe George Bush can't tell us why he went to Iraq. But it's time he tells us how he's going to fix it.

CROWLEY: Item two -- question the president's grip on reality, his truthfulness.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People keep talking about it being a test for John Kerry. It's a test for George Bush. It's a test -- (APPLAUSE) it's a test for whether this president is finally going to be straight and come clean with the American people about what's happening in Iraq.

CROWLEY: And finally, most importantly for Kerry, item three -- undo some of this damage. KERRY: I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.

CROWLEY: In an interview with ABC, Kerry took another go at an explanation.

KERRY: It just was a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those inarticulate moments late in the evening, when I was dead tired in the primaries and I didn't say something very clearly.

CROWLEY: As the Bush campaign dutifully notes, it was 1:00 in the afternoon when Kerry made his remarks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: Top strategists say they expect their candidate to do very well tomorrow night. They are interestingly, Aaron, conceding one point. They say look, the president is a very nice guy, an affable guy. People are attracted to him. But they say that's not what this is about. This is all about the issues. Aaron.

BROWN: Actually, that is part of what it's about. It's not all of what it's about. And the senator has to come across as someone you wouldn't mind in your living room, every night.

CROWLEY: Exactly right. And I talked to Democrats outside the campaign, as well, who tend to be a little more blunt than those inside his campaign. And one of them said to me, look, he's got 90 minutes to get people to like him. So, there is a lot of -- it's not style so much as just some sense that voters get. Do I trust this guy? Do I like this guy? Can he be in my living room TV for the next four years? They know that very well so obviously there are going to be some attempts to try to relate, as they say. But they did, I think, try to draw the sting a little of George Bush's likability factor by saying well, that's not what it's about. Interestingly also, you hear a lot, today, I was listening to a lot of the spinners for the Kerry side who kept saying we don't need a cheerleader. We don't really need a cheerleader, clearly trying to put George Bush in that niche, so that they can build up John Kerry's leadership credentials.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. I suspect we'll talk tomorrow. Thank you.

BROWN: Debate preparations of course have consumed both candidates for days, not just prepping toward specific questions. It's also about shaping audience expectations on both sides. That part of the story, our senior White House correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The president broke from debate preparations to survey damage from hurricane Jeanne, walking through an orange grove hit by three hurricanes this year. He ignored a question about the looming debate, leaving it to aides to suggest the incumbent president is somehow the underdog.

DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Senator Kerry has been preparing his whole life for this. He has -- he was a prep star debater. He was an ivy league debater himself, 20 years in the United States Senate.

KING: Iraq is certain to be the major flash point. The Bush camp promises to highlight what it calls a history of shifting Kerry positions. This Bush campaign debate guide mocks the Democrat. Now you say the war you voted for made us less safe. It goes on to say Senator Kerry's strategy is pretend like no position you have ever taken matters. Nobody knows what you really believe anyway.

In Minnesota, Vice President Cheney tested another line of attack, suggesting Senator Kerry is irresponsible to say he favors bringing troops home from Iraq within four years.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We clearly want them home, but that's not the way to state the objective. The objective is to finish the mission, to get the job done, to do it right.

KING: Senator Kerry calls Iraq chaos now. He wants the debate focused on what he calls Mr. Bush's poor planning.

SUSAN RICE, KERRY FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER: What is his exit strategy for Iraq? How are we going to get out of the mess in Iraq?

KING: Democrats predict a backlash if the president is overly optimistic.

If he doesn't really come to grips with the reality on the ground in Iraq today, I think he could actually come across as being out of touch.

KING: That bike ride and fishing on the ranch before Mr. Bush came to Florida, a hurricane tour today, another hurricane damage tour in the morning. Aaron aide describe the president as eager and confident heading into this showdown. They say no more mock debates. No more formal preparations though he will have some conversations of course with senior advisers throughout the day tomorrow.

BROWN: Four years ago, the president, then the governor, had to prove that he was, essentially, up to the job. He had to stand next to Al Gore and say I could be president of the United States. His task is very different and I would assume it is to stay off the defensive tomorrow.

KING: It is very different and they recognize that. President Bush always benefits from being underestimated. If you go through his debate history, whether it was against the incumbent governor of Texas, Ann Richards, the incumbent vice president of the United States, Al Gore, he's done very well. His aides concede his worst debate performance is when he was incumbent governor of Texas against the Democratic challenger Gary Morrow (ph). Bush went on to win easily, but that was his worst debate performance. He has to defend his record tomorrow night. Aides say he must not immediately pivot to the line you will hear all night -- that John Kerry has shifted positions on national security, been weak on national security, vacillate on Iraq. The president will make that case. But aides say he must first confidently, but in detail, defend his decision to go to war, defend his other priorities on the world stage. Defend his record. Be optimistic and confident, as he does so and then attack. If he attacks first, aides say he could be in trouble.

BROWN: John, thank you and we'll talk to you tomorrow too. John King in Miami tonight.

Presidential debates are rituals, opportunities born of orchestration, not serendipity. The legal teams from both campaigns have been prepping as well. Their goal: limiting the unpredictable. For all the strategizing, they don't have the final say over everything. Without technology and reporters who come with it, opportunity would knock but no one would hear. And today, the campaigns learn that they can control each other but they can't control us, at least not completely. Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): The devil is in the debate details, a 32- page agreement between both campaigns. But television networks are refusing to accept some of the rules. In particular, this item -- barring TV cut aways while a candidate is answering a question. It's the kind of shot that embarrassed Al Gore in the 2000 debates.

FRANK FAHRINKOFF, CO-CHAIR, DEBATE COMMISSION: The candidates don't like the cut away. They wanted of course the commission to try to stop that. It's not within our power to stop that. We don't own the feed.

LOTHIAN: The debate commission says it won't sign the agreement. And no moderator has, either. Fox News, which is handling camera feeds for the media in the first debate, said in a statement, because of journalistic standards, we're not going to follow outside restrictions. CNN and other networks, issued similar statements, NBC saying, we're not subject to agreements between candidates.

Another issue -- timing lights. The agreement says the TV audience must be able to see when a candidate's answer goes too long. But again, the networks have signaled they'll decide what to show.

ED FOUHY, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR, STATELINE.ORG: Those details of television production, that lawyers really don't have any knowledge of and they shouldn't be involved in doing them.

LOTHIAN: The questions that keep popping up around this controversy -- is this even a debate? Is the agreement getting in the way of what voters should be seeing and hearing?

FAHRINKOFF: There's no question. This is not the classic debate that you saw in college or high school in debate society. But it's better than nothing. And when you realize that there's no way you can force these candidates to debate if they don't want to.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: Both of the candidates are prepared for tonight's -- for rather tomorrow's debates. They feel very comfortable that they will be able to score some points on their issues, such as homeland security and also foreign policy. But they know about these debates that have happened over the years. They know what has worked, what has not worked and they are looking for every bit of an advantage. Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you. Dan Lothian down in Florida tonight, as well.

It's safe to say by this time tomorrow night, we'll be paying less attention to the ground rules, I certainly hope and more on the important stuff, though only some of it important with a capital "I." The rest is something else, entirely, not where you stand on the war, but how you stand at the podium. As long as voters elect people, not platforms, it matters. And because it matters, CNN's Jeff Greenfield has some advice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The candidates will answer or comment upon answers to questions spoke (ph) by a panel of correspondents. In this, the first discussion in a series of four --

GREENFIELD (voice-over: OK, now look. This is basic. Stay cool -- get plenty of rest, watch your makeup and don't look like you're on your way to root canal, the way Nixon did back in '60. You got to look like you're happy to be at this debate, which is why we made sure there won't be cut aways at these debates. Maybe you would rather be watching "Law & Order," but your audience is going to figure, if I can take the time to watch, you shouldn't look like you got a late date. Stay focused.

On the other hand, don't be too focused on strategy. Remember what happened in 2000, when Al Gore tried to physically dominate the shorter Bush. That one look and it was all over. Thank God the rules won't let you do that.

GERALD FORD, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.

GREENFIELD: Now I'm showing you this because it's maybe the only example I can find where substance actually made a difference. After the press jumped all over poor Gerry Ford for prematurely liberating eastern Europe from Soviet domination, that changed the way people saw the debate. So please, if God forbid, you're got to bring up a fact, may sure you get it right.

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I support a strong, national patients bill of rights.

GREENFIELD: On the other hand, even if you're right, you can know too much. Here's Gore in 2000 trying to say that Bush wasn't really for the right prescription drug plan.

GORE: The Dingell Norwood bill. I referred to the Dingell Norwood bill. What about the Dingell Norwood bill?

GREENFIELD: Beautiful. I think most voters thought Dingell Norwood was a department store.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, with regard to my feeling about why I thought his record, that he spoke his possible --

GREENFIELD: On second thought, look what happened to Reagan in '84, when his adviser stuffed him with facts and figures. That was the worst debate performance of any presidential candidate ever. Yeah, yeah, I know. He made a joke in the next debate about not exploiting Mondale's youth and he carried 49 states, but you're no Reagan. Don't take the chance.

ROSS PEROT, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look at all three hours.

GREENFIELD: But here's something that's pure debate gold. I call it political judo. You take a weakness and you flip it, the way Ross Perot did when he was challenged on not having any experience.

PEROT: Well, they've got a point. I don't have experience in running up a $4 trillion debt.

GREENFIELD: So, there you are. Stay cool. Stay focused. Don't be too intense. Don't forget to smile. Make sure your facts are right. And oh, yeah, be yourself. Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we'll be taking a look at how the debaters did and how the spinners are spinning it, tomorrow night from Los Angeles. When we come back, the day in Iraq and the night in San Francisco. From the city by the bay, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The day in Iraq, more fighting, heavy fighting again today in Baghdad, American and Iraqi forces, battling insurgents in Sadr city, using artillery on enemy mortar locations. Reports too of raids on insurgent bases along Haifa Street, a major artery and a difficult one near the green zone.

Late today, Al Jazeera broadcast a video of Kenneth Bigley, the Briton who was kidnapped along with two Americans earlier this month. They were killed. Today, Mr. Bigley implored the British prime minister again to work for his release. And Tony Blair, in the meantime said, if the kidnappers contact the British government, the government would respond immediately. Those were his words. He left unclear what the response would be. He has repeatedly said he will not negotiate with the kidnappers.

Back home, now. From where we sit, with the city in the bay spread out behind us, there's one thing we can say for certain about San Francisco -- at the end of the day, we don't know nothing about nothing. Not really. For a place so chock full of concrete, the bridges, the cable cars, the commerce, the relics, it is the intangibles, perhaps the unknowables, that crowd the horizon, which makes San Francisco both a puzzlement and a joy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Back in 1968, Bobby Kennedy said this about San Francisco -- "I love this city. If I'm elected, I'll move the White House to San Francisco. It may be Baghdad by the bay to you. But to me," he said, "it's resurrection city."

ARMSTEAD MAUPIN, AUTHOR: It does work its wiles on you very quickly and in a subtle way. And it's not the things that people generally think of, like some flashy, wild thing. It has more to do with a little wisp of fog.

BROWN: Best-selling author Armstead Maupin has been in love with San Francisco for more than 30 years.

MAUPIN: One of the distinguishing features of this town, is that its basically happened overnight with a bunch of dreamers, a bunch of people who wanted to like make a lot money real fast to find a whole new world for themselves, to reinvent themselves.

ANGELO ALIOTO, ATTORNEY: We have been devastated several times and we keep coming back stronger with an even more beautiful city. But could be coming back from 1906, the earthquake or the fire, which was the devastating or coming back from the Internet dotcom boom. We come back, no matter what, but we have to come back as who we were, not just as the rich.

BROWN: If all of the world is a stage, San Francisco is one of its premiere theaters.

RICHARD TITUS, A.K.A., VICTORIA'S SECRET: Drag has a unique place in San Francisco, partly because ever since the 1850s, San Francisco has always been known as a place where you can go and reinvent yourself. Richard becomes Victoria when the hair goes on.

BROWN: Richard Titus is a criminal lawyer by day. And by night, he is something else completely. Meet Victoria's Secret.

TITUS: I have the soul of a drag queen in the body of an NFL linebacker.

BROWN: His partner, Jimmy Parker, helps with his transformation.

TITUS: I allow myself to be some of the things I would like to be as Richard and can't be, that is much more outgoing, much more of a party person, much more open and less shy, much more uninhibited, I guess. Victoria's very uninhibited compared to Richard. You'd have to be to put this dress on.

BROWN: Before his own transformation, Jimmy helps this graduate student become Sophila Legs. Then Jimmy becomes Angelica and all become masters of reinvention, in the city that gives reinvention a good name.

But in the end, it's all make-believe. The real woman that best captures the heart of the city, a timeless beauty, seductive at any age, a real woman, perhaps Sophia Loren.

ALIOTO: It's an attitude. It was her walk that made her famous and I believe that's very true of San Francisco. San Franciscans have an attitude. Don't ask me about Los Angeles. You know? Don't even attempt to compare San Francisco to Seattle. It isn't happening. San Francisco is San Francisco and there is no comparison. Sofia Loren is like 70 years old and she's absolutely gorgeous. Any way you look at it, no matter what has hit this city, it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we come back to San Francisco, the politics of California which are like no politics anywhere else.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The bay area on an early fall night and it feels like an early fall night in the bay area, too. When Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wanted to be governor, it was good for a punch line or two even though movie stars running for office, barely raise an eyebrow these days. But he's the terminator for heaven's sakes and he talks like the terminator. And he looks like he was built by the same outfit that built Stonehenge. So there were laughs.

But now, a year into it, the laughs have given way to respect from both sides of the aisle, one hand shake at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): No matter where he goes -- the applause is genuine, the hand shakes, solid, the crowd adoring.

STATE SENATOR JAMES BRULTE (R), RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA: Arnold is a real person. He's clearly a larger than life figure but he's engaging. It's fascinating to me that our governor is probably the most well-known person in the world. And yet, when you sit in a room with him, it doesn't matter who you are, he makes you feel like the most important person in the world.

BROWN: And it's not only the Republicans that talk like this.

WILLIE BROWN, FORMER MAYOR, SAN FRANCISCO: I think the Republicans have been pleasantly surprised about his ability to actually master the process in a very brief period of time. The Democrats, in some cases, have been shocked into silence and inaction by virtue of that particular skill.

BROWN: It's been nearly a year since Arnold Schwarzenegger rolled into office, the only state-wide Republican office holder in California. And so far, he has won every major, political battle he has fought.

PAUL FEIST, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: I do think he surprised people. He had no political experience coming in here. He's been able to push forward his proposals one at a time. He's very focused in terms of taking on one issue at a time whether it's the budget or workers compensation. I think he has exceeded expectations.

BROWN: The governor holds court inside this elaborate tent. California's no-smoking law meant he couldn't smoke his favorite cigars inside his office. So, he moved his office outside.

BRULTE: He has a good sense of the Arnold brand. He uses the Arnold brand to the benefit of moving his legislative agenda. Watching him interact in leadership meetings, he knows exactly when to engage. He knows exactly when to break up any tension with a laugh. He's an incredibly good personal negotiator.

BROWN: In short, the early reviews on Schwarzenegger are raves.

BRULTE: At the risk of sounding Pollyannaish, I think he has the potential to go down as one of the truly great governors in California history and if he was eligible to run for president, I don't think anything can stop him. And I think he could go down as one of the truly great presidents in American history.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined now by a man who was once governor of California, Jerry Brown. He's currently the mayor of Oakland and he's on the run again. Deborah Saunders joins us, as well. She's a columnist, a conservative columnist for the "San Francisco Chronicle" and I assume content in her current job. We're glad to have you both here. One minute on governor Schwarzenegger and then on to other things. Does this honeymoon last?

MAYOR JERRY BROWN (D) OAKLAND, CA: No. Honeymoon's don't last, even for Ronald Reagan. They found out one year that he had paid no income tax, and his popularity plummeted. But of course, he came back and ran for president successfully. So the first year, you can have very high ratings. That's not inconsistent with having very low ratings when something goes wrong. You can have a scandal. You could have a precipitous drop in the finances of the state, or you could have an electrical crisis, all sorts of things.

DEBRA SAUNDERS, COLUMNIST, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Let me say, I think he's been a star but not a superhero.

BROWN: Yes.

SAUNDERS: I mean, he's got a lot of charisma, and everybody likes being around him. But when he got into office, he said he was going to blow up the boxes and really change government. Instead, he borrowed money to balance the budget, and he hasn't blown up any boxes. He hasn't done anything really tough. And one of these days, he's going to have to do something that's not popular. And he hasn't done that yet. That's when we're going to find out if he's a real leader.

BROWN: And it's when we find out if he has an actual political base?

SAUNDERS: I think that's when we find out if he has a base.

BROWN: We were talking just before we started, there are 16 referendums or initiatives or propositions on the ballot in November. Is that the sign, Governor, Mayor, of good government or bad government?

JERRY BROWN: It's a sign of freedom in California that if you get 5 percent of the -- of signatures of the people who voted for governor, you can put something on the ballot. And people are activated. They've gotten used to spending enormous sums for candidates. And so now, instead of going through the indirect process of representative government, people with enough money, or an organization, can put actual laws on the ballot.

BROWN: That doesn't sound like good government to me.

JERRY BROWN: Well, wait a minute. Good or bad, that's a very -- there's an elite group who think the people are too stupid to be able to initiate laws. And the premise of California is the power is reserved to the people. And the legislature is an exception to the popular rule. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of mistakes. There are.

SAUNDERS: You know, Aaron, it's amazing how well the system does work because while there's a lot of crap on this ballot, people -- the voters really do figure it out. And there are times when there'll be competing initiatives, and one is supposed to look like it does one thing when it does something else. And the voters, as a rule, really do figure it out.

BROWN: So in the din of the -- of advertising -- I was just watching a little bit of TV today, and I must have seen a half a dozen ads on Proposition 68, I think, is a gambling initiative. Voters will figure it out?

SAUNDERS: I think they will. And it's not just that they'll figure it out -- well, yes, they are going to figure it out. And they're going to see beyond the ads because they actually read editorials when they look how to vote on initiatives. And you'll be surprised. It will make a difference. And there's so many measures on the ballot, 16, that they're going to vote no as much as they can because they're just sick of seeing things.

JERRY BROWN: You know, it's an imperfect process. People can put on something, and you can't change it. It's yes or no. And then millions of dollars are spent. Now, the other imperfect process is called the legislature, $200 million of lobbying, a lot of back room activity. Plenty of imperfection there. It's just a different imperfection, more flexible, more public disclosure. But often, things don't get done. In the initiative, things get done, but sometimes they're the wrong things.

BROWN: A minute left. California and the presidential campaign. No one thinks the state is in play. Are you looking forward to the debate tomorrow?

SAUNDERS: Oh, I'm looking forward to the debate tomorrow. I think a lot of people who live in the bay area are really hoping to see John Kerry change his position on Iraq. I think they're going to be disappointed. And I think they're going to...

BROWN: They want him to become an anti-war candidate?

SAUNDERS: They want him to be Howard Dean, and he's not Howard Dean. If they wanted Howard Dean, they should have picked Howard Dean, but they didn't.

BROWN: He's got himself in a box, doesn't he?

JERRY BROWN: Well, the box started when George Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. And now he is the commander-in-chief fighting evil. Now, what does Kerry do in that situation? The only thing he can do is be more presidential. If there's a way he can act his way to more gravity, to more commander-in-chiefness, he has an outside chance. But Bush set the context. That doesn't mean there's going be not a lot of problems down the road, but tomorrow night, Kerry's climbing it uphill.

BROWN: You're wagging your finger. Ten seconds.

SAUNDERS: It started when Kerry voted to authorize the war. That's when the box started. And he can't win -- he can -- he'll have California, no matter what, though he's not going to give California what Californians want to hear.

JERRY BROWN: It's hard to change horses in midstream.

BROWN: You've both joined us in the past electronically. It's nice to sit next to you out here.

JERRY BROWN: OK. Thank you.

BROWN: Come back again.

SAUNDERS: Great.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

California, like a lot of states large and small, will deal with electronic voting, with how to make it fair, how to make it accountable. It is safe to say there is no single solution and plenty of problems, some of which the state has dealt with this week. Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Rusty Dornin. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dimpled, pregnant, hanging or otherwise, paper ballots in Florida's 2000 election produced one big national voting hangover. One remedy was at the touch of the fingertips for some election officials, electronic voting. But voter rights advocates like Kim Alexander say it can produce more headaches than it cures.

KIM ALEXANDER, CALIFORNIA VOTER FOUNDATION: It's just really not ready yet for primetime, in my view, because it's not secure enough.

DORNIN: Fear of hackers changing the vote and plain old computer errors top the list of concerns. If there's no paper trail, how do you catch mistakes and fraud? You can't, says California secretary of state Kevin Shelley. After one vendor didn't get their machines certified in time for the March election, the state is suing the company. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday signed a bill mandating a paper trail for all e-voting machines here by the 2006 primary.

KEVIN SHELLEY, CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE: The basic thing in our democracy that every voter wants is to have the absolute confidence that their vote will be counted as it was cast. And I think the paper trail is the only absolutely pure way of ensuring that that happens.

DORNIN: While paper may reassure voters, some registrars, like Brad Clark of Alameda County, are leery.

(on camera): People are claiming that the paper trail's going to be, like, a panacea for all this. But does it create -- will it create problems for you?

BRAD CLARK, ALAMEDA COUNTY REGISTRAR: Well, certainly, it'll create problems because of the amount of paper we're going to have to have, rolls and rolls and rolls of paper at the polling places. And what if the printers jam?

DORNIN (voice-over): It's all touchscreen all the time in Nevada, the first state to use computers with a paper trail in their primary earlier this month. Voters can't touch it or take it home. The paper is behind a piece of plastic that allows voters to check their choices. In Florida, about a dozen counties will use e-voting, and there are no plans for paper.

GLENDA HOOD, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: The track record shows that since 2002, when electronic voting equipment's been used in Florida, that we've delivered successful elections. There have not been problems with the equipment that's been used.

DORNIN: But if there are problems, the secretary of state has prohibited recounts of computerized voting, a decision now challenged in the courts.

(END VIDEOTAPE) DORNIN: That challenge is not likely to be resolved by the November election. And if it's a close call in Florida or any of those other swing states where they do have he-voting, there could be problems because you just can't authenticate that was the choice that the voter made. So there's a lot of voter rights advocates out there that are worried that the possibility could come up.

BROWN: Actually, I think this is the one issue I'm a Luddite on. I like paper ballots. Does -- are the complaints -- do the complaints seem more centered with one party than the other, or is it fairly balanced? Do we actually agree on something?

DORNIN: It's fairly balanced. It's just that people want to know that the vote they cast is going to be counted, no matter what side you're on. And if you can't if you can't verify that, then why go? And that's the -- the secretary of state here is saying, Look, we don't want to, you know, destroy the confidence of voters anymore than they are already. So here in California, you have the option. If you don't trust that electronic voting machine, you can still vote with paper until 2006, which is when we'll have the paper trail with the e- voting.

BROWN: I think I would. Thank you. It's good to see you. Thank you.

Still ahead: You've heard a lot of talk about outsourcing. When we come back, "in-sourcing," I guess, California style. We're in California, in San Francisco tonight. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's a little peekaboo shot of the Bay Bridge. A little bit of concern out here about the structural integrity, as they say, of the Bay Bridge.

If we can offer an opinion, it seems to us these days that we tend to see our politics in just two colors, black and white. Consider just one issue, outsourcing. We see it as bad. We lose jobs to places like India. And we do, and that is a problem. But unless you come out here, you see but half the problem, the jobs going away. Come to California and you'll see something else, immigrants who are not stealing jobs but creating them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The joke here is that the Silicon Valley is built on ICs -- not integrated circuits, but Indians and Chinese.

ANNALEE SAXENIAN, AUTHOR, "SILICON VALLEY'S NEW IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS": I think it's impossible to underestimate the immigrant contribution to the Silicon Valley economy. They've contributed in terms of starting new companies and generating billions of dollars in revenue and thousands and thousands of jobs.

BROWN: We often hear about immigrants taking jobs from Americans, but a study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that highly-skilled immigrants own and operate nearly a quarter of all the Silicon Valley businesses, businesses that employ Americans.

B.J. ARUN, CHAIRMAN & CEO, CALIFORNIA DIGITAL: I came here as an immigrant. Sure, I took a job from some other, you know, American national who was here prior to me. But you know, what I have given back, right? I have generated 100 jobs and continuing to generate these jobs.

BROWN: B.J. Arun came from India when he was 27. He started California Digital, a company that built recently one of the world's fastest supercomputers.

JONATHAN LEE, ENTREPRENEUR: We need to figure out how we build that identity...

BROWN: Jonathan Lee is also an immigrant and also an entrepreneur. He moved to the U.S. from Korea in 1974 and helped start ten technology companies. He currently manages six of them.

LEE: Out of all the companies that I'm chairman of, we employ 122 employees. And these companies are less than two years old, so we're very much of a group of emerging companies.

BROWN: Small start-ups like these are all over the valley, and they sometimes, every now and then, grow into much larger corporations, the Yahoos! and the Intels and the Sun Microsystems, companies that can impact an entire U.S. Economy.

SAXENIAN: The Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship has now spread all over the country.

DORNIN: The Census Bureau says that last year, there were nearly 1.8 million immigrant business owners in the U.S., about 300,000 more than the number of native-born entrepreneurs, a fact Arun feels is ignored by anti-immigration activists.

ARUN: The bad rap it's getting clearly overshadows the benefits which immigrants are bringing to this country and the jobs which are being created.

BROWN: Jobs that equal steady work and steady paychecks for American citizens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Obviously, it's not an argument that outsourcing is good, it's simply an argument that all arguments have more than one side.

We'll take a break. When we come back, the earthquake. And we do mean "The Earthquake." From San Francisco, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's the Court (ph) Tower, San Francisco, overlooking the bay. Alcatraz out there not far away, either, as I recall the geography of the place.

Not far from Seattle, where we began this week, scientists said today there are new signs that Mount St. Helens might erupt. The volcano's lava dome apparently has grown about an inch-and-a-half since the volcano began stirring last week. An advisory issued today. One scientist described it as the equivalent of a code orange on the terror alert scale, one step away from an eruption. If an explosion does occur, scientists say it will be small to moderate and nowhere near the size of the big one back in 1980.

Things have been rumbling since we got out west, honestly. The earthquake yesterday in rural Parkland, California, measured 6.0 on the Richter scale. A quake here in San Francisco in 1989, 7.1, was strong enough to kill 67 people and do $7 billion in damage.

Now for a perspective. It would have taken 32 of those 1989 earthquakes at one time to equal the earthquake that devastated San Francisco back in 1906. Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For geologists and geophysicists in California, it is still the model for the big one. It struck at 5:12 AM the morning of April 18, 1906.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had an extremely large earthquake, magnitude 7.8, 7.9. We're not exactly sure of the size. Nearly 300 miles of the San Andreas fault broke, so 300 miles of property was subjected to very strong shaking for something like 45 to 60 seconds.

NISSEN: Author Simon Winchester is researching a book on the 1906 earthquake.

SIMON WINCHESTER, AUTHOR: The earth moved 21 feet. Los Angeles became 21 feet closer to San Francisco. Most people were thrown out of bed. The street was full of thousands of people.

NISSEN: In a city suddenly, terribly, askew. The pavement, in the words of one witness, pulsated like a living thing. Wooden buildings splintered. Brick ones crumbled. The shock and aftershocks liquefied the soft landfill under cheap boarding houses. Water mains broke. Gas lines exploded, shooting cobblestones high in the air.

GLADYS HANSEN, FORMER CITY ARCHIVIST: And then, of course, fire started immediately.

NISSEN: Gladys Hanson is co-author of a history and photograph book on the earthquake.

HANSEN: I would say that practically every house had a fire.

NISSEN: San Francisco had an experienced and professional fire department, but it was quickly overwhelmed. With water mains broken, there was no water pressure in the hilly city, and soon no water.

HANSEN: The fires moved quickly, ran into each other, got hotter and hotter, reached a temperature of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

NISSEN: Hot enough to turn bone to ash. The streets were choked with rubble, smoke, skittish horses, carriages, wailing children, anxious people, many dragging their belongings up San Francisco's steep hills. Thousands were pressed by walls of fire to the edge of the bay, where they jammed onto ferries, tugs, rowboats, anything that floated, as burning cinders fell like hellish rain.

HANSEN: Some 20,000 to 25,000 people were rescued off that beach. It was the largest evacuation of people by ships before World War II.

NISSEN: The fires burned for more than three days and nights.

WINCHESTER: It did finally abate, thanks to rain. There was heavy rain.

NISSEN: When the smoke cleared, four square miles of the city lay charred.

WINCHESTER: It was amazing devastation. All of commercial San Francisco was devastated.

NISSEN: More than 300,000, about two thirds of the city's population, were homeless. Thousands were injured, burned. Unknown numbers were dead.

WINCHESTER: People are still not certain how many people died. We think there were about 3,000.

NISSEN: In the near century since, disaster experts, seismologists, city planners, engineers and firefighters have all studied the 1906 earthquake and fire. Yet ignoring the most profound lessons of nature may be human nature.

WINCHESTER: Man exists on this planet subject to geological consent, which can be withdrawn at any time. It will be withdrawn again for San Francisco. The question is, How will it respond next time?

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: San Francisco has a rich newspaper history. We asked them to send us some of their favorite headlines. Some of the newspapers aren't in existence anymore. The headlines are fabulous tonight.

"The Daily News" -- I don't believe "Daily News" in San Francisco is in business -- 1906, April 18. Can you see it? "Hundreds dead. Fire follows earthquake, laying down town section in ruins. City seems doomed for lack of water." And they list the known dead. "Max Fenner (ph), a policeman. Nice of Detective Dillon (ph) killed in collapse. Unidentified woman killed at 18 7th Street." And on it went.

"San Francisco Chronicle" on that Sunday, April 22, '06, "Force of fire is at last spent. Banks able to meet the emergency." Over here. I don't know if you can see this. "Wine used to fight flames." It is San Francisco, after all. "Brave doctor loses eye," is one of the stories on the front page. This is terrific.

"San Francisco Chronicle" 1901. A ship crashed in Golden Gate Harbor, and the headline -- this is a little tough to see -- "Six score souls go down to death at Golden Gate" is the headline.

Kind of makes this headline seem a little weird, I think, somehow. "Patty Hearst found," but it was a big deal. "Heiress, three others captured in San Francisco." Remember when that happened?

And "The Sacramento Bee" sent us this. "It's Arnold. Schwarzenegger coasts to victory." I guess you remember that one, in October of '03.

We'll wrap it up from the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If that doesn't say San Francisco, I don't know what does. Once again, our thanks to the good people at the Fairmont Hotel for their hospitality and their help. We could not have done this program tonight without them.

Tomorrow, we join you from Los Angeles at midnight Eastern time, 9:00 o'clock out here. The debate will dominate the program. Friday, we're in Las Vegas. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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 September 29, 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, NEWSNIGHT: That sounds good. That works for me. I will see you tomorrow in L.A., Larry. Thank you very much.
KING: Right here, baby.

BROWN: Right here baby. We're in California, talk like that. Good evening again everyone. We're on the roof top of the beautiful Fairmont Hotel, in beautiful San Francisco. The two go together quite nicely thank you. There's much to do tonight. California stories to tell. And perhaps the most important moment in the presidential campaign so far to preview. So we'll keep this page brief.

In a time of national polarization, California does seem to have a lesson to teach, that there still can be consensus in politics and moderation is not necessarily dead. It may just be a honeymoon but the governor, Governor Schwarzenegger, seems to have done what no national political leader has been able to do -- or even tries very hard to do, to bring both sides together, somewhere in the middle, to get things done, to get the state's bills paid, get the schools teaching, get the state working. The governor's story is one of the stories we'll look at tonight. But "the whip" begins on a partisan note, the debate and all that surrounds it. CNN's Candy Crowley has one piece of the picture. So Candy, a headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Kerry strategists say tomorrow night's debate is not the be and end all. But it is getting awfully close and there's lots that John Kerry has to accomplish.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. A different set of circumstances for the president with a lead in the polls. John King, our senior White House correspondent with that side of things. So John, a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president rode his bike today. He went fishing. He toured some hurricane damage. It's as if, at least in public, there's no debate at all tomorrow night. Trust me, the president knows very well there is and it's a big one.

BROWN: And finally, the debate about the debate. CNN's Dan Lothian with that. So Dan, the headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right Aaron. It is the debate over the debate. Both of the candidates have signed on to an agreement but the networks don't want to play by all the rules. Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest in a moment.

Also coming up on the program tonight -- possibly a fire behind us. Also tonight, immigrants and the jobs they create, in this case, in California's important and prosperous Silicon Valley.

We'll also revisit perhaps the most eventful moment in the state's young history, the day back in 1906 that the world and this city, turned upside down.

Also some of the other stories that have made headlines in San Francisco, around the bay over the years. Morning papers at the end of the hour. All that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the 90 minutes on stage, in Coral Gables, Florida, that both presidential campaigns have been planning for, perhaps obsessing about, for days. Success, it's been said, is being ready when opportunity knocks. Tomorrow, on cue, it will. We have several reports tonight on tomorrow's debate beginning, first, with CNN's Candy Crowley.

CROWLEY: The Kerry campaign sees Thursday night's debate as another chance at a first impression.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm looking forward to tomorrow night for an opportunity to be able to share with Americans the truth, not the sound bytes, not the advertisements, but the truth.

CROWLEY: After three days at a golf resort in Wisconsin, reading, resting, mock debating, John Kerry arrived in Miami, to the more standard stuff of campaigns and a debate night to-do list.

KERRY: I'm taking this energy in and I'm going to use it tomorrow night. I'm going to use it.

CROWLEY: First, create doubt about the president as commander in chief, doubt about his ability to do the job. The ad men are all over it.

CAMPAIGN AD: Maybe George Bush can't tell us why he went to Iraq. But it's time he tells us how he's going to fix it.

CROWLEY: Item two -- question the president's grip on reality, his truthfulness.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People keep talking about it being a test for John Kerry. It's a test for George Bush. It's a test -- (APPLAUSE) it's a test for whether this president is finally going to be straight and come clean with the American people about what's happening in Iraq.

CROWLEY: And finally, most importantly for Kerry, item three -- undo some of this damage. KERRY: I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.

CROWLEY: In an interview with ABC, Kerry took another go at an explanation.

KERRY: It just was a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those inarticulate moments late in the evening, when I was dead tired in the primaries and I didn't say something very clearly.

CROWLEY: As the Bush campaign dutifully notes, it was 1:00 in the afternoon when Kerry made his remarks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: Top strategists say they expect their candidate to do very well tomorrow night. They are interestingly, Aaron, conceding one point. They say look, the president is a very nice guy, an affable guy. People are attracted to him. But they say that's not what this is about. This is all about the issues. Aaron.

BROWN: Actually, that is part of what it's about. It's not all of what it's about. And the senator has to come across as someone you wouldn't mind in your living room, every night.

CROWLEY: Exactly right. And I talked to Democrats outside the campaign, as well, who tend to be a little more blunt than those inside his campaign. And one of them said to me, look, he's got 90 minutes to get people to like him. So, there is a lot of -- it's not style so much as just some sense that voters get. Do I trust this guy? Do I like this guy? Can he be in my living room TV for the next four years? They know that very well so obviously there are going to be some attempts to try to relate, as they say. But they did, I think, try to draw the sting a little of George Bush's likability factor by saying well, that's not what it's about. Interestingly also, you hear a lot, today, I was listening to a lot of the spinners for the Kerry side who kept saying we don't need a cheerleader. We don't really need a cheerleader, clearly trying to put George Bush in that niche, so that they can build up John Kerry's leadership credentials.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. I suspect we'll talk tomorrow. Thank you.

BROWN: Debate preparations of course have consumed both candidates for days, not just prepping toward specific questions. It's also about shaping audience expectations on both sides. That part of the story, our senior White House correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The president broke from debate preparations to survey damage from hurricane Jeanne, walking through an orange grove hit by three hurricanes this year. He ignored a question about the looming debate, leaving it to aides to suggest the incumbent president is somehow the underdog.

DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Senator Kerry has been preparing his whole life for this. He has -- he was a prep star debater. He was an ivy league debater himself, 20 years in the United States Senate.

KING: Iraq is certain to be the major flash point. The Bush camp promises to highlight what it calls a history of shifting Kerry positions. This Bush campaign debate guide mocks the Democrat. Now you say the war you voted for made us less safe. It goes on to say Senator Kerry's strategy is pretend like no position you have ever taken matters. Nobody knows what you really believe anyway.

In Minnesota, Vice President Cheney tested another line of attack, suggesting Senator Kerry is irresponsible to say he favors bringing troops home from Iraq within four years.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We clearly want them home, but that's not the way to state the objective. The objective is to finish the mission, to get the job done, to do it right.

KING: Senator Kerry calls Iraq chaos now. He wants the debate focused on what he calls Mr. Bush's poor planning.

SUSAN RICE, KERRY FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER: What is his exit strategy for Iraq? How are we going to get out of the mess in Iraq?

KING: Democrats predict a backlash if the president is overly optimistic.

If he doesn't really come to grips with the reality on the ground in Iraq today, I think he could actually come across as being out of touch.

KING: That bike ride and fishing on the ranch before Mr. Bush came to Florida, a hurricane tour today, another hurricane damage tour in the morning. Aaron aide describe the president as eager and confident heading into this showdown. They say no more mock debates. No more formal preparations though he will have some conversations of course with senior advisers throughout the day tomorrow.

BROWN: Four years ago, the president, then the governor, had to prove that he was, essentially, up to the job. He had to stand next to Al Gore and say I could be president of the United States. His task is very different and I would assume it is to stay off the defensive tomorrow.

KING: It is very different and they recognize that. President Bush always benefits from being underestimated. If you go through his debate history, whether it was against the incumbent governor of Texas, Ann Richards, the incumbent vice president of the United States, Al Gore, he's done very well. His aides concede his worst debate performance is when he was incumbent governor of Texas against the Democratic challenger Gary Morrow (ph). Bush went on to win easily, but that was his worst debate performance. He has to defend his record tomorrow night. Aides say he must not immediately pivot to the line you will hear all night -- that John Kerry has shifted positions on national security, been weak on national security, vacillate on Iraq. The president will make that case. But aides say he must first confidently, but in detail, defend his decision to go to war, defend his other priorities on the world stage. Defend his record. Be optimistic and confident, as he does so and then attack. If he attacks first, aides say he could be in trouble.

BROWN: John, thank you and we'll talk to you tomorrow too. John King in Miami tonight.

Presidential debates are rituals, opportunities born of orchestration, not serendipity. The legal teams from both campaigns have been prepping as well. Their goal: limiting the unpredictable. For all the strategizing, they don't have the final say over everything. Without technology and reporters who come with it, opportunity would knock but no one would hear. And today, the campaigns learn that they can control each other but they can't control us, at least not completely. Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): The devil is in the debate details, a 32- page agreement between both campaigns. But television networks are refusing to accept some of the rules. In particular, this item -- barring TV cut aways while a candidate is answering a question. It's the kind of shot that embarrassed Al Gore in the 2000 debates.

FRANK FAHRINKOFF, CO-CHAIR, DEBATE COMMISSION: The candidates don't like the cut away. They wanted of course the commission to try to stop that. It's not within our power to stop that. We don't own the feed.

LOTHIAN: The debate commission says it won't sign the agreement. And no moderator has, either. Fox News, which is handling camera feeds for the media in the first debate, said in a statement, because of journalistic standards, we're not going to follow outside restrictions. CNN and other networks, issued similar statements, NBC saying, we're not subject to agreements between candidates.

Another issue -- timing lights. The agreement says the TV audience must be able to see when a candidate's answer goes too long. But again, the networks have signaled they'll decide what to show.

ED FOUHY, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR, STATELINE.ORG: Those details of television production, that lawyers really don't have any knowledge of and they shouldn't be involved in doing them.

LOTHIAN: The questions that keep popping up around this controversy -- is this even a debate? Is the agreement getting in the way of what voters should be seeing and hearing?

FAHRINKOFF: There's no question. This is not the classic debate that you saw in college or high school in debate society. But it's better than nothing. And when you realize that there's no way you can force these candidates to debate if they don't want to.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: Both of the candidates are prepared for tonight's -- for rather tomorrow's debates. They feel very comfortable that they will be able to score some points on their issues, such as homeland security and also foreign policy. But they know about these debates that have happened over the years. They know what has worked, what has not worked and they are looking for every bit of an advantage. Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you. Dan Lothian down in Florida tonight, as well.

It's safe to say by this time tomorrow night, we'll be paying less attention to the ground rules, I certainly hope and more on the important stuff, though only some of it important with a capital "I." The rest is something else, entirely, not where you stand on the war, but how you stand at the podium. As long as voters elect people, not platforms, it matters. And because it matters, CNN's Jeff Greenfield has some advice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The candidates will answer or comment upon answers to questions spoke (ph) by a panel of correspondents. In this, the first discussion in a series of four --

GREENFIELD (voice-over: OK, now look. This is basic. Stay cool -- get plenty of rest, watch your makeup and don't look like you're on your way to root canal, the way Nixon did back in '60. You got to look like you're happy to be at this debate, which is why we made sure there won't be cut aways at these debates. Maybe you would rather be watching "Law & Order," but your audience is going to figure, if I can take the time to watch, you shouldn't look like you got a late date. Stay focused.

On the other hand, don't be too focused on strategy. Remember what happened in 2000, when Al Gore tried to physically dominate the shorter Bush. That one look and it was all over. Thank God the rules won't let you do that.

GERALD FORD, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.

GREENFIELD: Now I'm showing you this because it's maybe the only example I can find where substance actually made a difference. After the press jumped all over poor Gerry Ford for prematurely liberating eastern Europe from Soviet domination, that changed the way people saw the debate. So please, if God forbid, you're got to bring up a fact, may sure you get it right.

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I support a strong, national patients bill of rights.

GREENFIELD: On the other hand, even if you're right, you can know too much. Here's Gore in 2000 trying to say that Bush wasn't really for the right prescription drug plan.

GORE: The Dingell Norwood bill. I referred to the Dingell Norwood bill. What about the Dingell Norwood bill?

GREENFIELD: Beautiful. I think most voters thought Dingell Norwood was a department store.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, with regard to my feeling about why I thought his record, that he spoke his possible --

GREENFIELD: On second thought, look what happened to Reagan in '84, when his adviser stuffed him with facts and figures. That was the worst debate performance of any presidential candidate ever. Yeah, yeah, I know. He made a joke in the next debate about not exploiting Mondale's youth and he carried 49 states, but you're no Reagan. Don't take the chance.

ROSS PEROT, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look at all three hours.

GREENFIELD: But here's something that's pure debate gold. I call it political judo. You take a weakness and you flip it, the way Ross Perot did when he was challenged on not having any experience.

PEROT: Well, they've got a point. I don't have experience in running up a $4 trillion debt.

GREENFIELD: So, there you are. Stay cool. Stay focused. Don't be too intense. Don't forget to smile. Make sure your facts are right. And oh, yeah, be yourself. Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we'll be taking a look at how the debaters did and how the spinners are spinning it, tomorrow night from Los Angeles. When we come back, the day in Iraq and the night in San Francisco. From the city by the bay, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The day in Iraq, more fighting, heavy fighting again today in Baghdad, American and Iraqi forces, battling insurgents in Sadr city, using artillery on enemy mortar locations. Reports too of raids on insurgent bases along Haifa Street, a major artery and a difficult one near the green zone.

Late today, Al Jazeera broadcast a video of Kenneth Bigley, the Briton who was kidnapped along with two Americans earlier this month. They were killed. Today, Mr. Bigley implored the British prime minister again to work for his release. And Tony Blair, in the meantime said, if the kidnappers contact the British government, the government would respond immediately. Those were his words. He left unclear what the response would be. He has repeatedly said he will not negotiate with the kidnappers.

Back home, now. From where we sit, with the city in the bay spread out behind us, there's one thing we can say for certain about San Francisco -- at the end of the day, we don't know nothing about nothing. Not really. For a place so chock full of concrete, the bridges, the cable cars, the commerce, the relics, it is the intangibles, perhaps the unknowables, that crowd the horizon, which makes San Francisco both a puzzlement and a joy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Back in 1968, Bobby Kennedy said this about San Francisco -- "I love this city. If I'm elected, I'll move the White House to San Francisco. It may be Baghdad by the bay to you. But to me," he said, "it's resurrection city."

ARMSTEAD MAUPIN, AUTHOR: It does work its wiles on you very quickly and in a subtle way. And it's not the things that people generally think of, like some flashy, wild thing. It has more to do with a little wisp of fog.

BROWN: Best-selling author Armstead Maupin has been in love with San Francisco for more than 30 years.

MAUPIN: One of the distinguishing features of this town, is that its basically happened overnight with a bunch of dreamers, a bunch of people who wanted to like make a lot money real fast to find a whole new world for themselves, to reinvent themselves.

ANGELO ALIOTO, ATTORNEY: We have been devastated several times and we keep coming back stronger with an even more beautiful city. But could be coming back from 1906, the earthquake or the fire, which was the devastating or coming back from the Internet dotcom boom. We come back, no matter what, but we have to come back as who we were, not just as the rich.

BROWN: If all of the world is a stage, San Francisco is one of its premiere theaters.

RICHARD TITUS, A.K.A., VICTORIA'S SECRET: Drag has a unique place in San Francisco, partly because ever since the 1850s, San Francisco has always been known as a place where you can go and reinvent yourself. Richard becomes Victoria when the hair goes on.

BROWN: Richard Titus is a criminal lawyer by day. And by night, he is something else completely. Meet Victoria's Secret.

TITUS: I have the soul of a drag queen in the body of an NFL linebacker.

BROWN: His partner, Jimmy Parker, helps with his transformation.

TITUS: I allow myself to be some of the things I would like to be as Richard and can't be, that is much more outgoing, much more of a party person, much more open and less shy, much more uninhibited, I guess. Victoria's very uninhibited compared to Richard. You'd have to be to put this dress on.

BROWN: Before his own transformation, Jimmy helps this graduate student become Sophila Legs. Then Jimmy becomes Angelica and all become masters of reinvention, in the city that gives reinvention a good name.

But in the end, it's all make-believe. The real woman that best captures the heart of the city, a timeless beauty, seductive at any age, a real woman, perhaps Sophia Loren.

ALIOTO: It's an attitude. It was her walk that made her famous and I believe that's very true of San Francisco. San Franciscans have an attitude. Don't ask me about Los Angeles. You know? Don't even attempt to compare San Francisco to Seattle. It isn't happening. San Francisco is San Francisco and there is no comparison. Sofia Loren is like 70 years old and she's absolutely gorgeous. Any way you look at it, no matter what has hit this city, it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we come back to San Francisco, the politics of California which are like no politics anywhere else.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The bay area on an early fall night and it feels like an early fall night in the bay area, too. When Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wanted to be governor, it was good for a punch line or two even though movie stars running for office, barely raise an eyebrow these days. But he's the terminator for heaven's sakes and he talks like the terminator. And he looks like he was built by the same outfit that built Stonehenge. So there were laughs.

But now, a year into it, the laughs have given way to respect from both sides of the aisle, one hand shake at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): No matter where he goes -- the applause is genuine, the hand shakes, solid, the crowd adoring.

STATE SENATOR JAMES BRULTE (R), RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA: Arnold is a real person. He's clearly a larger than life figure but he's engaging. It's fascinating to me that our governor is probably the most well-known person in the world. And yet, when you sit in a room with him, it doesn't matter who you are, he makes you feel like the most important person in the world.

BROWN: And it's not only the Republicans that talk like this.

WILLIE BROWN, FORMER MAYOR, SAN FRANCISCO: I think the Republicans have been pleasantly surprised about his ability to actually master the process in a very brief period of time. The Democrats, in some cases, have been shocked into silence and inaction by virtue of that particular skill.

BROWN: It's been nearly a year since Arnold Schwarzenegger rolled into office, the only state-wide Republican office holder in California. And so far, he has won every major, political battle he has fought.

PAUL FEIST, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: I do think he surprised people. He had no political experience coming in here. He's been able to push forward his proposals one at a time. He's very focused in terms of taking on one issue at a time whether it's the budget or workers compensation. I think he has exceeded expectations.

BROWN: The governor holds court inside this elaborate tent. California's no-smoking law meant he couldn't smoke his favorite cigars inside his office. So, he moved his office outside.

BRULTE: He has a good sense of the Arnold brand. He uses the Arnold brand to the benefit of moving his legislative agenda. Watching him interact in leadership meetings, he knows exactly when to engage. He knows exactly when to break up any tension with a laugh. He's an incredibly good personal negotiator.

BROWN: In short, the early reviews on Schwarzenegger are raves.

BRULTE: At the risk of sounding Pollyannaish, I think he has the potential to go down as one of the truly great governors in California history and if he was eligible to run for president, I don't think anything can stop him. And I think he could go down as one of the truly great presidents in American history.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined now by a man who was once governor of California, Jerry Brown. He's currently the mayor of Oakland and he's on the run again. Deborah Saunders joins us, as well. She's a columnist, a conservative columnist for the "San Francisco Chronicle" and I assume content in her current job. We're glad to have you both here. One minute on governor Schwarzenegger and then on to other things. Does this honeymoon last?

MAYOR JERRY BROWN (D) OAKLAND, CA: No. Honeymoon's don't last, even for Ronald Reagan. They found out one year that he had paid no income tax, and his popularity plummeted. But of course, he came back and ran for president successfully. So the first year, you can have very high ratings. That's not inconsistent with having very low ratings when something goes wrong. You can have a scandal. You could have a precipitous drop in the finances of the state, or you could have an electrical crisis, all sorts of things.

DEBRA SAUNDERS, COLUMNIST, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Let me say, I think he's been a star but not a superhero.

BROWN: Yes.

SAUNDERS: I mean, he's got a lot of charisma, and everybody likes being around him. But when he got into office, he said he was going to blow up the boxes and really change government. Instead, he borrowed money to balance the budget, and he hasn't blown up any boxes. He hasn't done anything really tough. And one of these days, he's going to have to do something that's not popular. And he hasn't done that yet. That's when we're going to find out if he's a real leader.

BROWN: And it's when we find out if he has an actual political base?

SAUNDERS: I think that's when we find out if he has a base.

BROWN: We were talking just before we started, there are 16 referendums or initiatives or propositions on the ballot in November. Is that the sign, Governor, Mayor, of good government or bad government?

JERRY BROWN: It's a sign of freedom in California that if you get 5 percent of the -- of signatures of the people who voted for governor, you can put something on the ballot. And people are activated. They've gotten used to spending enormous sums for candidates. And so now, instead of going through the indirect process of representative government, people with enough money, or an organization, can put actual laws on the ballot.

BROWN: That doesn't sound like good government to me.

JERRY BROWN: Well, wait a minute. Good or bad, that's a very -- there's an elite group who think the people are too stupid to be able to initiate laws. And the premise of California is the power is reserved to the people. And the legislature is an exception to the popular rule. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of mistakes. There are.

SAUNDERS: You know, Aaron, it's amazing how well the system does work because while there's a lot of crap on this ballot, people -- the voters really do figure it out. And there are times when there'll be competing initiatives, and one is supposed to look like it does one thing when it does something else. And the voters, as a rule, really do figure it out.

BROWN: So in the din of the -- of advertising -- I was just watching a little bit of TV today, and I must have seen a half a dozen ads on Proposition 68, I think, is a gambling initiative. Voters will figure it out?

SAUNDERS: I think they will. And it's not just that they'll figure it out -- well, yes, they are going to figure it out. And they're going to see beyond the ads because they actually read editorials when they look how to vote on initiatives. And you'll be surprised. It will make a difference. And there's so many measures on the ballot, 16, that they're going to vote no as much as they can because they're just sick of seeing things.

JERRY BROWN: You know, it's an imperfect process. People can put on something, and you can't change it. It's yes or no. And then millions of dollars are spent. Now, the other imperfect process is called the legislature, $200 million of lobbying, a lot of back room activity. Plenty of imperfection there. It's just a different imperfection, more flexible, more public disclosure. But often, things don't get done. In the initiative, things get done, but sometimes they're the wrong things.

BROWN: A minute left. California and the presidential campaign. No one thinks the state is in play. Are you looking forward to the debate tomorrow?

SAUNDERS: Oh, I'm looking forward to the debate tomorrow. I think a lot of people who live in the bay area are really hoping to see John Kerry change his position on Iraq. I think they're going to be disappointed. And I think they're going to...

BROWN: They want him to become an anti-war candidate?

SAUNDERS: They want him to be Howard Dean, and he's not Howard Dean. If they wanted Howard Dean, they should have picked Howard Dean, but they didn't.

BROWN: He's got himself in a box, doesn't he?

JERRY BROWN: Well, the box started when George Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. And now he is the commander-in-chief fighting evil. Now, what does Kerry do in that situation? The only thing he can do is be more presidential. If there's a way he can act his way to more gravity, to more commander-in-chiefness, he has an outside chance. But Bush set the context. That doesn't mean there's going be not a lot of problems down the road, but tomorrow night, Kerry's climbing it uphill.

BROWN: You're wagging your finger. Ten seconds.

SAUNDERS: It started when Kerry voted to authorize the war. That's when the box started. And he can't win -- he can -- he'll have California, no matter what, though he's not going to give California what Californians want to hear.

JERRY BROWN: It's hard to change horses in midstream.

BROWN: You've both joined us in the past electronically. It's nice to sit next to you out here.

JERRY BROWN: OK. Thank you.

BROWN: Come back again.

SAUNDERS: Great.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

California, like a lot of states large and small, will deal with electronic voting, with how to make it fair, how to make it accountable. It is safe to say there is no single solution and plenty of problems, some of which the state has dealt with this week. Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Rusty Dornin. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dimpled, pregnant, hanging or otherwise, paper ballots in Florida's 2000 election produced one big national voting hangover. One remedy was at the touch of the fingertips for some election officials, electronic voting. But voter rights advocates like Kim Alexander say it can produce more headaches than it cures.

KIM ALEXANDER, CALIFORNIA VOTER FOUNDATION: It's just really not ready yet for primetime, in my view, because it's not secure enough.

DORNIN: Fear of hackers changing the vote and plain old computer errors top the list of concerns. If there's no paper trail, how do you catch mistakes and fraud? You can't, says California secretary of state Kevin Shelley. After one vendor didn't get their machines certified in time for the March election, the state is suing the company. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday signed a bill mandating a paper trail for all e-voting machines here by the 2006 primary.

KEVIN SHELLEY, CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE: The basic thing in our democracy that every voter wants is to have the absolute confidence that their vote will be counted as it was cast. And I think the paper trail is the only absolutely pure way of ensuring that that happens.

DORNIN: While paper may reassure voters, some registrars, like Brad Clark of Alameda County, are leery.

(on camera): People are claiming that the paper trail's going to be, like, a panacea for all this. But does it create -- will it create problems for you?

BRAD CLARK, ALAMEDA COUNTY REGISTRAR: Well, certainly, it'll create problems because of the amount of paper we're going to have to have, rolls and rolls and rolls of paper at the polling places. And what if the printers jam?

DORNIN (voice-over): It's all touchscreen all the time in Nevada, the first state to use computers with a paper trail in their primary earlier this month. Voters can't touch it or take it home. The paper is behind a piece of plastic that allows voters to check their choices. In Florida, about a dozen counties will use e-voting, and there are no plans for paper.

GLENDA HOOD, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: The track record shows that since 2002, when electronic voting equipment's been used in Florida, that we've delivered successful elections. There have not been problems with the equipment that's been used.

DORNIN: But if there are problems, the secretary of state has prohibited recounts of computerized voting, a decision now challenged in the courts.

(END VIDEOTAPE) DORNIN: That challenge is not likely to be resolved by the November election. And if it's a close call in Florida or any of those other swing states where they do have he-voting, there could be problems because you just can't authenticate that was the choice that the voter made. So there's a lot of voter rights advocates out there that are worried that the possibility could come up.

BROWN: Actually, I think this is the one issue I'm a Luddite on. I like paper ballots. Does -- are the complaints -- do the complaints seem more centered with one party than the other, or is it fairly balanced? Do we actually agree on something?

DORNIN: It's fairly balanced. It's just that people want to know that the vote they cast is going to be counted, no matter what side you're on. And if you can't if you can't verify that, then why go? And that's the -- the secretary of state here is saying, Look, we don't want to, you know, destroy the confidence of voters anymore than they are already. So here in California, you have the option. If you don't trust that electronic voting machine, you can still vote with paper until 2006, which is when we'll have the paper trail with the e- voting.

BROWN: I think I would. Thank you. It's good to see you. Thank you.

Still ahead: You've heard a lot of talk about outsourcing. When we come back, "in-sourcing," I guess, California style. We're in California, in San Francisco tonight. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's a little peekaboo shot of the Bay Bridge. A little bit of concern out here about the structural integrity, as they say, of the Bay Bridge.

If we can offer an opinion, it seems to us these days that we tend to see our politics in just two colors, black and white. Consider just one issue, outsourcing. We see it as bad. We lose jobs to places like India. And we do, and that is a problem. But unless you come out here, you see but half the problem, the jobs going away. Come to California and you'll see something else, immigrants who are not stealing jobs but creating them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The joke here is that the Silicon Valley is built on ICs -- not integrated circuits, but Indians and Chinese.

ANNALEE SAXENIAN, AUTHOR, "SILICON VALLEY'S NEW IMMIGRANT ENTREPRENEURS": I think it's impossible to underestimate the immigrant contribution to the Silicon Valley economy. They've contributed in terms of starting new companies and generating billions of dollars in revenue and thousands and thousands of jobs.

BROWN: We often hear about immigrants taking jobs from Americans, but a study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that highly-skilled immigrants own and operate nearly a quarter of all the Silicon Valley businesses, businesses that employ Americans.

B.J. ARUN, CHAIRMAN & CEO, CALIFORNIA DIGITAL: I came here as an immigrant. Sure, I took a job from some other, you know, American national who was here prior to me. But you know, what I have given back, right? I have generated 100 jobs and continuing to generate these jobs.

BROWN: B.J. Arun came from India when he was 27. He started California Digital, a company that built recently one of the world's fastest supercomputers.

JONATHAN LEE, ENTREPRENEUR: We need to figure out how we build that identity...

BROWN: Jonathan Lee is also an immigrant and also an entrepreneur. He moved to the U.S. from Korea in 1974 and helped start ten technology companies. He currently manages six of them.

LEE: Out of all the companies that I'm chairman of, we employ 122 employees. And these companies are less than two years old, so we're very much of a group of emerging companies.

BROWN: Small start-ups like these are all over the valley, and they sometimes, every now and then, grow into much larger corporations, the Yahoos! and the Intels and the Sun Microsystems, companies that can impact an entire U.S. Economy.

SAXENIAN: The Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship has now spread all over the country.

DORNIN: The Census Bureau says that last year, there were nearly 1.8 million immigrant business owners in the U.S., about 300,000 more than the number of native-born entrepreneurs, a fact Arun feels is ignored by anti-immigration activists.

ARUN: The bad rap it's getting clearly overshadows the benefits which immigrants are bringing to this country and the jobs which are being created.

BROWN: Jobs that equal steady work and steady paychecks for American citizens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Obviously, it's not an argument that outsourcing is good, it's simply an argument that all arguments have more than one side.

We'll take a break. When we come back, the earthquake. And we do mean "The Earthquake." From San Francisco, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's the Court (ph) Tower, San Francisco, overlooking the bay. Alcatraz out there not far away, either, as I recall the geography of the place.

Not far from Seattle, where we began this week, scientists said today there are new signs that Mount St. Helens might erupt. The volcano's lava dome apparently has grown about an inch-and-a-half since the volcano began stirring last week. An advisory issued today. One scientist described it as the equivalent of a code orange on the terror alert scale, one step away from an eruption. If an explosion does occur, scientists say it will be small to moderate and nowhere near the size of the big one back in 1980.

Things have been rumbling since we got out west, honestly. The earthquake yesterday in rural Parkland, California, measured 6.0 on the Richter scale. A quake here in San Francisco in 1989, 7.1, was strong enough to kill 67 people and do $7 billion in damage.

Now for a perspective. It would have taken 32 of those 1989 earthquakes at one time to equal the earthquake that devastated San Francisco back in 1906. Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For geologists and geophysicists in California, it is still the model for the big one. It struck at 5:12 AM the morning of April 18, 1906.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had an extremely large earthquake, magnitude 7.8, 7.9. We're not exactly sure of the size. Nearly 300 miles of the San Andreas fault broke, so 300 miles of property was subjected to very strong shaking for something like 45 to 60 seconds.

NISSEN: Author Simon Winchester is researching a book on the 1906 earthquake.

SIMON WINCHESTER, AUTHOR: The earth moved 21 feet. Los Angeles became 21 feet closer to San Francisco. Most people were thrown out of bed. The street was full of thousands of people.

NISSEN: In a city suddenly, terribly, askew. The pavement, in the words of one witness, pulsated like a living thing. Wooden buildings splintered. Brick ones crumbled. The shock and aftershocks liquefied the soft landfill under cheap boarding houses. Water mains broke. Gas lines exploded, shooting cobblestones high in the air.

GLADYS HANSEN, FORMER CITY ARCHIVIST: And then, of course, fire started immediately.

NISSEN: Gladys Hanson is co-author of a history and photograph book on the earthquake.

HANSEN: I would say that practically every house had a fire.

NISSEN: San Francisco had an experienced and professional fire department, but it was quickly overwhelmed. With water mains broken, there was no water pressure in the hilly city, and soon no water.

HANSEN: The fires moved quickly, ran into each other, got hotter and hotter, reached a temperature of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

NISSEN: Hot enough to turn bone to ash. The streets were choked with rubble, smoke, skittish horses, carriages, wailing children, anxious people, many dragging their belongings up San Francisco's steep hills. Thousands were pressed by walls of fire to the edge of the bay, where they jammed onto ferries, tugs, rowboats, anything that floated, as burning cinders fell like hellish rain.

HANSEN: Some 20,000 to 25,000 people were rescued off that beach. It was the largest evacuation of people by ships before World War II.

NISSEN: The fires burned for more than three days and nights.

WINCHESTER: It did finally abate, thanks to rain. There was heavy rain.

NISSEN: When the smoke cleared, four square miles of the city lay charred.

WINCHESTER: It was amazing devastation. All of commercial San Francisco was devastated.

NISSEN: More than 300,000, about two thirds of the city's population, were homeless. Thousands were injured, burned. Unknown numbers were dead.

WINCHESTER: People are still not certain how many people died. We think there were about 3,000.

NISSEN: In the near century since, disaster experts, seismologists, city planners, engineers and firefighters have all studied the 1906 earthquake and fire. Yet ignoring the most profound lessons of nature may be human nature.

WINCHESTER: Man exists on this planet subject to geological consent, which can be withdrawn at any time. It will be withdrawn again for San Francisco. The question is, How will it respond next time?

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: San Francisco has a rich newspaper history. We asked them to send us some of their favorite headlines. Some of the newspapers aren't in existence anymore. The headlines are fabulous tonight.

"The Daily News" -- I don't believe "Daily News" in San Francisco is in business -- 1906, April 18. Can you see it? "Hundreds dead. Fire follows earthquake, laying down town section in ruins. City seems doomed for lack of water." And they list the known dead. "Max Fenner (ph), a policeman. Nice of Detective Dillon (ph) killed in collapse. Unidentified woman killed at 18 7th Street." And on it went.

"San Francisco Chronicle" on that Sunday, April 22, '06, "Force of fire is at last spent. Banks able to meet the emergency." Over here. I don't know if you can see this. "Wine used to fight flames." It is San Francisco, after all. "Brave doctor loses eye," is one of the stories on the front page. This is terrific.

"San Francisco Chronicle" 1901. A ship crashed in Golden Gate Harbor, and the headline -- this is a little tough to see -- "Six score souls go down to death at Golden Gate" is the headline.

Kind of makes this headline seem a little weird, I think, somehow. "Patty Hearst found," but it was a big deal. "Heiress, three others captured in San Francisco." Remember when that happened?

And "The Sacramento Bee" sent us this. "It's Arnold. Schwarzenegger coasts to victory." I guess you remember that one, in October of '03.

We'll wrap it up from the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If that doesn't say San Francisco, I don't know what does. Once again, our thanks to the good people at the Fairmont Hotel for their hospitality and their help. We could not have done this program tonight without them.

Tomorrow, we join you from Los Angeles at midnight Eastern time, 9:00 o'clock out here. The debate will dominate the program. Friday, we're in Las Vegas. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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