Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Democratic Debate

Aired October 10, 2003 - 14:06   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, before they can get at President Bush, the Democrats have to duke it out amongst themselves, and duke it they did last night. Who won, who lost, and I suppose I could ask who cares, but CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider certainly does.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: I care.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider cares deeply.

It was definitely pick on Wes night. And it was Candy Crowley, who said, you know, it was like hell week at a frat for him. He was kind of getting hazed. Is it something deeper than that, or is that the end of it for Wes Clark.

SCHNEIDER: He's like the new pledge, you know, when he joins the frat, you've got to pick on him. He's the newest entrant into the race. He vaulted to the top of the national polls. So the Democrats wanted to cut him down to size, and I must say, they did a pretty good job of it. Joe Lieberman particularly has been criticized for his support of the war in Iraq, and he used the Wesley Clark presence at that debate to pick on someone who he thought was more vulnerable on that issue than he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I must say that I've been very disappointed since Wes Clark came into this race about the various positions he has taken on the war against Saddam Hussein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So what Lieberman said was, I supported the war, and I'll stand by that, even though it's not a very popular issue among Democrats, but that's better than someone where you don't know whether he supports it or opposes it, and changes his positions.

O'BRIEN: All right, now, let's -- Wes Clark, of course, had a little rebuttal. Why don't we play that and I want to ask -- We don't have the Wes Clark thing? Oh, well, you just promised it to me a moment ago. All right, we don't.

All right, imagine Wes Clark now saying, "I always supported taking the problem of Saddam Hussein to the United Nations and bringing international resolve to bear. I would never have voted for war." That's a direct quote, by the way. Does that sell in the Democratic primaries?

SCHNEIDER: I'm not sure it does, because most people thought of that resolution as a resolution that allowed Bush to go to war if it was necessary. It didn't really say this is a resolution asking the president to go to the U.N., but said the use of force was justifiable if all else failed. And so he would -- when General Clark urged people, including some members of Congress, to vote for that resolution, that was considered, I think even at the time, a resolution that enabled President Bush to make war in Iraq.

What Wesley Clark really said in the end was he supported Bush, he supported the nation's leadership. He even went to Republican fund-raisers for the Bush administration and praised their leadership, but, he claims, Bush was supposed to offer compassionate conservative. Instead, he governed as a radical right-winger. So essentially Wesley Clark is saying, he was fooled by bush as many Americans were. The problem is a lot of Democrats say, well, we weren't fooled by Bush. We all knew what he was about from the beginning. Is Wesley Clark really one of us? Is he a real Democrat?

O'BRIEN: I guess if nothing else, it proves the peril of being an analyst on a 24-hour cable channel. There's bound to be something you said out there which contravenes what you're saying now, I suppose, if you look at the record.

Let's -- all right, now finally Dick Gephardt, although most of the discussion on this evening happened to be about Iraq, you almost got the sense that Dick Gephardt was just hoping it would get around to the economy.

Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D-MO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We know how to do this. They do not. If you want to live like a Republican, you got to vote for the Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Live like a Republican, you got to kind of think about that. It's a little out of context.

But let's walk through this logic for just a moment. Do you think these candidates would prefer to run their races on the economy?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, that's the Democrats' issue, or to be more precise, jobs, the 3 million jobs that have been lost since 2000, the only president since Herbert Hoover to have lost jobs under his administration. And I think Dick Gephardt, more than any of the other contenders, managed to make that an issue effectively by saying I was there during the Clinton years, we in Congress, the Democrats, along with President Clinton, were responsible for creating well about a six-year economic boom, the best economy in 50 years.

What Gephardt is saying is, we, I, the Democrats are going to run on the Clinton economy. That's a pretty good economic record. A lot of Americans would like to go to the boom years under Bill Clinton. That, they think, is the best issue for Democrats. and Democratic primary voters undoubtedly agree. They're the target audience. They're the ones who will say we want to go back to Bill Clinton's period even though a lot of other Americans might not agree.

O'BRIEN: There might be a banner in one of their boiler rooms saying "it's the economy, stupid."

SCHNEIDER: That's exactly right. And it was particularly the Clinton economy. what Gephardt is saying, is I'll do what Al Gore did not do. Al Gore was widely criticized for failing to run hard enough on the good economy of Bill Clinton, even though he was Clinton's vice president. So what Gephardt is saying is, I'll do that. I think he hit on that issue, and he hit it harder than any other Democrat, and he may have hit paydirt.

O'BRIEN: There is no debate about it, Bill Schneider is one of the best. Thanks for dropping by, as always. Appreciate it.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

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 October 10, 2003 - 14:06   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, before they can get at President Bush, the Democrats have to duke it out amongst themselves, and duke it they did last night. Who won, who lost, and I suppose I could ask who cares, but CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider certainly does.
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: I care.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider cares deeply.

It was definitely pick on Wes night. And it was Candy Crowley, who said, you know, it was like hell week at a frat for him. He was kind of getting hazed. Is it something deeper than that, or is that the end of it for Wes Clark.

SCHNEIDER: He's like the new pledge, you know, when he joins the frat, you've got to pick on him. He's the newest entrant into the race. He vaulted to the top of the national polls. So the Democrats wanted to cut him down to size, and I must say, they did a pretty good job of it. Joe Lieberman particularly has been criticized for his support of the war in Iraq, and he used the Wesley Clark presence at that debate to pick on someone who he thought was more vulnerable on that issue than he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I must say that I've been very disappointed since Wes Clark came into this race about the various positions he has taken on the war against Saddam Hussein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So what Lieberman said was, I supported the war, and I'll stand by that, even though it's not a very popular issue among Democrats, but that's better than someone where you don't know whether he supports it or opposes it, and changes his positions.

O'BRIEN: All right, now, let's -- Wes Clark, of course, had a little rebuttal. Why don't we play that and I want to ask -- We don't have the Wes Clark thing? Oh, well, you just promised it to me a moment ago. All right, we don't.

All right, imagine Wes Clark now saying, "I always supported taking the problem of Saddam Hussein to the United Nations and bringing international resolve to bear. I would never have voted for war." That's a direct quote, by the way. Does that sell in the Democratic primaries?

SCHNEIDER: I'm not sure it does, because most people thought of that resolution as a resolution that allowed Bush to go to war if it was necessary. It didn't really say this is a resolution asking the president to go to the U.N., but said the use of force was justifiable if all else failed. And so he would -- when General Clark urged people, including some members of Congress, to vote for that resolution, that was considered, I think even at the time, a resolution that enabled President Bush to make war in Iraq.

What Wesley Clark really said in the end was he supported Bush, he supported the nation's leadership. He even went to Republican fund-raisers for the Bush administration and praised their leadership, but, he claims, Bush was supposed to offer compassionate conservative. Instead, he governed as a radical right-winger. So essentially Wesley Clark is saying, he was fooled by bush as many Americans were. The problem is a lot of Democrats say, well, we weren't fooled by Bush. We all knew what he was about from the beginning. Is Wesley Clark really one of us? Is he a real Democrat?

O'BRIEN: I guess if nothing else, it proves the peril of being an analyst on a 24-hour cable channel. There's bound to be something you said out there which contravenes what you're saying now, I suppose, if you look at the record.

Let's -- all right, now finally Dick Gephardt, although most of the discussion on this evening happened to be about Iraq, you almost got the sense that Dick Gephardt was just hoping it would get around to the economy.

Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D-MO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We know how to do this. They do not. If you want to live like a Republican, you got to vote for the Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Live like a Republican, you got to kind of think about that. It's a little out of context.

But let's walk through this logic for just a moment. Do you think these candidates would prefer to run their races on the economy?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, that's the Democrats' issue, or to be more precise, jobs, the 3 million jobs that have been lost since 2000, the only president since Herbert Hoover to have lost jobs under his administration. And I think Dick Gephardt, more than any of the other contenders, managed to make that an issue effectively by saying I was there during the Clinton years, we in Congress, the Democrats, along with President Clinton, were responsible for creating well about a six-year economic boom, the best economy in 50 years.

What Gephardt is saying is, we, I, the Democrats are going to run on the Clinton economy. That's a pretty good economic record. A lot of Americans would like to go to the boom years under Bill Clinton. That, they think, is the best issue for Democrats. and Democratic primary voters undoubtedly agree. They're the target audience. They're the ones who will say we want to go back to Bill Clinton's period even though a lot of other Americans might not agree.

O'BRIEN: There might be a banner in one of their boiler rooms saying "it's the economy, stupid."

SCHNEIDER: That's exactly right. And it was particularly the Clinton economy. what Gephardt is saying, is I'll do what Al Gore did not do. Al Gore was widely criticized for failing to run hard enough on the good economy of Bill Clinton, even though he was Clinton's vice president. So what Gephardt is saying is, I'll do that. I think he hit on that issue, and he hit it harder than any other Democrat, and he may have hit paydirt.

O'BRIEN: There is no debate about it, Bill Schneider is one of the best. Thanks for dropping by, as always. Appreciate it.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

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