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Democrats Gang Up on Wesley Clark

Aired October 10, 2003 - 15:14   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.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Wasting no time from their bruising debate in Arizona last night, seven of the nine presidential candidates headed back East. All except Howard Dean and John Kerry are attending a state convention of the NAACP in Charlotte, North Carolina.
During last night's debate, the six congressional veterans ganged up on the Washington outsider, retired Army General Wesley Clark. Sparks flew, as Clark was repeatedly attacked for what his rivals charged were his shifting positions on Iraq and past support of Republicans for president. Clark, who jumped into the race only three weeks ago and now leads in some national polls, defended his position on Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My position on Iraq has been very, very clear from the outset. It was an imminent -- it was not an imminent threat.

I looked at Saddam Hussein. I was one of the guys in charge of striking Saddam Hussein in Operation Northern Watch. I saw all of the intelligence. When I heard that the administration was moving in there, I figured, is there anything new? There wasn't. It was never an imminent threat. It was a problem.

I fully supported taking the problem to the United Nations and dealing with it through the United Nations. I would never have voted for war. The war was an unnecessary war. It was an elective war. And it's been a huge strategic mistake for this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOODRUFF: Well, joining us now with their take on the debate, our own Bill Schneider and political analyst Ron Brownstein of "The Los Angeles Times."

Gentlemen, I was in the middle of it as the moderator, but I need you all who were observers to tell me what it all meant.

Bill, to you first. As you watched last night, you agree that it was ganging up on Clark that was the headline?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, yes. They were all prepared to gang up on Wesley Clark. He was the new guy. And he got a little bit of a hazing in this debate. They wanted to bring him down a little bit, because he entered the race with so much stature, supreme allied commander. That's why he vaulted to the top of the national polls so quickly, because his stature made the others look diminished. Well, they said, we're going to bring this guy down to our level. And they tried to by saying, this guy doesn't have a consistent position on the one issue that seems to move a lot of Democrats.

And that is opposition to the war in Iraq. He supported the war resolution. And then he opposed it. And now he says it was a mistake. And he went to a GOP fund-raiser, praised the Bush administration. So it raised a lot of questions with Democrats.

WOODRUFF: Ron, how did Clark handle all this?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it showed -- the debate showed that these questions of loyalty to the party are going to be a problem for him. These are very forceful questions coming from the other candidates.

In a broader sense, Judy, though, I think the way this debate is evolving could be a problem for the entire party, looking toward the general election.

If you think about what was happening last night, there were an awful lot of candidates questioning whether other candidates were true Democrats, real Democrats. Dick Gephardt's attacks against Howard Dean over Medicare, in effect, were saying, is he a real Democrat? Howard Dean attacked the other candidates who supported the war, saying they were not real Democrats because they supported Bush on the war.

Dennis Kucinich even attacked Howard Dean, saying he wasn't liberal enough in wanting to pull the troops out of Iraq fast enough. So I think there's a rather insular tone to this debate at this point. And when a party gets into a position where it is driving the race around the question of who is the most loyal to party orthodoxy, you can get into a position that -- of isolating yourselves from swing voters, who ultimately decide a national election.

WOODRUFF: Well, if that's the case, if that's part of the dynamic of what's going on here, Bill, how do the Democrats work their way out of that?

SCHNEIDER: Well, Richard Nixon once said to Republicans, in the primaries, you run to the right. And then, once you get the nomination, you move to the center. That's the traditional way you do it.

The problem is, if you get in trouble by the positions you take in the primaries, then you have to do an awful lot of fast footwork to get back to the center. They figure they have a lot of time to be able to do that. And they have -- there's one other reason that's driving this, certainly on the Iraq issue. The Iraq war has become more and more controversial since the war ended on May 1. Americans are becoming more critical of the war effort. Americans are getting killed over there. The $87 billion is deeply controversial. President Bush's speech to the country on September 7, when he talked about Iraq, basically, he laid an egg. His approval ratings went down. And his message on Iraq was not well-received. So Democrats believe they see a real opening here, that they can play to a wider audience on the Iraq issue than just partisan Democrats.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODRUFF: Yes, go ahead.

BROWNSTEIN: I was going to jump in there.

It's striking. They talked about an awful lot of subjects last night. And you led them through a very good debate on a lot of issues. But it was pretty clear that the one issue on which there are real cleavages in the race that matter to the candidates and matter to the voters is still the war in Iraq. It's the one point where the candidates are effectively differentiating themselves from each other. The economy, health care, no one has figured out really, how to use that as a point of differentiation in the race.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODRUFF: Ron, you don't think that's just because of Clark?

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: No. I think Dean is driving it as much as anyone else.

In fact, Judy, he put out a statement today, once again condemning all of the Democrats who voted for the war a year ago tomorrow. And what you've got, as Bill said, is a situation where, especially since the war, Democratic partisans have turned very sharply against it; 80 percent of Democrats in your last CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll said, we never have gone to war in Iraq at all. That's been a huge lift in the sails for Howard Dean, and, to some extent, Wesley Clark.

And it's something that the candidates who supported Bush are still on the defensive about.

WOODRUFF: Let me ask you both quickly, how much time do these candidates have to distinguish themselves? You have the first primary in Iowa, the caucuses on January the 19th. I mean, how long did can they take to still be mixing it up like this, if you will?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think that Howard Dean clearly knows the point of distinction he wants to make. He's still betting heavily on the theme that he's the outsider and that he was the one leading candidate -- now with Clark complicating that -- who opposed the war.

I think the others are still searching. Gephardt may have found the line that he's going to take through Iowa by attacking Dean on Medicare, an older, blue-collar population. The argument may work there, not clear if it's relevant beyond that. But I do think there's a certain amount of pressure on the other Democrats to find their niche in this argument.

SCHNEIDER: And I thought Gephardt did a very good job of finding an issue that really does appeal to Democrats and possibly outside the Democratic Party when he defended the Clinton economic record.

Look, if there's any issue the did the Democrats are going to win on, it's probably not Iraq. It's probably jobs. And what Gephardt, who is attacked for being part of the Washington insider establishment, said: We in Washington, in the 1990s, with President Clinton, created a big economic boon, the best economy in 50 years. And a lot of Democrats and other voters figure, feel, we'd be better off if we went back to the Clinton economic policies.

That's what Gephardt was pushing hard. He said: Al Gore was criticized for not running on the Clinton economy and that policy record. I'm going to run on that policy record.

He defended it very vocally. And I thought that he hit a responsive chord, certainly with partisan Democrats.

WOODRUFF: All right, we're going to leave it there. We've heard it from the two best analysts we've got. And they are Bill Schneider and Ron Brownstein. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, Judy. Good job.

WOODRUFF: Have a good weekend.

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 - 15:14   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Wasting no time from their bruising debate in Arizona last night, seven of the nine presidential candidates headed back East. All except Howard Dean and John Kerry are attending a state convention of the NAACP in Charlotte, North Carolina.
During last night's debate, the six congressional veterans ganged up on the Washington outsider, retired Army General Wesley Clark. Sparks flew, as Clark was repeatedly attacked for what his rivals charged were his shifting positions on Iraq and past support of Republicans for president. Clark, who jumped into the race only three weeks ago and now leads in some national polls, defended his position on Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My position on Iraq has been very, very clear from the outset. It was an imminent -- it was not an imminent threat.

I looked at Saddam Hussein. I was one of the guys in charge of striking Saddam Hussein in Operation Northern Watch. I saw all of the intelligence. When I heard that the administration was moving in there, I figured, is there anything new? There wasn't. It was never an imminent threat. It was a problem.

I fully supported taking the problem to the United Nations and dealing with it through the United Nations. I would never have voted for war. The war was an unnecessary war. It was an elective war. And it's been a huge strategic mistake for this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOODRUFF: Well, joining us now with their take on the debate, our own Bill Schneider and political analyst Ron Brownstein of "The Los Angeles Times."

Gentlemen, I was in the middle of it as the moderator, but I need you all who were observers to tell me what it all meant.

Bill, to you first. As you watched last night, you agree that it was ganging up on Clark that was the headline?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, yes. They were all prepared to gang up on Wesley Clark. He was the new guy. And he got a little bit of a hazing in this debate. They wanted to bring him down a little bit, because he entered the race with so much stature, supreme allied commander. That's why he vaulted to the top of the national polls so quickly, because his stature made the others look diminished. Well, they said, we're going to bring this guy down to our level. And they tried to by saying, this guy doesn't have a consistent position on the one issue that seems to move a lot of Democrats.

And that is opposition to the war in Iraq. He supported the war resolution. And then he opposed it. And now he says it was a mistake. And he went to a GOP fund-raiser, praised the Bush administration. So it raised a lot of questions with Democrats.

WOODRUFF: Ron, how did Clark handle all this?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it showed -- the debate showed that these questions of loyalty to the party are going to be a problem for him. These are very forceful questions coming from the other candidates.

In a broader sense, Judy, though, I think the way this debate is evolving could be a problem for the entire party, looking toward the general election.

If you think about what was happening last night, there were an awful lot of candidates questioning whether other candidates were true Democrats, real Democrats. Dick Gephardt's attacks against Howard Dean over Medicare, in effect, were saying, is he a real Democrat? Howard Dean attacked the other candidates who supported the war, saying they were not real Democrats because they supported Bush on the war.

Dennis Kucinich even attacked Howard Dean, saying he wasn't liberal enough in wanting to pull the troops out of Iraq fast enough. So I think there's a rather insular tone to this debate at this point. And when a party gets into a position where it is driving the race around the question of who is the most loyal to party orthodoxy, you can get into a position that -- of isolating yourselves from swing voters, who ultimately decide a national election.

WOODRUFF: Well, if that's the case, if that's part of the dynamic of what's going on here, Bill, how do the Democrats work their way out of that?

SCHNEIDER: Well, Richard Nixon once said to Republicans, in the primaries, you run to the right. And then, once you get the nomination, you move to the center. That's the traditional way you do it.

The problem is, if you get in trouble by the positions you take in the primaries, then you have to do an awful lot of fast footwork to get back to the center. They figure they have a lot of time to be able to do that. And they have -- there's one other reason that's driving this, certainly on the Iraq issue. The Iraq war has become more and more controversial since the war ended on May 1. Americans are becoming more critical of the war effort. Americans are getting killed over there. The $87 billion is deeply controversial. President Bush's speech to the country on September 7, when he talked about Iraq, basically, he laid an egg. His approval ratings went down. And his message on Iraq was not well-received. So Democrats believe they see a real opening here, that they can play to a wider audience on the Iraq issue than just partisan Democrats.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODRUFF: Yes, go ahead.

BROWNSTEIN: I was going to jump in there.

It's striking. They talked about an awful lot of subjects last night. And you led them through a very good debate on a lot of issues. But it was pretty clear that the one issue on which there are real cleavages in the race that matter to the candidates and matter to the voters is still the war in Iraq. It's the one point where the candidates are effectively differentiating themselves from each other. The economy, health care, no one has figured out really, how to use that as a point of differentiation in the race.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODRUFF: Ron, you don't think that's just because of Clark?

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: No. I think Dean is driving it as much as anyone else.

In fact, Judy, he put out a statement today, once again condemning all of the Democrats who voted for the war a year ago tomorrow. And what you've got, as Bill said, is a situation where, especially since the war, Democratic partisans have turned very sharply against it; 80 percent of Democrats in your last CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll said, we never have gone to war in Iraq at all. That's been a huge lift in the sails for Howard Dean, and, to some extent, Wesley Clark.

And it's something that the candidates who supported Bush are still on the defensive about.

WOODRUFF: Let me ask you both quickly, how much time do these candidates have to distinguish themselves? You have the first primary in Iowa, the caucuses on January the 19th. I mean, how long did can they take to still be mixing it up like this, if you will?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think that Howard Dean clearly knows the point of distinction he wants to make. He's still betting heavily on the theme that he's the outsider and that he was the one leading candidate -- now with Clark complicating that -- who opposed the war.

I think the others are still searching. Gephardt may have found the line that he's going to take through Iowa by attacking Dean on Medicare, an older, blue-collar population. The argument may work there, not clear if it's relevant beyond that. But I do think there's a certain amount of pressure on the other Democrats to find their niche in this argument.

SCHNEIDER: And I thought Gephardt did a very good job of finding an issue that really does appeal to Democrats and possibly outside the Democratic Party when he defended the Clinton economic record.

Look, if there's any issue the did the Democrats are going to win on, it's probably not Iraq. It's probably jobs. And what Gephardt, who is attacked for being part of the Washington insider establishment, said: We in Washington, in the 1990s, with President Clinton, created a big economic boon, the best economy in 50 years. And a lot of Democrats and other voters figure, feel, we'd be better off if we went back to the Clinton economic policies.

That's what Gephardt was pushing hard. He said: Al Gore was criticized for not running on the Clinton economy and that policy record. I'm going to run on that policy record.

He defended it very vocally. And I thought that he hit a responsive chord, certainly with partisan Democrats.

WOODRUFF: All right, we're going to leave it there. We've heard it from the two best analysts we've got. And they are Bill Schneider and Ron Brownstein. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, Judy. Good job.

WOODRUFF: Have a good weekend.

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