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Wisconsin of Primary Importance
Aired February 17, 2004 - 15:00 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Badger State takes on primary importance in the Democratic campaign for president. We're watching Wisconsin divvy up 72 Democratic delegates, which the five surviving contestants all covet, of course, insist they can live without them, nonetheless.
Time for us to once again badger CNN's Bob Franken, joining us from Milwaukee.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Hello, Mr. Franken.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello.
And the question is, how many surviving candidates will there be after Wisconsin? If you believe each of the candidates, he is going to continue, no matter how he does here. And, of course, most of the focus is on Howard Dean, who is looking to avoid loss No. 17 in a row. He's not going to avoid the loss, but he says, no matter what happens here, he's going to plod on, going to go on to Super Tuesday.
But, as we all know, these things are subject to change. And there he was out there doing the ritual visit to a diner this morning, trying to gin up some votes, hoping that the Wisconsin tradition of political surprises holds forth and that he's able to pull off the kind of surprise that will stop all the questions and all the pressure for him to pull out of the race.
The man who has to watch his position, he's in the very precarious position of being the odds-on favorite, is John Kerry. John Kerry is the man the polls show way ahead of everybody else. But, as Howard Dean can tell him, it's not always a comfortable place to be, because, if you don't hit a home run, then you're considered having struck out. And John Kerry is going to have to worry about that.
The man who would love nothing better than to see that is John Edwards. John Edwards is hoping to make a statement here, that he can come back once again and do better than expected and parlay that into some momentum that would take him forward into the Super Tuesday race a couple of weeks hence, all of them looking forward to Super Tuesday, hoping that they will be around.
As far as Howard Dean is concerned, he's going to go back to Burlington, Vermont, tomorrow and think things over and see if he has any sort of momentum left, if he has any chance whatsoever of continuing. At the moment, he says he's going to. Everybody, of course, is professing optimism at this point. But it's a winnowing process, a winnowing process that has found its way to Wisconsin -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken in Milwaukee, thank you very much.
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 February 17, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Badger State takes on primary importance in the Democratic campaign for president. We're watching Wisconsin divvy up 72 Democratic delegates, which the five surviving contestants all covet, of course, insist they can live without them, nonetheless.
Time for us to once again badger CNN's Bob Franken, joining us from Milwaukee.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Hello, Mr. Franken.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello.
And the question is, how many surviving candidates will there be after Wisconsin? If you believe each of the candidates, he is going to continue, no matter how he does here. And, of course, most of the focus is on Howard Dean, who is looking to avoid loss No. 17 in a row. He's not going to avoid the loss, but he says, no matter what happens here, he's going to plod on, going to go on to Super Tuesday.
But, as we all know, these things are subject to change. And there he was out there doing the ritual visit to a diner this morning, trying to gin up some votes, hoping that the Wisconsin tradition of political surprises holds forth and that he's able to pull off the kind of surprise that will stop all the questions and all the pressure for him to pull out of the race.
The man who has to watch his position, he's in the very precarious position of being the odds-on favorite, is John Kerry. John Kerry is the man the polls show way ahead of everybody else. But, as Howard Dean can tell him, it's not always a comfortable place to be, because, if you don't hit a home run, then you're considered having struck out. And John Kerry is going to have to worry about that.
The man who would love nothing better than to see that is John Edwards. John Edwards is hoping to make a statement here, that he can come back once again and do better than expected and parlay that into some momentum that would take him forward into the Super Tuesday race a couple of weeks hence, all of them looking forward to Super Tuesday, hoping that they will be around.
As far as Howard Dean is concerned, he's going to go back to Burlington, Vermont, tomorrow and think things over and see if he has any sort of momentum left, if he has any chance whatsoever of continuing. At the moment, he says he's going to. Everybody, of course, is professing optimism at this point. But it's a winnowing process, a winnowing process that has found its way to Wisconsin -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken in Milwaukee, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
