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John Kerry Campaigns in Anoka, Minnesota; A Look at Intense Security in Place for Republican National Convention
Aired August 26, 2004 - 11:30 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check the headlines now in the news. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is in Anoka, Minnesota at this hour. He's due at a town hall meeting in about 15 minutes. The senator is expected to discuss health care.
The grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani is back at his home in Najaf, Iraq. A 24-hour cease-fire is in place, and radical cleric Muqtada Al Sadr again has been offered amnesty. So far, peace negotiations are being conducted by phone. A live report from Najaf coming up at the top of the hour.
Flags fly at half staff in Moscow this hour, as Russians observe an official day of mourning for 89 people killed in Tuesday's double jet crash. So far, investigators say there are no signs of terrorism. However, it could be several days before they get information from the plane's flight data recorders.
An alleged bodyguard for Osama bin Laden is being arraigned this morning in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Akman Tilliman Al Bajoul (ph) asked the military commission if he could represent himself. He was told, no, he could not. Prosecutors say bin Laden asked Al Bajoul to create an Al Qaeda recruiting tape, used during the attack on the USS Cole.
Keeping you informed, CNN is the most trusted name in news.
It appears protests are starting ahead of the Republican National Convention with an anti-Bush demonstration this morning at New York's Plaza Hotel. A group calling itself "Operation Civil" unfurled a 50- foot banner that spanned three floors of the building. Witnesses say that police arrested the protesters and took down the banner.
From an eye in the sky to boats on the water, officials will be keeping a close watch on New York this week. Homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve takes a look at the intense security in place for the Republican National Convention.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Days before conventioneers congregate, New York City Police are already putting on a show of force intended to intimidate and deter. If security was high at the Democratic Convention in Boston, in New York it will be sky-high. A corporate blimp will be used to conduct high-tech long- term surveillance.
TOM RIDGE, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Five boroughs, 8 million people. You don't have one airport you're particularly concerned about, you have several international airports. You still have the waterways.
MESERVE: The biggest security player by far, the NYPD. 37,000 strong, experienced with big events and big demonstrations. While demonstrators in Boston numbered in the hundreds, here there is a potential for hundreds of thousands.
RAY KELLY, NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: It's going to have the potential for being more volatile and having, you know, more disruption or attempted disruption.
MESERVE: And Kelly's department has plenty of other things to do. Among the other events it must handle next week, the U.S. Open Tennis tournament plus Mets and Yankees games.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Break. Thomas Brown, traffic. Go ahead.
MESERVE: The Coast Guard will be among the contributing federal agencies. It will track ship activity around Manhattan with the cameras that captured a dramatic barge refueling accident in 2003. The federal, state, and local entities involved in security will coordinate at a New York command center, and in Washington the Department of Homeland Security will monitor and provide a coordinated federal response if events require one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Well, just a few days before that convention gets under way in New York City. Our Judy Woodruff is already there in the Big Apple. The candidates are spread out across the country.
Judy, joining me from Central Park this morning, a very nice location.
Good morning.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Daryn.
You recognize Central Park behind me, along with the CNN Election Express bus. You're right, the candidates are spreading out across the country. John Kerry today in Minnesota. President Bush, you've just been listening to him a few minutes ago, he's campaigning in the state of Minnesota.
Daryn, both candidates seem to be trying to get this Vietnam swift boat Kerry background controversy behind them. But at the same time, it's clearly already done some damage apparently to John Kerry.
There's a new "Los Angeles Times" poll out today that shows a small but very clear drop in the support for Kerry. And specifically -- and I'm going to quickly cite the times -- compared with July, they see a drop on questions related to his Vietnam experience, his honesty and his fitness for service commander in chief. So damage has been done.
KAGAN: Judy, I want to ask you a question about the president's (INAUDIBLE) about President Bush.
WOODRUFF: All right. They're working on Daryn Kagan's mike, and while they do, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: We're going to take you live now to Anoka, Minnesota. Senator John Kerry making a campaign stop. Let's listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... then you've got gasoline prices that are up by 31 percent or so. You've got tuition costs for college and school that are up 35 percent or so. You have 1.3 million Americans in the last year that have fallen into poverty.
You have 1.4 million Americans in the last year who have lost their health insurance. And that brings the grand total to 5 million Americans over five years who have lost their health insurance. And we now have about 45 million Americans who go to bed every night worried, wake up in the morning, don't know what choices they're going to make.
In fact, we scheduled this meeting here today on a Thursday so it wouldn't interfere with your weekend trip to Canada to buy prescription drugs, folks.
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: Seriously, seniors are cutting pills in half in order to be able to get by and not make that tough choice between food, rent, medicine that people have to face on a fixed income.
Now, you hear a lot of talk in America and politics about values. And some people try to use values to drive a great big wedge between Americans. They'll throw values at you they'll say, well, this doesn't represent American values or this doesn't represent good values.
But most of those values that they're choosing to talk to you about are narrow values, calculated to divide Americans, calculated to hit a little cultural hot button or something.
Whereas the real values that you live every single day as you make choices in your lives: about how to make your business work or how to take care of your kids; can you buy the car, can't you buy the car; can you buy the house, can't you?
You know, will you be able to afford to send your kid to this college or that college? How much loans do I have to take? Those are the choices parents are making every single day in America. And they depend on a set of values that we in public life are supposed to be living in the choices that we're making as we represent you. For instance, on prescription drugs, in the United States Senate, we passed a provision that would have allowed seniors and would have allowed Americans to import less expensive drugs from Canada. We passed it.
We thought we were going to make it the law. Guess what, got over there to the House and the president and his friends in the House joined together, took that provision out, just rewrote the bill, sent it back in a form that couldn't be amended, and your choice was taken away from you.
Can you explain that in terms that are rational? What's the value of making it harder for seniors to get less expensive drugs in America? That's a value. I'll tell what you the value is. The value was to make sure that the powerful, great big friends in the big drug companies got taken care of.
And they went further than that because the V.A. is allowed to buy bulk purchases of prescription drugs. So at the V.A., veterans can actually get a less expensive prescription drug. And that's why there are lines backed up at the V.A. now with veterans waiting just to get a doctor at the V.A. to sign off on their prescription drug so they can afford to get it, which shouldn't happen.
But -- it shouldn't happen, the lines shouldn't happen. But you know what they did? They being the folks on the other side of the aisle and the president. They prohibited Medicare -- your program, you pay for it, it's a taxpayer plan, you're the ones who own Medicare, it comes out of your pockets, and we had an opportunity to lower the cost of health care to the taxpayer and to the senior by permitting Medicare to actually go out and bulk purchase drugs and have a less expensive product available to people.
Guess what they did? they actually wrote in a prohibition against the law. Medicare can't go out and negotiate the lower drug price so that the big drug companies get $139 billion windfall profit. That's a value choice, my friends.
And when John Edwards and I are in there, so help me, we're going to let people be able to use the marketplace. We're going to have free competition. We're going to buy the lowest cost drugs and we're going to help save the taxpayers money by providing affordable prescription medicine to seniors.
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: That's what we're going to do. Now -- but that's not all when you're talking about health care. What is the value represented by so many children in America not having any health care at all? I don't get it. I mean, I do get it, because I know why they don't do it. But on a value scale, I don't get it.
You can talk -- you run around talking about children and yet we've got kids who have no care and parents who are struggling. I've met parents in Iowa, New Hampshire, across this country who wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat and say, I don't know what I'm going to do.
KAGAN: We've been listening to Senator John Kerry. He's appearing today in Anoka County, Minnesota. An interesting spot in this election for this campaign stop. This was a state, Minnesota, that went Democratic back in 2000. Considered a battleground state this year. This particular county, however, while the state went Democratic, went for George Bush in 2000.
So much more ahead on the campaign. We also will be talking to the former head of the Republican Party in Florida. So much more political talk ahead. And news. Right now a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: President Bush stops in Florida Friday as part of his eight-state battleground tour ahead of the Republican National Convention next week. The latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows Florida is a dead heat. Al Cardenas is the former chairman of the Republican Party. He's in Miami this morning.
Al, good morning.
AL CARDENAS, FMR. CHAIRMAN, FLORIDA REPUBLICAN PARTY: Good morning. Good to be here.
KAGAN: Good to have you here with us.
What do you make of those latest numbers. First, let's talk about the numbers in Florida. It does look like President Bush is gaining ground on John Kerry.
CARDENAS: Well, they're very close. Just as they were four years ago. What the numbers don't show is the intensity of support that the president has from his supporters there. And the one thing we're seeing is that folks who like the president in 2000, love him now in 2004. And the number of volunteers we had two, four years ago, has more than doubled. Folks out there are more excited, and so the numbers are about the same, but the story's a little bit different based on the intensity of the support that we're seeing.
KAGAN: Well, speaking of intensity, Al, don't you think that the intense feelings on the other side are equally as strong in terms of people who want to see President Bush out of office?
CARDENAS: I don't know. It was pretty intense four years ago. You and I remember those 36 days after that election.
KAGAN: Oh, yes, we do.
CARDENAS: And it was pretty intense then. We expect it to be competitive. We think we're making grounds. We hope to have a good convention. The president's visit tomorrow will be very helpful to his supporters here in Florida. And after the convention, we host in Miami the first presidential debate, September 30th. We think that's going to be a great deal for us.
But we know we're in a dead heat, and we're fighting accordingly.
KAGAN: Well, speaking of debates, funny you bring that up, because we were just listening in to John Kerry. He's in Anoka, Minnesota, and as we went to break, the senator actually issued a challenge to President Bush. Let's listen in and show this to our viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KERRY: America deserves a serious decision about its future. It does not deserve a campaign of smear and fear. It deserves a campaign...
(APPLAUSE)
America deserves a discussion like we're having here today, which I'm prepared to have with this president every single week from now until the election. Let's go out to the American people. Let's spend one week on health care, and the president and I can meet somewhere, we can have a discussion, a debate. We can stand up, we can share our thoughts about how we're going to deal with health care, then we can do it about education and how we're going to deal with education, then we can do it on national security and how we're going to make America strong, then we can do it on the environment and how we're going to protect the environment.
I'm prepared to do that. Let's meet every week from now till the election and talk about the real issues facing Americans that will strengthen our country and make America great again.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: And those words just a few minutes ago from senator John Kerry in Anoka, Minnesota. Al, what do you think about that? There's a novel idea, an election where people talk about issues.
CARDENAS: Well, they're very interesting thoughts. I think we need to do one thing first. I think Senator Kerry needs to join President Bush in denouncing these 527 organizations that are smearing the atmosphere. They're lowering the, you know, value system of the political process, their rhetoric is not what it ought to be. And so I think starting out by denouncing the 527s, asking that those who are supporting him take down those vicious ads, asking us to do the same, which I think we'd be more than happy to ask these folks if they would do it, and then moving on to a more positive discourse seems to me great for America. But Senator Kerry needs to, I think, take that first step that shows that he means it.
KAGAN: All right, I want to ask you, as a Floridian, how do you think in terms of how the election is going to go, do you think that Florida is ready to have a good, and healthy and a respected election or be the laughingstock of the country like it was in 2000?
CARDENAS: Well, we've made a lot of progress, Daryn, in changing our systems. Unfortunately, as you know, Hurricane Charley wreaked havoc to a good part of our state. And they've taken some great emergency steps. People are going to have to get creative about getting to the polls in the impacted areas. We literally have hundreds of polling places that have disappeared as a result of Hurricane Charley.
But you know, we have a primary coming up August 31st. I know that the governor and the secretary of state are working very hard to make sure it goes well. That primary will tell us a lot, but I think a lot of progress has been made, and hopefully August 31st will show us that.
KAGAN: Hopefully, and hopefully all the folks trying to clean up and recover from Hurricane Charley get to do that very soon.
Al Cardenas, thank you for your time, sir.
CARDENAS: Thank you.
KAGAN: Thank you.
(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: And that's going to wrap up my two hours. I'm Daryn Kagan. I'll see you right back here, 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow.
Wolf Blitzer will be with you after this break. have a great day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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 August 26, 2004 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check the headlines now in the news. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is in Anoka, Minnesota at this hour. He's due at a town hall meeting in about 15 minutes. The senator is expected to discuss health care.
The grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani is back at his home in Najaf, Iraq. A 24-hour cease-fire is in place, and radical cleric Muqtada Al Sadr again has been offered amnesty. So far, peace negotiations are being conducted by phone. A live report from Najaf coming up at the top of the hour.
Flags fly at half staff in Moscow this hour, as Russians observe an official day of mourning for 89 people killed in Tuesday's double jet crash. So far, investigators say there are no signs of terrorism. However, it could be several days before they get information from the plane's flight data recorders.
An alleged bodyguard for Osama bin Laden is being arraigned this morning in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Akman Tilliman Al Bajoul (ph) asked the military commission if he could represent himself. He was told, no, he could not. Prosecutors say bin Laden asked Al Bajoul to create an Al Qaeda recruiting tape, used during the attack on the USS Cole.
Keeping you informed, CNN is the most trusted name in news.
It appears protests are starting ahead of the Republican National Convention with an anti-Bush demonstration this morning at New York's Plaza Hotel. A group calling itself "Operation Civil" unfurled a 50- foot banner that spanned three floors of the building. Witnesses say that police arrested the protesters and took down the banner.
From an eye in the sky to boats on the water, officials will be keeping a close watch on New York this week. Homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve takes a look at the intense security in place for the Republican National Convention.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Days before conventioneers congregate, New York City Police are already putting on a show of force intended to intimidate and deter. If security was high at the Democratic Convention in Boston, in New York it will be sky-high. A corporate blimp will be used to conduct high-tech long- term surveillance.
TOM RIDGE, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Five boroughs, 8 million people. You don't have one airport you're particularly concerned about, you have several international airports. You still have the waterways.
MESERVE: The biggest security player by far, the NYPD. 37,000 strong, experienced with big events and big demonstrations. While demonstrators in Boston numbered in the hundreds, here there is a potential for hundreds of thousands.
RAY KELLY, NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: It's going to have the potential for being more volatile and having, you know, more disruption or attempted disruption.
MESERVE: And Kelly's department has plenty of other things to do. Among the other events it must handle next week, the U.S. Open Tennis tournament plus Mets and Yankees games.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Break. Thomas Brown, traffic. Go ahead.
MESERVE: The Coast Guard will be among the contributing federal agencies. It will track ship activity around Manhattan with the cameras that captured a dramatic barge refueling accident in 2003. The federal, state, and local entities involved in security will coordinate at a New York command center, and in Washington the Department of Homeland Security will monitor and provide a coordinated federal response if events require one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Well, just a few days before that convention gets under way in New York City. Our Judy Woodruff is already there in the Big Apple. The candidates are spread out across the country.
Judy, joining me from Central Park this morning, a very nice location.
Good morning.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Daryn.
You recognize Central Park behind me, along with the CNN Election Express bus. You're right, the candidates are spreading out across the country. John Kerry today in Minnesota. President Bush, you've just been listening to him a few minutes ago, he's campaigning in the state of Minnesota.
Daryn, both candidates seem to be trying to get this Vietnam swift boat Kerry background controversy behind them. But at the same time, it's clearly already done some damage apparently to John Kerry.
There's a new "Los Angeles Times" poll out today that shows a small but very clear drop in the support for Kerry. And specifically -- and I'm going to quickly cite the times -- compared with July, they see a drop on questions related to his Vietnam experience, his honesty and his fitness for service commander in chief. So damage has been done.
KAGAN: Judy, I want to ask you a question about the president's (INAUDIBLE) about President Bush.
WOODRUFF: All right. They're working on Daryn Kagan's mike, and while they do, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: We're going to take you live now to Anoka, Minnesota. Senator John Kerry making a campaign stop. Let's listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... then you've got gasoline prices that are up by 31 percent or so. You've got tuition costs for college and school that are up 35 percent or so. You have 1.3 million Americans in the last year that have fallen into poverty.
You have 1.4 million Americans in the last year who have lost their health insurance. And that brings the grand total to 5 million Americans over five years who have lost their health insurance. And we now have about 45 million Americans who go to bed every night worried, wake up in the morning, don't know what choices they're going to make.
In fact, we scheduled this meeting here today on a Thursday so it wouldn't interfere with your weekend trip to Canada to buy prescription drugs, folks.
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: Seriously, seniors are cutting pills in half in order to be able to get by and not make that tough choice between food, rent, medicine that people have to face on a fixed income.
Now, you hear a lot of talk in America and politics about values. And some people try to use values to drive a great big wedge between Americans. They'll throw values at you they'll say, well, this doesn't represent American values or this doesn't represent good values.
But most of those values that they're choosing to talk to you about are narrow values, calculated to divide Americans, calculated to hit a little cultural hot button or something.
Whereas the real values that you live every single day as you make choices in your lives: about how to make your business work or how to take care of your kids; can you buy the car, can't you buy the car; can you buy the house, can't you?
You know, will you be able to afford to send your kid to this college or that college? How much loans do I have to take? Those are the choices parents are making every single day in America. And they depend on a set of values that we in public life are supposed to be living in the choices that we're making as we represent you. For instance, on prescription drugs, in the United States Senate, we passed a provision that would have allowed seniors and would have allowed Americans to import less expensive drugs from Canada. We passed it.
We thought we were going to make it the law. Guess what, got over there to the House and the president and his friends in the House joined together, took that provision out, just rewrote the bill, sent it back in a form that couldn't be amended, and your choice was taken away from you.
Can you explain that in terms that are rational? What's the value of making it harder for seniors to get less expensive drugs in America? That's a value. I'll tell what you the value is. The value was to make sure that the powerful, great big friends in the big drug companies got taken care of.
And they went further than that because the V.A. is allowed to buy bulk purchases of prescription drugs. So at the V.A., veterans can actually get a less expensive prescription drug. And that's why there are lines backed up at the V.A. now with veterans waiting just to get a doctor at the V.A. to sign off on their prescription drug so they can afford to get it, which shouldn't happen.
But -- it shouldn't happen, the lines shouldn't happen. But you know what they did? They being the folks on the other side of the aisle and the president. They prohibited Medicare -- your program, you pay for it, it's a taxpayer plan, you're the ones who own Medicare, it comes out of your pockets, and we had an opportunity to lower the cost of health care to the taxpayer and to the senior by permitting Medicare to actually go out and bulk purchase drugs and have a less expensive product available to people.
Guess what they did? they actually wrote in a prohibition against the law. Medicare can't go out and negotiate the lower drug price so that the big drug companies get $139 billion windfall profit. That's a value choice, my friends.
And when John Edwards and I are in there, so help me, we're going to let people be able to use the marketplace. We're going to have free competition. We're going to buy the lowest cost drugs and we're going to help save the taxpayers money by providing affordable prescription medicine to seniors.
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: That's what we're going to do. Now -- but that's not all when you're talking about health care. What is the value represented by so many children in America not having any health care at all? I don't get it. I mean, I do get it, because I know why they don't do it. But on a value scale, I don't get it.
You can talk -- you run around talking about children and yet we've got kids who have no care and parents who are struggling. I've met parents in Iowa, New Hampshire, across this country who wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat and say, I don't know what I'm going to do.
KAGAN: We've been listening to Senator John Kerry. He's appearing today in Anoka County, Minnesota. An interesting spot in this election for this campaign stop. This was a state, Minnesota, that went Democratic back in 2000. Considered a battleground state this year. This particular county, however, while the state went Democratic, went for George Bush in 2000.
So much more ahead on the campaign. We also will be talking to the former head of the Republican Party in Florida. So much more political talk ahead. And news. Right now a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: President Bush stops in Florida Friday as part of his eight-state battleground tour ahead of the Republican National Convention next week. The latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows Florida is a dead heat. Al Cardenas is the former chairman of the Republican Party. He's in Miami this morning.
Al, good morning.
AL CARDENAS, FMR. CHAIRMAN, FLORIDA REPUBLICAN PARTY: Good morning. Good to be here.
KAGAN: Good to have you here with us.
What do you make of those latest numbers. First, let's talk about the numbers in Florida. It does look like President Bush is gaining ground on John Kerry.
CARDENAS: Well, they're very close. Just as they were four years ago. What the numbers don't show is the intensity of support that the president has from his supporters there. And the one thing we're seeing is that folks who like the president in 2000, love him now in 2004. And the number of volunteers we had two, four years ago, has more than doubled. Folks out there are more excited, and so the numbers are about the same, but the story's a little bit different based on the intensity of the support that we're seeing.
KAGAN: Well, speaking of intensity, Al, don't you think that the intense feelings on the other side are equally as strong in terms of people who want to see President Bush out of office?
CARDENAS: I don't know. It was pretty intense four years ago. You and I remember those 36 days after that election.
KAGAN: Oh, yes, we do.
CARDENAS: And it was pretty intense then. We expect it to be competitive. We think we're making grounds. We hope to have a good convention. The president's visit tomorrow will be very helpful to his supporters here in Florida. And after the convention, we host in Miami the first presidential debate, September 30th. We think that's going to be a great deal for us.
But we know we're in a dead heat, and we're fighting accordingly.
KAGAN: Well, speaking of debates, funny you bring that up, because we were just listening in to John Kerry. He's in Anoka, Minnesota, and as we went to break, the senator actually issued a challenge to President Bush. Let's listen in and show this to our viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KERRY: America deserves a serious decision about its future. It does not deserve a campaign of smear and fear. It deserves a campaign...
(APPLAUSE)
America deserves a discussion like we're having here today, which I'm prepared to have with this president every single week from now until the election. Let's go out to the American people. Let's spend one week on health care, and the president and I can meet somewhere, we can have a discussion, a debate. We can stand up, we can share our thoughts about how we're going to deal with health care, then we can do it about education and how we're going to deal with education, then we can do it on national security and how we're going to make America strong, then we can do it on the environment and how we're going to protect the environment.
I'm prepared to do that. Let's meet every week from now till the election and talk about the real issues facing Americans that will strengthen our country and make America great again.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: And those words just a few minutes ago from senator John Kerry in Anoka, Minnesota. Al, what do you think about that? There's a novel idea, an election where people talk about issues.
CARDENAS: Well, they're very interesting thoughts. I think we need to do one thing first. I think Senator Kerry needs to join President Bush in denouncing these 527 organizations that are smearing the atmosphere. They're lowering the, you know, value system of the political process, their rhetoric is not what it ought to be. And so I think starting out by denouncing the 527s, asking that those who are supporting him take down those vicious ads, asking us to do the same, which I think we'd be more than happy to ask these folks if they would do it, and then moving on to a more positive discourse seems to me great for America. But Senator Kerry needs to, I think, take that first step that shows that he means it.
KAGAN: All right, I want to ask you, as a Floridian, how do you think in terms of how the election is going to go, do you think that Florida is ready to have a good, and healthy and a respected election or be the laughingstock of the country like it was in 2000?
CARDENAS: Well, we've made a lot of progress, Daryn, in changing our systems. Unfortunately, as you know, Hurricane Charley wreaked havoc to a good part of our state. And they've taken some great emergency steps. People are going to have to get creative about getting to the polls in the impacted areas. We literally have hundreds of polling places that have disappeared as a result of Hurricane Charley.
But you know, we have a primary coming up August 31st. I know that the governor and the secretary of state are working very hard to make sure it goes well. That primary will tell us a lot, but I think a lot of progress has been made, and hopefully August 31st will show us that.
KAGAN: Hopefully, and hopefully all the folks trying to clean up and recover from Hurricane Charley get to do that very soon.
Al Cardenas, thank you for your time, sir.
CARDENAS: Thank you.
KAGAN: Thank you.
(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: And that's going to wrap up my two hours. I'm Daryn Kagan. I'll see you right back here, 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow.
Wolf Blitzer will be with you after this break. have a great day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
