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American Morning

Three Democrats Already in Presidential Race

Aired January 03, 2003 - 08:18   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.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And then there were four. Congressman Dick Gephardt says that he's now decided to form a presidential exploratory committee, and that kicks off his second run for the White House in 14 years. Three other Democrats are already in the race now, Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. He came out a couple of days ago.
Well, joining us now to offer his perspective is our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.

Happy new year to you.

Good to see you.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And the same. And the same.

HARRIS: Well, what do you make of this move by Dick Gephardt now?

GREENFIELD: It seems to me now that what we are here is in a classic Democratic battle for the nomination when there's no obvious frontrunner. 2000 was an anomaly when Al Gore was the obvious runner. This is more like 1988 or '92. And for Dick Gephardt, he is one of several candidates who, each of whom bring something special into the race.

In Gephardt's case, this is a guy who probably has closer ties to organized labor than any other Democratic candidate. He, even when he was in the leadership of the House he fought against the free trade agreements, even when his own party's president, Bill Clinton, was in the White House. Organized labor provides probably more manpower, muscle and money to the Democratic Party than any other single group. He won the Iowa caucuses in 1988 and he comes from the heartland. He comes from the swing state of Missouri. And I'm sure now that he's been frustrated four straight times and trying to get a Democratic majority in the House so he can be speaker, he's figuring this is my last shot, why not go for it? There's nobody else who's obviously going to beat me so.

HARRIS: Well, considering the fact that he has been raising money for so long and has been actually pretty good at doing it, why was he the third one to jump into the race and not the first?

GREENFIELD: Well, I just think that's a matter of timing. Howard Dean jumped in first because he was the least well known and Howard Dean, the outgoing, I guess by now former governor of Vermont, was following the Jimmy Carter model. When nobody knows who you are, you've got to get out so early and run a retail campaign, almost house by house, so that people might know you and the press might start being interested.

HARRIS: Yes.

GREENFIELD: Gephardt has national name recognition. As you say, he has ties to money. As I mentioned, he has ties to a very critical interest group in the Democratic Party. So he didn't have to come in that early, but, you know, everybody's coming in earlier compared to the old days because the primaries are front loaded. The primaries will be over in March. When I started covering politics, that's about when they started.

HARRIS: Yes, that's true. A big change nowadays.

GREENFIELD: Um-hmm.

HARRIS: You know what I want to know? What is it that an exploratory committee actually does? I mean what is it they explore?

GREENFIELD: They explore how long it's going to take for the guy to formally announce for president. The interesting question would be who has launched an exploratory committee and then decided, the people don't want me?

HARRIS: Yes, I'm not going to run.

GREENFIELD: I think, and I'm going on memory here, that former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder from Colorado made noises about running for president and then decided not to. But generally -- I don't mean to the unkind to politicians, I like a lot of them -- but when they, they hear the voice of the people sooner than anybody else hears the voice of the people talking about them. They can hear the merest echo in the forest and to them it sounds like the masses screaming for them to enter the presidential race.

So when a guy says, or a lady one of these days, I hope, says I'm thinking about running for president, you know where they're coming out of.

HARRIS: Yes.

GREENFIELD: I mean legally it makes a difference in how they raise money and whether various regulatory rules kick in. But basically it means they're running for president.

HARRIS: All right, well, it may be a bit early for all this, but is it too early to talk about who, which of these four may actually have the most momentum or actually have the best case at this particular point right now?

GREENFIELD: Yes.

HARRIS: Yes? GREENFIELD: Yes, it is way too early to talk about that. When Jimmy Carter announced he was running for president, I think it was the "Atlanta Constitution," one of the Georgia papers' headline was "Jimmy Who Is Running For What?" I mean you can paper your wall with the transcripts of people making fun of long shot candidates who caught fire and got to be president. And I really do think, I mean Paula knows this even if on her vacation place, the idea of saying this is the candidate most likely to win a year before the Iowa caucuses is, to me, a fool's game.

HARRIS: Yes.

GREENFIELD: And in this case particularly, each of the candidates for, who wants to be the Democratic nominee for president has special attributes. Edwards from the South; Lieberman, name recognition; Gephardt, labor; Sharpton may have the black vote and that'll really change the dynamic of Southern primaries. So I hate to say this, but we may have to wait.

HARRIS: We've been there before.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

HARRIS: Jeff Greenfield, thanks.

Good to see you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

HARRIS: Happy new year.

GREENFIELD: All right.

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 January 3, 2003 - 08:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And then there were four. Congressman Dick Gephardt says that he's now decided to form a presidential exploratory committee, and that kicks off his second run for the White House in 14 years. Three other Democrats are already in the race now, Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. He came out a couple of days ago.
Well, joining us now to offer his perspective is our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.

Happy new year to you.

Good to see you.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And the same. And the same.

HARRIS: Well, what do you make of this move by Dick Gephardt now?

GREENFIELD: It seems to me now that what we are here is in a classic Democratic battle for the nomination when there's no obvious frontrunner. 2000 was an anomaly when Al Gore was the obvious runner. This is more like 1988 or '92. And for Dick Gephardt, he is one of several candidates who, each of whom bring something special into the race.

In Gephardt's case, this is a guy who probably has closer ties to organized labor than any other Democratic candidate. He, even when he was in the leadership of the House he fought against the free trade agreements, even when his own party's president, Bill Clinton, was in the White House. Organized labor provides probably more manpower, muscle and money to the Democratic Party than any other single group. He won the Iowa caucuses in 1988 and he comes from the heartland. He comes from the swing state of Missouri. And I'm sure now that he's been frustrated four straight times and trying to get a Democratic majority in the House so he can be speaker, he's figuring this is my last shot, why not go for it? There's nobody else who's obviously going to beat me so.

HARRIS: Well, considering the fact that he has been raising money for so long and has been actually pretty good at doing it, why was he the third one to jump into the race and not the first?

GREENFIELD: Well, I just think that's a matter of timing. Howard Dean jumped in first because he was the least well known and Howard Dean, the outgoing, I guess by now former governor of Vermont, was following the Jimmy Carter model. When nobody knows who you are, you've got to get out so early and run a retail campaign, almost house by house, so that people might know you and the press might start being interested.

HARRIS: Yes.

GREENFIELD: Gephardt has national name recognition. As you say, he has ties to money. As I mentioned, he has ties to a very critical interest group in the Democratic Party. So he didn't have to come in that early, but, you know, everybody's coming in earlier compared to the old days because the primaries are front loaded. The primaries will be over in March. When I started covering politics, that's about when they started.

HARRIS: Yes, that's true. A big change nowadays.

GREENFIELD: Um-hmm.

HARRIS: You know what I want to know? What is it that an exploratory committee actually does? I mean what is it they explore?

GREENFIELD: They explore how long it's going to take for the guy to formally announce for president. The interesting question would be who has launched an exploratory committee and then decided, the people don't want me?

HARRIS: Yes, I'm not going to run.

GREENFIELD: I think, and I'm going on memory here, that former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder from Colorado made noises about running for president and then decided not to. But generally -- I don't mean to the unkind to politicians, I like a lot of them -- but when they, they hear the voice of the people sooner than anybody else hears the voice of the people talking about them. They can hear the merest echo in the forest and to them it sounds like the masses screaming for them to enter the presidential race.

So when a guy says, or a lady one of these days, I hope, says I'm thinking about running for president, you know where they're coming out of.

HARRIS: Yes.

GREENFIELD: I mean legally it makes a difference in how they raise money and whether various regulatory rules kick in. But basically it means they're running for president.

HARRIS: All right, well, it may be a bit early for all this, but is it too early to talk about who, which of these four may actually have the most momentum or actually have the best case at this particular point right now?

GREENFIELD: Yes.

HARRIS: Yes? GREENFIELD: Yes, it is way too early to talk about that. When Jimmy Carter announced he was running for president, I think it was the "Atlanta Constitution," one of the Georgia papers' headline was "Jimmy Who Is Running For What?" I mean you can paper your wall with the transcripts of people making fun of long shot candidates who caught fire and got to be president. And I really do think, I mean Paula knows this even if on her vacation place, the idea of saying this is the candidate most likely to win a year before the Iowa caucuses is, to me, a fool's game.

HARRIS: Yes.

GREENFIELD: And in this case particularly, each of the candidates for, who wants to be the Democratic nominee for president has special attributes. Edwards from the South; Lieberman, name recognition; Gephardt, labor; Sharpton may have the black vote and that'll really change the dynamic of Southern primaries. So I hate to say this, but we may have to wait.

HARRIS: We've been there before.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

HARRIS: Jeff Greenfield, thanks.

Good to see you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

HARRIS: Happy new year.

GREENFIELD: All right.

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