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American Morning
The Final Push
Aired October 06, 2003 - 09:35 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Here to offer his view on the race and its final days, Phil Bronstein. He is the executive vice president and editor of "The San Francisco Chronicle," and he joins us from San Francisco this morning.
Good morning, Phil. Nice to see you.
Thanks for joining us.
PHIL BRONSTEIN, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Good morning. Good to see you. Thank you.
O'BRIEN: The "Chronicle" said no on the recall, but if the recall goes through, 135 candidates out there, where would you throw your support?
BRONSTEIN: Well, we also said no on the 135 candidates, because partly it's consistent with the first position, which is, if you don't believe the recall ought to be happening and you think you ought to vote to keep Davis in office, not because you like him, but because the process is important to maintain, that's very hard to say but then you should vote for someone else.
But mostly, Soledad, it's because we looked over the field of 135 candidates and we didn't see anybody that we could wholeheartedly endorse. And so, you know, voters are angry, and we wanted to reflect that. They're not happy with the candidates being served up and they're not happy with the process that's got us here.
O'BRIEN: Day left, and it seems to some degree, at least to us here on the East Coast, that it's somewhere between this race between Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, really haven't heard very much from Cruz Bustamante, in fact, haven't heard anything since the debate practically.
In the short time left, can any of those candidates aforementioned do anything to move their campaign in the right direction?
BRONSTEIN: Well, again, you know, polls are not always reliable. That's the one reliable thing about polls. But it does seem that Arnold Schwarzenegger had the momentum. He may have slowed because of some of the news stories in the last three or four days.
But Cruz Bustamante certainly hasn't picked up any steam. He went to a rally yesterday, and came into the theme from "Rocky." So it seems like he's just trying to take a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger's book. I don't think it's going to help him.
O'BRIEN: But you've got the 15 women who have come forward, the number up to 15, saying -- alleging sexual allegations against Arnold Schwarzenegger. And to some degree, again, from our position, outside of the inside, it doesn't seem to have slowed down his campaign at all. Is that an accurate assessment, or do you think it could hamper his campaign in the last 24 hours?
BRONSTEIN: Well, I think it seems to have, although we've done a lot of interview with women's groups. We had a group of women who belong to a book club all over the political spectrum yesterday. We talked about it at great length in "The Chronicle." And none of them seemed to be particularly concerned about this. It doesn't mean it's not concerning, but, you know, you've got 2 million absentee ballots that have already been cast, that were cast before all this happened, and that's about 20 percent of the total.
So I think the no people, the people that don't want Arnold Schwarzenegger, who don't want the recall, would have to get over 50 percent of the vote, of the remaining votes on election day tomorrow, and that's unlikely.
O'BRIEN: You know, Phil, you said that the voters are angry. There are a lot of serious issues at stake here, and yet to some degree, a lot of us have felt like chaos, Like a bit of a zoo, especially with some of the candidates that are out there. Give me a sense of how it's felt from someone there.
BRONSTEIN: Well, you know, it's the East Coast press likes to talk about the circus a lot. We've talked about it a little ourselves. But the truth is, that California has often been at the forefront of trends, political, cultural and artistic, and I think this is one of those times. Voter anger and the initiative process that brought us this recall, somehow that's going to start rippling across the rest of the United States, maybe not exactly as it has done in California, but in some fashion, because I think voters nationally are not particularly happy about the way the political process is going, and so I think people in the rest of the country ought to keep an eye on what has happened in California, and not just snicker about it, but realize this may be part of a trend.
O'BRIEN: Phil Bronstein of "The San Francisco Chronicle." Nice to see you as always. Thanks for joining us.
BRONSTEIN: Likewise.
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 6, 2003 - 09:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Here to offer his view on the race and its final days, Phil Bronstein. He is the executive vice president and editor of "The San Francisco Chronicle," and he joins us from San Francisco this morning.
Good morning, Phil. Nice to see you.
Thanks for joining us.
PHIL BRONSTEIN, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Good morning. Good to see you. Thank you.
O'BRIEN: The "Chronicle" said no on the recall, but if the recall goes through, 135 candidates out there, where would you throw your support?
BRONSTEIN: Well, we also said no on the 135 candidates, because partly it's consistent with the first position, which is, if you don't believe the recall ought to be happening and you think you ought to vote to keep Davis in office, not because you like him, but because the process is important to maintain, that's very hard to say but then you should vote for someone else.
But mostly, Soledad, it's because we looked over the field of 135 candidates and we didn't see anybody that we could wholeheartedly endorse. And so, you know, voters are angry, and we wanted to reflect that. They're not happy with the candidates being served up and they're not happy with the process that's got us here.
O'BRIEN: Day left, and it seems to some degree, at least to us here on the East Coast, that it's somewhere between this race between Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, really haven't heard very much from Cruz Bustamante, in fact, haven't heard anything since the debate practically.
In the short time left, can any of those candidates aforementioned do anything to move their campaign in the right direction?
BRONSTEIN: Well, again, you know, polls are not always reliable. That's the one reliable thing about polls. But it does seem that Arnold Schwarzenegger had the momentum. He may have slowed because of some of the news stories in the last three or four days.
But Cruz Bustamante certainly hasn't picked up any steam. He went to a rally yesterday, and came into the theme from "Rocky." So it seems like he's just trying to take a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger's book. I don't think it's going to help him.
O'BRIEN: But you've got the 15 women who have come forward, the number up to 15, saying -- alleging sexual allegations against Arnold Schwarzenegger. And to some degree, again, from our position, outside of the inside, it doesn't seem to have slowed down his campaign at all. Is that an accurate assessment, or do you think it could hamper his campaign in the last 24 hours?
BRONSTEIN: Well, I think it seems to have, although we've done a lot of interview with women's groups. We had a group of women who belong to a book club all over the political spectrum yesterday. We talked about it at great length in "The Chronicle." And none of them seemed to be particularly concerned about this. It doesn't mean it's not concerning, but, you know, you've got 2 million absentee ballots that have already been cast, that were cast before all this happened, and that's about 20 percent of the total.
So I think the no people, the people that don't want Arnold Schwarzenegger, who don't want the recall, would have to get over 50 percent of the vote, of the remaining votes on election day tomorrow, and that's unlikely.
O'BRIEN: You know, Phil, you said that the voters are angry. There are a lot of serious issues at stake here, and yet to some degree, a lot of us have felt like chaos, Like a bit of a zoo, especially with some of the candidates that are out there. Give me a sense of how it's felt from someone there.
BRONSTEIN: Well, you know, it's the East Coast press likes to talk about the circus a lot. We've talked about it a little ourselves. But the truth is, that California has often been at the forefront of trends, political, cultural and artistic, and I think this is one of those times. Voter anger and the initiative process that brought us this recall, somehow that's going to start rippling across the rest of the United States, maybe not exactly as it has done in California, but in some fashion, because I think voters nationally are not particularly happy about the way the political process is going, and so I think people in the rest of the country ought to keep an eye on what has happened in California, and not just snicker about it, but realize this may be part of a trend.
O'BRIEN: Phil Bronstein of "The San Francisco Chronicle." Nice to see you as always. Thanks for joining us.
BRONSTEIN: Likewise.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
