Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Battle for California: Decision Day

Aired October 07, 2003 - 07:08   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: So, who will be still standing at this time tomorrow?
CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times" has been covering the campaign and joins us from Los Angeles this morning.

Ron, nice to see you, as always. Thanks for joining us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let me clarify something I said earlier. You can vote yes or no on the recall, and regardless of how you vote, you then get to still pick...

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... one of the 135 other candidates who are running as well.

Now, Davis need 50 percent of the vote to keep his job. Arnold Schwarzenegger, some people have predicted that he could get 35-36-37 percent of the vote and win -- meaning that he could get significantly less of the vote and be governor, right?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, that is one of the quirks in the recall law in California, and it's one that would seem a very real possibility based on the last polls. I mean, talking to Democrats, there is a sense that while support for the recall has eroded, it may have stabilized somewhere above 50 percent. Obviously with turnout, and we don't really know who is going to come out and vote in an election this unusual, that could change the equation.

But right now, I think Democrats fear they may have fallen a little short; yet, it's entirely possible that significantly more people will vote to retain Gray Davis as governor than to install Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. And if that does occur, that will have important implications for Schwarzenegger's ability to govern and to put pressure on a Democratic-controlled state legislature if he does win today.

O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk about those problems. And, again, we have to say that this is a very big if he does win, if, if, if here. But when you say huge implications for his ability to govern, if he should win, what do you mean specifically?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, right now you have a Democratic Senate, you have a Democratic State Assembly. And the question will be: What kind of leverage would Schwarzenegger, if he does win, have to bring to bear on them? And certainly, his ability to argue for a mandate from the voters of California will be diminished if more people vote to keep Gray Davis in office than to put him in office. And yet, because of the rules of the game, he still becomes the governor.

I mean, it really is a question of what kind of clout does he come in, what kind of base does he come in, what kind of ability does he come in with to pressure the legislature and go over their head to the voters?

O'BRIEN: There are, by some estimates, a million absentee ballots that will not be counted until well after the election. So, when do you think we could actually know the results? Or maybe a better way of putting that question would be: How long will we have to wait until we know the results?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, it really depends on how close it is. I mean, as I understand it, they're going to try to make a provisional count today based on the absentee ballots that have been cast before election day and the votes that are actually cast today. And then, they will have to go back, not only through the absentee ballots, but people who went to the wrong polling place, because they've obviously consolidated a great deal of that.

So, it could go on if it is very close. If a lot of people vote and there's a wide margin, we may well know who won by the wee hours tonight.

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the campaigns last night, and both sides were saying, I was walking door to door with a picture of my particular candidate and everyone loved him, and that's an indication about the fact that we're going to win tomorrow. You have been knee- deep in all of this, and we've been talking about it for so long. Give me a sense of which campaign of all of them has the most momentum going into the election today?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think Schwarzenegger has been battered by what's happened, but the -- really the North Star of this race, Soledad, has been the disapproval of Davis' performance as governor. Even in the Davis polling over the weekend, when they said they saw the recall tightening, they said two-thirds -- about two-thirds of the voters in California still said he was doing a bad job as governor. That's awful hard to overcome.

And speaking of door knocking, I was out over the weekend with canvassers for Labor Federation, who were supposedly contacting people who were against the recall. And yet, they ran into several union members, who were saying it's time for him to go. That is really -- you have two forces competing here: growing doubt about Schwarzenegger, but a lot of certainty among many voters that they're disappointed in the job Davis has done. And at the moment, that latter factor still seems to weigh a little bit more overall.

O'BRIEN: Ron Brownstein, lots of unknowns in this race. I guess we'll have to check back with you tomorrow to find out exactly what happened overnight. All right, Ron, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

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 7, 2003 - 07:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So, who will be still standing at this time tomorrow?
CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times" has been covering the campaign and joins us from Los Angeles this morning.

Ron, nice to see you, as always. Thanks for joining us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let me clarify something I said earlier. You can vote yes or no on the recall, and regardless of how you vote, you then get to still pick...

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... one of the 135 other candidates who are running as well.

Now, Davis need 50 percent of the vote to keep his job. Arnold Schwarzenegger, some people have predicted that he could get 35-36-37 percent of the vote and win -- meaning that he could get significantly less of the vote and be governor, right?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, that is one of the quirks in the recall law in California, and it's one that would seem a very real possibility based on the last polls. I mean, talking to Democrats, there is a sense that while support for the recall has eroded, it may have stabilized somewhere above 50 percent. Obviously with turnout, and we don't really know who is going to come out and vote in an election this unusual, that could change the equation.

But right now, I think Democrats fear they may have fallen a little short; yet, it's entirely possible that significantly more people will vote to retain Gray Davis as governor than to install Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. And if that does occur, that will have important implications for Schwarzenegger's ability to govern and to put pressure on a Democratic-controlled state legislature if he does win today.

O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk about those problems. And, again, we have to say that this is a very big if he does win, if, if, if here. But when you say huge implications for his ability to govern, if he should win, what do you mean specifically?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, right now you have a Democratic Senate, you have a Democratic State Assembly. And the question will be: What kind of leverage would Schwarzenegger, if he does win, have to bring to bear on them? And certainly, his ability to argue for a mandate from the voters of California will be diminished if more people vote to keep Gray Davis in office than to put him in office. And yet, because of the rules of the game, he still becomes the governor.

I mean, it really is a question of what kind of clout does he come in, what kind of base does he come in, what kind of ability does he come in with to pressure the legislature and go over their head to the voters?

O'BRIEN: There are, by some estimates, a million absentee ballots that will not be counted until well after the election. So, when do you think we could actually know the results? Or maybe a better way of putting that question would be: How long will we have to wait until we know the results?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, it really depends on how close it is. I mean, as I understand it, they're going to try to make a provisional count today based on the absentee ballots that have been cast before election day and the votes that are actually cast today. And then, they will have to go back, not only through the absentee ballots, but people who went to the wrong polling place, because they've obviously consolidated a great deal of that.

So, it could go on if it is very close. If a lot of people vote and there's a wide margin, we may well know who won by the wee hours tonight.

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the campaigns last night, and both sides were saying, I was walking door to door with a picture of my particular candidate and everyone loved him, and that's an indication about the fact that we're going to win tomorrow. You have been knee- deep in all of this, and we've been talking about it for so long. Give me a sense of which campaign of all of them has the most momentum going into the election today?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think Schwarzenegger has been battered by what's happened, but the -- really the North Star of this race, Soledad, has been the disapproval of Davis' performance as governor. Even in the Davis polling over the weekend, when they said they saw the recall tightening, they said two-thirds -- about two-thirds of the voters in California still said he was doing a bad job as governor. That's awful hard to overcome.

And speaking of door knocking, I was out over the weekend with canvassers for Labor Federation, who were supposedly contacting people who were against the recall. And yet, they ran into several union members, who were saying it's time for him to go. That is really -- you have two forces competing here: growing doubt about Schwarzenegger, but a lot of certainty among many voters that they're disappointed in the job Davis has done. And at the moment, that latter factor still seems to weigh a little bit more overall.

O'BRIEN: Ron Brownstein, lots of unknowns in this race. I guess we'll have to check back with you tomorrow to find out exactly what happened overnight. All right, Ron, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

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