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American Morning
Changing Campaign Strategies
Aired January 28, 2004 - 08:06 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: So now, with New Hampshire behind us, where do we go from here?
It's a good question for our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, talking about where the race is heading after we leave New Hampshire.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: What happens now is that we radically shift the terrain from one state at a time, as in Iowa and New Hampshire, to seven widely-scattered states all across the continent. And we also watch the candidates who didn't win trying, first, to find a rationale for their candidacies and, second, trying to draw distinctions between themselves and Senator Kerry.
HEMMER: All right, many years ago you were a political operative yourself.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
HEMMER: How do you shift your strategy? What is the rationale that we may see from these campaigns?
GREENFIELD: Well, you can try some of these on for size. For Howard Dean, as we heard last night, he is carrying on a crusade as the agent of change -- he used that word over and over again -- so that Kerry becomes the insider establishment guy who is unwilling to stand up for what is right.
For John Edwards, he is the guy who can do what Kerry can't. In his argument, he can win the South. And I'm guessing here. I think he paints himself as a less liberal alternative to the elitist liberal John Kennedy.
And I have to be honest with you. I am trying to figure out the rationales for Wes Clark and Joe Lieberman. For Lieberman, you know, kind of celebrating a 9 percent finish and looking at Delaware and Oklahoma as staging areas for a comeback, it's just not very convincing.
Wes Clark, his first time as a candidate, had to show that he was a commanding political figure. He did not. And now, he has to show that, in fact, he can pull off a win somewhere in the South. He talks about himself as a son of Arkansas, but he's got to do it.
HEMMER: So, let me be a political operative here for a moment. For those who say it's over, is it?
GREENFIELD: No, because the candidates do get a chance to prove themselves over the next week or two. In the next two and a half weeks, there are almost 800 delegates at stake.
But absent some victories for one of these people or two of these people, and absent a powerful rationale for Howard Dean, let's say, to continue his candidacy, it's hard to see how this gets beyond Super Tuesday without a nominee, and maybe even it's hard to see how it gets up to Super Tuesday without a nominee. And the name of that person that people are looking at is John Kerry.
HEMMER: Jeff, thanks for that.
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 28, 2004 - 08:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: So now, with New Hampshire behind us, where do we go from here?
It's a good question for our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, talking about where the race is heading after we leave New Hampshire.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: What happens now is that we radically shift the terrain from one state at a time, as in Iowa and New Hampshire, to seven widely-scattered states all across the continent. And we also watch the candidates who didn't win trying, first, to find a rationale for their candidacies and, second, trying to draw distinctions between themselves and Senator Kerry.
HEMMER: All right, many years ago you were a political operative yourself.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
HEMMER: How do you shift your strategy? What is the rationale that we may see from these campaigns?
GREENFIELD: Well, you can try some of these on for size. For Howard Dean, as we heard last night, he is carrying on a crusade as the agent of change -- he used that word over and over again -- so that Kerry becomes the insider establishment guy who is unwilling to stand up for what is right.
For John Edwards, he is the guy who can do what Kerry can't. In his argument, he can win the South. And I'm guessing here. I think he paints himself as a less liberal alternative to the elitist liberal John Kennedy.
And I have to be honest with you. I am trying to figure out the rationales for Wes Clark and Joe Lieberman. For Lieberman, you know, kind of celebrating a 9 percent finish and looking at Delaware and Oklahoma as staging areas for a comeback, it's just not very convincing.
Wes Clark, his first time as a candidate, had to show that he was a commanding political figure. He did not. And now, he has to show that, in fact, he can pull off a win somewhere in the South. He talks about himself as a son of Arkansas, but he's got to do it.
HEMMER: So, let me be a political operative here for a moment. For those who say it's over, is it?
GREENFIELD: No, because the candidates do get a chance to prove themselves over the next week or two. In the next two and a half weeks, there are almost 800 delegates at stake.
But absent some victories for one of these people or two of these people, and absent a powerful rationale for Howard Dean, let's say, to continue his candidacy, it's hard to see how this gets beyond Super Tuesday without a nominee, and maybe even it's hard to see how it gets up to Super Tuesday without a nominee. And the name of that person that people are looking at is John Kerry.
HEMMER: Jeff, thanks for that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
