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CNN Saturday Morning News

America Votes 2002: Three Days Before Midterms

Aired November 02, 2002 - 07:00   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So many tight races, so many bitter ones, it's hard to really recount them all for you.
Last night, First Lady Laura Bush waded into the bitter contest in North Carolina for Jesse Helms' Senate seat. It pits two former Washington power brokers in the nation's costliest Senate race.

CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She once ran for president.

ELIZABETH DOLE (R), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

CROWLEY: He once worked for one.

ERSKINE BOWLES (D), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Thank you very much. It feels good.

CROWLEY: Now they both want to be senator for North Carolina.

BOWLES: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I'm doing great.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That's what I hear. We got a dead heat.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm voting for you and begging everybody...

DOLE: Bless you. Thank you so much.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: ... to vote for you, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

CROWLEY: She used to be more than 20 points up and sitting pretty. Name recognition through the roof, a husband who owes her for all the time she was the spouse of a candidate, and a president vested enough in her victory to visit the state five times.

And now the race is very, very close.

DOLE: Don't say that this campaign has somehow fallen apart when it starts to tighten, because we expect it, we know it'll happen.

BOWLES: I think this race is now focused on, you know, the issues, and it's no longer focuses -- focused on Mrs. Dole's celebrity. CROWLEY: Give this guy some props. Erskine Bowles doesn't exactly light up the screen. He's a wonk who would rather blend into the crowd than stand in front of it. Even his name is an uneasy fit in the bumper-sticker world of campaigns.

With $3 million of his own money and some tough ads, Bowles has pulled himself out of obscurity.

While George Bush has been on the frequent visitor plan in North Carolina, there's been no sign of Bowles' former boss. Bill Clinton is a mixed bag in this conservative state, not worth the risk.

But this Clinton fund raiser, former head of the Small Business Administration, former Clinton chief of staff, has managed to do what Al Gore could not -- separate himself from the person of Bill Clinton and embrace the policies.

BOWLES: I don't think anybody's more fiscally conservative than I am. You know, I have been given credit of being the architect of the balanced budget, of bringing people together from both sides to balance the budget.

But I am socially progressive.

CROWLEY: In this state where textiles have been hit hard, Bowles talks a lot about jobs, and so does she.

DOLE: Well, Erskine, let me say to you, you have had your chance. You were chief of staff for Bill Clinton, and you did not enforce the trade laws all during the '90s, and that's why our industry's been devastated.

CROWLEY: Bill Clinton's name comes up a lot in her speeches. Don't let that Southern-sugar voice fool you, Elizabeth Dole is a woman who can plan Northern hardball.

She married a marquee Republican name but didn't stay home to bake cookies. Secretary of labor, secretary of transportation, head of the Red Cross, 2000 presidential candidate. The first female to graduate from Harvard Law, Dole was a liberated woman way before it was cool.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I would now like to welcome the lady I admire most. Please welcome Elizabeth Dole.

CROWLEY: She is a huge draw, but Dole's failed presidential campaign has made many Republicans nervous. "In 2000," said one Republican, "she couldn't translate her celebrity into political support. I hope she's learned how to close the deal."

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, that North Carolina race is just one of the many that are too close to call and that analysts are certainly watching very carefully.

But what is on the voters' minds? And what's at stake as they go to the polls?

Joining us now to discuss the crucial midterm elections is political analyst Ron Brownstein of "The L.A. Times."

Thanks for being here, Ron.

RON BROWNSTEIN, POLITICAL ANALYST, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good morning.

COLLINS: We do appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Welcome to Washington.

COLLINS: We have Miles with us too, of course.

O'BRIEN: Just here in the middle. I'll just listen in.

BROWNSTEIN: OK.

O'BRIEN: All right.

COLLINS: Well, let's go ahead and talk about the balance of power in Congress, the Senate. We're talking about a huge election here, a lot going on. Where do we sit right now?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, right now, you know, the House and the Senate are almost as evenly divided as they've been at any time in the last century. And for that reason, every midterm election becomes crucial, because either party can win control.

Right now, the Democrats are clinging to a one-seat advantage in the Senate. They cannot afford to lose any net Senate seats in this election. The Republicans have a six-seat advantage in the House.

Right now, I think the thinking is that it leans Republican toward the House for maintaining power. The Senate is really up for grabs.

And this is crucial to President Bush's agenda for his final two years.

COLLINS: That's right. He'll be in Florida today, obviously, working on all of that.

But let's talk also about the Senate races now. We reporting out (ph) six, obviously the team to be (ph) the big ones. We've got Minnesota, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Missouri, South Dakota, and Colorado.

BROWNSTEIN: Three held by each party right now are really on the front line of the battle. You have three Democrats seats all in the Midwest, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, with incumbent Democrats who are facing very tough races in a region where rural and small-town voters really moved away form the Democrats in 2000 during the presidential race.

They all have to do better in those sort of red counties to hold onto these seats.

Then you have three Republican seats, Arkansas, Colorado, New Hampshire, states that George Bush won in 2000, but in each case, where Republicans are facing very tough challenges to hold these seats. Tim Hutchinson in Arkansas is trailing, John Sununu versus Jean Shaheen, the outgoing governor of New Hampshire, right down to the wire. And Wayne Allard, again, the Republican senator of Colorado, facing a very tough race against Democrat Tom Strickland.

COLLINS: Where do you see the biggest race? Would you say it would be Minnesota?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, Minnesota is getting the most attention, but I actually think it's this complex of three races that will probably decide who controls the Senate. South Dakota, where John Thune, the Republican congressman, is facing Tim Johnson, Democratic incumbent, in a race too close to call.

And then these two Republican House seats in Colorado and New Hampshire, was -- as I said, in New Hampshire, John Sununu was expected to win, I think, rather easily, but he has been trailing the governor, Jean Shaheen, who's made a lot of progress with women voters around the abortion issue.

Then in Colorado you have Tom Strickland, the Democrat, in a rematch against Wayne Allard, and Strickland has been running at least even.

The Republicans probably can't afford to lose even one of those seats, I think, to retake the Senate. Certainly they can't lose both New Hampshire and Colorado, with Arkansas looking kind of grim for them.

COLLINS: So obviously voter turnout is huge.

BROWNSTEIN: It is, especially because in a paradoxical way, because voter interest hasn't been that high. No one is expecting a huge surge of voters to the polls. So the targeted efforts of each side to get out their voters can matter more, because you're dealing with a smaller base.

I mean, if the AFL-CIO or the National Rifle Association can move out a few of its members in targeted places, they can make a very big difference, because they're operating in a smaller universe.

COLLINS: So let's talk a little bit about the money. We're seeing a lot of the candidates raising a lot of money. And we were looking a little bit earlier at one of the races...

BROWNSTEIN: North Carolina.

COLLINS: ... where -- yes, and... BROWNSTEIN: Yes, yes, lot of money in there. And especially in the governor's races. You have astronomical sums being spent in some places. California, Gray Davis, and in Texas with Tony Sanchez, both being spent at record levels, both Democrats. Davis likely to win, Sanchez likely to lose, could spend $80 million and not get elected governor of Texas. He might have been better buying everyone in the state a television instead of buying so many television ads.

COLLINS: Maybe, that's right.

O'BRIEN: Well, I'm going to ask you, if you don't mind if I jump in...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... it's kind of like trench warfare in World War I, all this tremendous expense, and they're all just still in this bitter...

BROWNSTEIN: That's...

O'BRIEN: ... deadlocks. And when I see all these tight races, I sort of see the rumblings of a real process disaster. In other words, as these votes come in, there's going to be recounts, confusion. We've got new machines in some states, we've got dangling chads in others still.

Two years after the debacle, there -- really not a lot has changed.

BROWNSTEIN: No, we're learning our system is not built for this level of competition on these kinds of close races. First of all, your trench warfare analogy, I think, is very accurate. You really have to go back to the 1880s to find a period in American history where the two parties have been this closely locked for so long.

I mean, you know, we're going to have maybe over, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars spent in this election, and we could see a Republican gain of one seat in the House and a Democratic gain of one seat in the Senate.

And some of these elections, we may not know on election night. Minnesota, confusion about absentee ballots, Louisiana has a strange primary season -- system. If nobody gets 50 percent in November, they're going to go to December to pick a senator in Louisiana, and the whole balance of the Senate could be at stake. We could all get to spend the month of November in Baton Rouge. Things could be worse, but...

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), that's all right. One quick question for you, though, I always want to ask people like you, what will you be watching on Tuesday night?

BROWNSTEIN: I will be watching, I think, for the early results. I'll be watching that New Hampshire Senate race, I think. And North Carolina and Georgia, which have been a little bit outside the window, but a Democratic pickup possible in North Carolina, a Republican pickup in Georgia.

If either of those break, you could see the whole night moving toward one party or the other.

COLLINS: And a long night it's going to be.

BROWNSTEIN: A long night. Probably a long few days, actually.

COLLINS: That's probably true. All right, Ron Brownstein of "The L.A. Times," thanks so much for being here.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) down to Atlanta, the bunting (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll see you on Tuesday.

BROWNSTEIN: All right.

COLLINS: Thanks again, Ron.

O'BRIEN: 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 November 2, 2002 - 07:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So many tight races, so many bitter ones, it's hard to really recount them all for you.
Last night, First Lady Laura Bush waded into the bitter contest in North Carolina for Jesse Helms' Senate seat. It pits two former Washington power brokers in the nation's costliest Senate race.

CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She once ran for president.

ELIZABETH DOLE (R), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

CROWLEY: He once worked for one.

ERSKINE BOWLES (D), NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Thank you very much. It feels good.

CROWLEY: Now they both want to be senator for North Carolina.

BOWLES: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I'm doing great.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That's what I hear. We got a dead heat.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm voting for you and begging everybody...

DOLE: Bless you. Thank you so much.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: ... to vote for you, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

CROWLEY: She used to be more than 20 points up and sitting pretty. Name recognition through the roof, a husband who owes her for all the time she was the spouse of a candidate, and a president vested enough in her victory to visit the state five times.

And now the race is very, very close.

DOLE: Don't say that this campaign has somehow fallen apart when it starts to tighten, because we expect it, we know it'll happen.

BOWLES: I think this race is now focused on, you know, the issues, and it's no longer focuses -- focused on Mrs. Dole's celebrity. CROWLEY: Give this guy some props. Erskine Bowles doesn't exactly light up the screen. He's a wonk who would rather blend into the crowd than stand in front of it. Even his name is an uneasy fit in the bumper-sticker world of campaigns.

With $3 million of his own money and some tough ads, Bowles has pulled himself out of obscurity.

While George Bush has been on the frequent visitor plan in North Carolina, there's been no sign of Bowles' former boss. Bill Clinton is a mixed bag in this conservative state, not worth the risk.

But this Clinton fund raiser, former head of the Small Business Administration, former Clinton chief of staff, has managed to do what Al Gore could not -- separate himself from the person of Bill Clinton and embrace the policies.

BOWLES: I don't think anybody's more fiscally conservative than I am. You know, I have been given credit of being the architect of the balanced budget, of bringing people together from both sides to balance the budget.

But I am socially progressive.

CROWLEY: In this state where textiles have been hit hard, Bowles talks a lot about jobs, and so does she.

DOLE: Well, Erskine, let me say to you, you have had your chance. You were chief of staff for Bill Clinton, and you did not enforce the trade laws all during the '90s, and that's why our industry's been devastated.

CROWLEY: Bill Clinton's name comes up a lot in her speeches. Don't let that Southern-sugar voice fool you, Elizabeth Dole is a woman who can plan Northern hardball.

She married a marquee Republican name but didn't stay home to bake cookies. Secretary of labor, secretary of transportation, head of the Red Cross, 2000 presidential candidate. The first female to graduate from Harvard Law, Dole was a liberated woman way before it was cool.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I would now like to welcome the lady I admire most. Please welcome Elizabeth Dole.

CROWLEY: She is a huge draw, but Dole's failed presidential campaign has made many Republicans nervous. "In 2000," said one Republican, "she couldn't translate her celebrity into political support. I hope she's learned how to close the deal."

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, that North Carolina race is just one of the many that are too close to call and that analysts are certainly watching very carefully.

But what is on the voters' minds? And what's at stake as they go to the polls?

Joining us now to discuss the crucial midterm elections is political analyst Ron Brownstein of "The L.A. Times."

Thanks for being here, Ron.

RON BROWNSTEIN, POLITICAL ANALYST, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good morning.

COLLINS: We do appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Welcome to Washington.

COLLINS: We have Miles with us too, of course.

O'BRIEN: Just here in the middle. I'll just listen in.

BROWNSTEIN: OK.

O'BRIEN: All right.

COLLINS: Well, let's go ahead and talk about the balance of power in Congress, the Senate. We're talking about a huge election here, a lot going on. Where do we sit right now?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, right now, you know, the House and the Senate are almost as evenly divided as they've been at any time in the last century. And for that reason, every midterm election becomes crucial, because either party can win control.

Right now, the Democrats are clinging to a one-seat advantage in the Senate. They cannot afford to lose any net Senate seats in this election. The Republicans have a six-seat advantage in the House.

Right now, I think the thinking is that it leans Republican toward the House for maintaining power. The Senate is really up for grabs.

And this is crucial to President Bush's agenda for his final two years.

COLLINS: That's right. He'll be in Florida today, obviously, working on all of that.

But let's talk also about the Senate races now. We reporting out (ph) six, obviously the team to be (ph) the big ones. We've got Minnesota, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Missouri, South Dakota, and Colorado.

BROWNSTEIN: Three held by each party right now are really on the front line of the battle. You have three Democrats seats all in the Midwest, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, with incumbent Democrats who are facing very tough races in a region where rural and small-town voters really moved away form the Democrats in 2000 during the presidential race.

They all have to do better in those sort of red counties to hold onto these seats.

Then you have three Republican seats, Arkansas, Colorado, New Hampshire, states that George Bush won in 2000, but in each case, where Republicans are facing very tough challenges to hold these seats. Tim Hutchinson in Arkansas is trailing, John Sununu versus Jean Shaheen, the outgoing governor of New Hampshire, right down to the wire. And Wayne Allard, again, the Republican senator of Colorado, facing a very tough race against Democrat Tom Strickland.

COLLINS: Where do you see the biggest race? Would you say it would be Minnesota?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, Minnesota is getting the most attention, but I actually think it's this complex of three races that will probably decide who controls the Senate. South Dakota, where John Thune, the Republican congressman, is facing Tim Johnson, Democratic incumbent, in a race too close to call.

And then these two Republican House seats in Colorado and New Hampshire, was -- as I said, in New Hampshire, John Sununu was expected to win, I think, rather easily, but he has been trailing the governor, Jean Shaheen, who's made a lot of progress with women voters around the abortion issue.

Then in Colorado you have Tom Strickland, the Democrat, in a rematch against Wayne Allard, and Strickland has been running at least even.

The Republicans probably can't afford to lose even one of those seats, I think, to retake the Senate. Certainly they can't lose both New Hampshire and Colorado, with Arkansas looking kind of grim for them.

COLLINS: So obviously voter turnout is huge.

BROWNSTEIN: It is, especially because in a paradoxical way, because voter interest hasn't been that high. No one is expecting a huge surge of voters to the polls. So the targeted efforts of each side to get out their voters can matter more, because you're dealing with a smaller base.

I mean, if the AFL-CIO or the National Rifle Association can move out a few of its members in targeted places, they can make a very big difference, because they're operating in a smaller universe.

COLLINS: So let's talk a little bit about the money. We're seeing a lot of the candidates raising a lot of money. And we were looking a little bit earlier at one of the races...

BROWNSTEIN: North Carolina.

COLLINS: ... where -- yes, and... BROWNSTEIN: Yes, yes, lot of money in there. And especially in the governor's races. You have astronomical sums being spent in some places. California, Gray Davis, and in Texas with Tony Sanchez, both being spent at record levels, both Democrats. Davis likely to win, Sanchez likely to lose, could spend $80 million and not get elected governor of Texas. He might have been better buying everyone in the state a television instead of buying so many television ads.

COLLINS: Maybe, that's right.

O'BRIEN: Well, I'm going to ask you, if you don't mind if I jump in...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... it's kind of like trench warfare in World War I, all this tremendous expense, and they're all just still in this bitter...

BROWNSTEIN: That's...

O'BRIEN: ... deadlocks. And when I see all these tight races, I sort of see the rumblings of a real process disaster. In other words, as these votes come in, there's going to be recounts, confusion. We've got new machines in some states, we've got dangling chads in others still.

Two years after the debacle, there -- really not a lot has changed.

BROWNSTEIN: No, we're learning our system is not built for this level of competition on these kinds of close races. First of all, your trench warfare analogy, I think, is very accurate. You really have to go back to the 1880s to find a period in American history where the two parties have been this closely locked for so long.

I mean, you know, we're going to have maybe over, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars spent in this election, and we could see a Republican gain of one seat in the House and a Democratic gain of one seat in the Senate.

And some of these elections, we may not know on election night. Minnesota, confusion about absentee ballots, Louisiana has a strange primary season -- system. If nobody gets 50 percent in November, they're going to go to December to pick a senator in Louisiana, and the whole balance of the Senate could be at stake. We could all get to spend the month of November in Baton Rouge. Things could be worse, but...

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), that's all right. One quick question for you, though, I always want to ask people like you, what will you be watching on Tuesday night?

BROWNSTEIN: I will be watching, I think, for the early results. I'll be watching that New Hampshire Senate race, I think. And North Carolina and Georgia, which have been a little bit outside the window, but a Democratic pickup possible in North Carolina, a Republican pickup in Georgia.

If either of those break, you could see the whole night moving toward one party or the other.

COLLINS: And a long night it's going to be.

BROWNSTEIN: A long night. Probably a long few days, actually.

COLLINS: That's probably true. All right, Ron Brownstein of "The L.A. Times," thanks so much for being here.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) down to Atlanta, the bunting (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll see you on Tuesday.

BROWNSTEIN: All right.

COLLINS: Thanks again, Ron.

O'BRIEN: 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