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CNN Live Sunday

Bush, Daschle Campaign for South Dakota's Senate Candidates

Aired November 03, 2002 - 18:34   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.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Party leaders don't want to take chances with the midterm elections. South Dakota Republicans got help from President Bush, while Democrats were visited by Senate majority leader and native son Tom Daschle today. CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl is live in Sioux Falls -- Jonathan.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the White House wants to win this race, wants to win it badly. You mentioned President Bush's visit. He's going to be speaking here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in about an hour. This will be his fifth visit to South Dakota, smashing all previous records for presidential visits to this state, And earlier today, we caught up with his wife, the first lady, Laura Bush. Was in the town of Del Rapids (ph), South Dakota, a little town of about 5,000 people. She worked the crowd there, tried to make the case for the Republican candidate, John Thune.

The reason why the White House feels so strongly about this race is because they feel Thune is what perhaps their best chance, or maybe their second best chance of knocking off an incumbent Democrat here, and they also know that this is the town of the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, Bush's most powerful Democratic enemy.

I caught up with John Thune, the Republican candidate, and asked him about all this Republican firepower coming here. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN THUNE (R), SOUTH DAKOTA: We have a lot of firepower. We have a lot of people, I think, who -- people in South Dakota respond favorably to. They responded the president's leadership. They like the vice president, obviously, someone who comes from this part of the country. You know, Mayor Giuliani is someone who's demonstrated great leadership, and I think the message that all those leaders who come in here delivering is that, you know, we want to see some people in the United States Senate, some leaders who will work with our president, work with the leaders that we have, the great leaders that we have in this country, to get things done.

And right now there's a lot of gridlock in the Senate. Things are not getting done, and we need to change that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: That's right. Vice President Cheney and Rudy Giuliani were both here in the past week, but as you see here in this shot, Tom Daschle, the majority leader of the Senate, and of course, South Dakota's senior senator, has been traveling the state by bus, with the Democratic candidate Tim Johnson, the incumbent senator, working very hard. The two of them have also been going door to door, campaigning the old fashioned way. We caught up with them in the town of Brookings, South Dakota, where both of them actually went door to door ringing door bells, trying to get voters to come out to vote.

It's an interesting way to campaign for a Senate race. Senate races are usually more about big media, and there's been a lot of that in this race as well. But this has been an extraordinary campaign, because there are only about 450,000 registered voters in South Dakota, so that means you can really reach out and get those undecided voters in the final days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Door to door campaigning, I mean, is it for show is or this real? I mean is it...

SEN. TIM JOHNSON (D), SOUTH DAKOTA: No, this is real. Obviously you can't hit every door in every town, but we can cover a lot of doors. We know who our undecided voters -- occasionally just stop in and say hi to a supporter. So, we're doing that, and it gives us an opportunity to be in the town and to show the flag. And it really does matter. This is a small state, and this kind of politics still counts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: And with all this effort in the final days, Anderson, election experts here in the state of South Dakota are predicting, actually, a very high turnout. It may be low turnout in the rest of the country, but in the state of South Dakota, they're predicting the turnout could be as high as 75 percent -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, I guess ringing all those door bells really does work there. Thanks very much, Jonathan.

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





Candidates>


Aired November 3, 2002 - 18:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Party leaders don't want to take chances with the midterm elections. South Dakota Republicans got help from President Bush, while Democrats were visited by Senate majority leader and native son Tom Daschle today. CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl is live in Sioux Falls -- Jonathan.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the White House wants to win this race, wants to win it badly. You mentioned President Bush's visit. He's going to be speaking here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in about an hour. This will be his fifth visit to South Dakota, smashing all previous records for presidential visits to this state, And earlier today, we caught up with his wife, the first lady, Laura Bush. Was in the town of Del Rapids (ph), South Dakota, a little town of about 5,000 people. She worked the crowd there, tried to make the case for the Republican candidate, John Thune.

The reason why the White House feels so strongly about this race is because they feel Thune is what perhaps their best chance, or maybe their second best chance of knocking off an incumbent Democrat here, and they also know that this is the town of the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, Bush's most powerful Democratic enemy.

I caught up with John Thune, the Republican candidate, and asked him about all this Republican firepower coming here. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN THUNE (R), SOUTH DAKOTA: We have a lot of firepower. We have a lot of people, I think, who -- people in South Dakota respond favorably to. They responded the president's leadership. They like the vice president, obviously, someone who comes from this part of the country. You know, Mayor Giuliani is someone who's demonstrated great leadership, and I think the message that all those leaders who come in here delivering is that, you know, we want to see some people in the United States Senate, some leaders who will work with our president, work with the leaders that we have, the great leaders that we have in this country, to get things done.

And right now there's a lot of gridlock in the Senate. Things are not getting done, and we need to change that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: That's right. Vice President Cheney and Rudy Giuliani were both here in the past week, but as you see here in this shot, Tom Daschle, the majority leader of the Senate, and of course, South Dakota's senior senator, has been traveling the state by bus, with the Democratic candidate Tim Johnson, the incumbent senator, working very hard. The two of them have also been going door to door, campaigning the old fashioned way. We caught up with them in the town of Brookings, South Dakota, where both of them actually went door to door ringing door bells, trying to get voters to come out to vote.

It's an interesting way to campaign for a Senate race. Senate races are usually more about big media, and there's been a lot of that in this race as well. But this has been an extraordinary campaign, because there are only about 450,000 registered voters in South Dakota, so that means you can really reach out and get those undecided voters in the final days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Door to door campaigning, I mean, is it for show is or this real? I mean is it...

SEN. TIM JOHNSON (D), SOUTH DAKOTA: No, this is real. Obviously you can't hit every door in every town, but we can cover a lot of doors. We know who our undecided voters -- occasionally just stop in and say hi to a supporter. So, we're doing that, and it gives us an opportunity to be in the town and to show the flag. And it really does matter. This is a small state, and this kind of politics still counts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: And with all this effort in the final days, Anderson, election experts here in the state of South Dakota are predicting, actually, a very high turnout. It may be low turnout in the rest of the country, but in the state of South Dakota, they're predicting the turnout could be as high as 75 percent -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, I guess ringing all those door bells really does work there. Thanks very much, Jonathan.

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





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