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CNN Live Sunday
Political Pundits Wrong On Schwarzenegger's Participation
Aired August 10, 2003 - 18:05 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.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, just last week most pundits were saying that Schwarzenegger would not enter the race. Well, that all changed, of course, when he announced on "The Tonight Show" that he would run. So, what happened? Let's ask political commentator and columnist Jill Stewart. She joins us from Los Angeles.
Jill, it's nice to see you.
JILL STEWART, POLITICAL COLUMNIST: Nice to see you, Kelly.
ARENA: Last week, when we spoke you told me he was going on Leno on Wednesday to say, I'm not running.
STEWART: No way.
ARENA: We were told even Jay Leno was surprised. Best kept secret in the political world?
STEWART: Yeah. It was. And the print and radio reporters were all in one room, TV reporters in another room waiting for him to do something. And interestingly enough, they believed that Dick Riordan was behind a wall and was about to step out, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and announce that he was going to run.
So, it was a masterful play on Schwarzenegger's part and it was really Schwarzenegger saying, Listen, I'm going to be in charge of my race. I'm going to control the message where and when, and this is how I'm starting it.
ARENA: You mentioned message. We haven't heard one yet. When does he have to deliver with what he stands for?
STEWART: I think very, very soon. I am already detecting a media pile on, a sort of a negative let's get him media pile on.
I got an e-mail last night from a well-known journalist, who I'm not going to name, who said, Jill, can you help me put together a list -- a hit list of questions to use to embarrass Arnold Schwarzenegger in public on his lack of policy knowledge.
I noticed the advance copy of "The New York Times" for Sunday, has an incredibly snotty thumbnail description of Schwarzenegger, where the other descriptions of candidates are not so snotty. So, I think they perceive him as the frontrunner and are going to be very hard on him. I don't know if he's going to be able to handle it, because he's never had negative media before. He's always had entertainment media. How smooth he is, how deft he is, how he handles it is going to have a lot to do with whether he gets elected. He will have to bring in policy issues. The public will expect that of him but he may have a bigger problem just with the media thinking how dare he run. There's sort of a college-educated media snobbery going on here. That it is a bias, it does exist, and he's going to have a problem with that.
ARENA: Well, who shows up? This is -- we know that mid-term election turnout, voter turn out, very low. This, a special recall election. What is the audience that these politicians are playing to?
STEWART: You know, 7 million people did not go to the polls last year, who could have, in California. There are 2.5 million Latino voters and three quarters of them stayed home, they were so disgusted. Everybody is going to go for the Latino's voters.
I think it's fascinating that Schwarzenegger -- to sort of fend off the idea that he is just going to go for the white Republicans, has named who I think are the only two hip Latino legislatures, who are Republicans in California, Bonny Garcia (ph) and Abell Maldonado (ph) as co-chairs of his campaign. They jumped on right away. It was very smart of Schwarzenegger to do. They're going to show up at the podium with him and that could work against Cruz Bustamante, who is also going for this big Latino vote.
They want to get people out of their homes. A couple pollsters are predicting this could be bigger than several recent gubernatorial races.
ARENA: Well, of course, the first part of this, though, is that voters have to decide to recall Davis. As we've seen, he is very much going about the business of being governor, quite publicly, talk to me about that strategy.
STEWART: Well, I think might backfire on him because going about the business of being governor and sitting at his desk is what got him into all this trouble. He's no good at it. He doesn't know how to be the governor. He doesn't know how to make decisions.
I think what he needs to do is go back to what he's good at, the one thing we know he's good at, hardcore campaigning. It's the one area that he's really brilliant. I think he needs to get out of the office. He looks like a fool sitting behind the desk. He's had too many crises there and he doesn't know how to handle crises and it's not working for time.
ARENA: A lot of focus has been on Schwarzenegger, for obvious reasons, but you do have Peter Ueberroth. And a lot of people have been quietly saying, you know, very credible candidate, someone with some credible experience under his belt. When do you think -- or will -- voters ever start shifting the focus to the other people running in this race?
STEWART: I'm going to have to say that right away, the media's going to focus on three or four people, the television media is going to control that to some degree. And unless Peter Ueberroth has something really exciting to say I think he might fall by the wayside fairly quickly. A lot of people don't remember who he is and I think he's going to be overshadowed by some of the other candidates.
He's running as an independent. That means he's not got the top, top campaign consultants who are all either on the Democratic camp or Republican camp. He's going to make mistakes. He doesn't know how to campaign. It's going to be tough for Peter Ueberroth.
ARENA: Do we know -- I talked to Kelly Wallace about this earlier, about the possibility of some heavy hitters coming to California. We know the president is heading there this week...
STEWART: Right.
ARENA: Gave him a semi -- you know, yay, Arnold, yesterday. But do you think that we will see some political honchos heading into the state, considering the importance of this state for the presidential election?
STEWART: Oh absolutely. It's not just for the presidential election. This is for the history books. The Democrats don't want to go down as the party that lost for the first time in 80 or 90 years a governor's race to a recall. And also, there's a tremendous danger for the Democrats if a moderate Republican were to become governor California. They've managed to stop that a couple times now.
If that were to happen that could fundamentally change the Republican party in California and create a sea change among the voters. Voters are very fickle here in California. And they're not necessarily wedded to the Democratic Party as many people think. I think the Democrats are going to try to stop that at all costs. You'll see heavy hitters here on both sides.
ARENA: All right, well, we will be watching.
STEWART: It's going to be fun.
ARENA: Jill Stewart thank you for joining us.
STEWART: Thank you, Kelli.
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 August 10, 2003 - 18:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, just last week most pundits were saying that Schwarzenegger would not enter the race. Well, that all changed, of course, when he announced on "The Tonight Show" that he would run. So, what happened? Let's ask political commentator and columnist Jill Stewart. She joins us from Los Angeles.
Jill, it's nice to see you.
JILL STEWART, POLITICAL COLUMNIST: Nice to see you, Kelly.
ARENA: Last week, when we spoke you told me he was going on Leno on Wednesday to say, I'm not running.
STEWART: No way.
ARENA: We were told even Jay Leno was surprised. Best kept secret in the political world?
STEWART: Yeah. It was. And the print and radio reporters were all in one room, TV reporters in another room waiting for him to do something. And interestingly enough, they believed that Dick Riordan was behind a wall and was about to step out, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and announce that he was going to run.
So, it was a masterful play on Schwarzenegger's part and it was really Schwarzenegger saying, Listen, I'm going to be in charge of my race. I'm going to control the message where and when, and this is how I'm starting it.
ARENA: You mentioned message. We haven't heard one yet. When does he have to deliver with what he stands for?
STEWART: I think very, very soon. I am already detecting a media pile on, a sort of a negative let's get him media pile on.
I got an e-mail last night from a well-known journalist, who I'm not going to name, who said, Jill, can you help me put together a list -- a hit list of questions to use to embarrass Arnold Schwarzenegger in public on his lack of policy knowledge.
I noticed the advance copy of "The New York Times" for Sunday, has an incredibly snotty thumbnail description of Schwarzenegger, where the other descriptions of candidates are not so snotty. So, I think they perceive him as the frontrunner and are going to be very hard on him. I don't know if he's going to be able to handle it, because he's never had negative media before. He's always had entertainment media. How smooth he is, how deft he is, how he handles it is going to have a lot to do with whether he gets elected. He will have to bring in policy issues. The public will expect that of him but he may have a bigger problem just with the media thinking how dare he run. There's sort of a college-educated media snobbery going on here. That it is a bias, it does exist, and he's going to have a problem with that.
ARENA: Well, who shows up? This is -- we know that mid-term election turnout, voter turn out, very low. This, a special recall election. What is the audience that these politicians are playing to?
STEWART: You know, 7 million people did not go to the polls last year, who could have, in California. There are 2.5 million Latino voters and three quarters of them stayed home, they were so disgusted. Everybody is going to go for the Latino's voters.
I think it's fascinating that Schwarzenegger -- to sort of fend off the idea that he is just going to go for the white Republicans, has named who I think are the only two hip Latino legislatures, who are Republicans in California, Bonny Garcia (ph) and Abell Maldonado (ph) as co-chairs of his campaign. They jumped on right away. It was very smart of Schwarzenegger to do. They're going to show up at the podium with him and that could work against Cruz Bustamante, who is also going for this big Latino vote.
They want to get people out of their homes. A couple pollsters are predicting this could be bigger than several recent gubernatorial races.
ARENA: Well, of course, the first part of this, though, is that voters have to decide to recall Davis. As we've seen, he is very much going about the business of being governor, quite publicly, talk to me about that strategy.
STEWART: Well, I think might backfire on him because going about the business of being governor and sitting at his desk is what got him into all this trouble. He's no good at it. He doesn't know how to be the governor. He doesn't know how to make decisions.
I think what he needs to do is go back to what he's good at, the one thing we know he's good at, hardcore campaigning. It's the one area that he's really brilliant. I think he needs to get out of the office. He looks like a fool sitting behind the desk. He's had too many crises there and he doesn't know how to handle crises and it's not working for time.
ARENA: A lot of focus has been on Schwarzenegger, for obvious reasons, but you do have Peter Ueberroth. And a lot of people have been quietly saying, you know, very credible candidate, someone with some credible experience under his belt. When do you think -- or will -- voters ever start shifting the focus to the other people running in this race?
STEWART: I'm going to have to say that right away, the media's going to focus on three or four people, the television media is going to control that to some degree. And unless Peter Ueberroth has something really exciting to say I think he might fall by the wayside fairly quickly. A lot of people don't remember who he is and I think he's going to be overshadowed by some of the other candidates.
He's running as an independent. That means he's not got the top, top campaign consultants who are all either on the Democratic camp or Republican camp. He's going to make mistakes. He doesn't know how to campaign. It's going to be tough for Peter Ueberroth.
ARENA: Do we know -- I talked to Kelly Wallace about this earlier, about the possibility of some heavy hitters coming to California. We know the president is heading there this week...
STEWART: Right.
ARENA: Gave him a semi -- you know, yay, Arnold, yesterday. But do you think that we will see some political honchos heading into the state, considering the importance of this state for the presidential election?
STEWART: Oh absolutely. It's not just for the presidential election. This is for the history books. The Democrats don't want to go down as the party that lost for the first time in 80 or 90 years a governor's race to a recall. And also, there's a tremendous danger for the Democrats if a moderate Republican were to become governor California. They've managed to stop that a couple times now.
If that were to happen that could fundamentally change the Republican party in California and create a sea change among the voters. Voters are very fickle here in California. And they're not necessarily wedded to the Democratic Party as many people think. I think the Democrats are going to try to stop that at all costs. You'll see heavy hitters here on both sides.
ARENA: All right, well, we will be watching.
STEWART: It's going to be fun.
ARENA: Jill Stewart thank you for joining us.
STEWART: Thank you, Kelli.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
