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CNN Live Sunday

A Look At The Leaders In The Presidential Race

Aired September 28, 2003 - 18:16   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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We've invited our political round table back. CNN's senior political analyst Bill Snider and syndicated columnist Jill Stewart.
OK folks, let's talk about presidential politics. Last night Wesley Clark touched on several subjects with some harsh criticism for President Bush, both on Iraq and the economy. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WESLEY CLARK, (D) RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the American people are really embarrassed by the leadership of this administration. He's taken us from a position where America was one of the most admired and respected countries in the world, to where around the world, people are increasingly angry and upset at this country.

We've been to an unnecessary war. It's an elective war. We're in there without a strategy to win and without a strategy to exit properly. And now the president's asked for $87 billion to prosecute it. I think the reality is really striking the American people.

President Bush gave us tax cuts for the rich, and they've made America poorer. And those tax cuts show in the poverty rates that just came out yesterday. That's another 1.7 million Americans that have dropped below the poverty level. I think it's a really testimony to the failure of this administration's economic plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Bill, let's start with you. What do you think about Wesley Clark, the candidate?

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he's a bit of a sensation. And he certainly sounds like a good Democrat. Some people are saying he once voted, he acknowledges, for Ronald Reagan and even Richard Nixon, but he's changed his views.

He praised George Bush, this President Bush just a couple years ago, but has changed his views and I'm not sure that's going to be a problem for Democrats. They should welcome anybody who wants to come into their polls. And we just heard him make comments I think most Democrats would say stand up and cheer.

He's a bit of a sensation. He's running first in the national polls, but there are two different races. The national polls reflect the a general feeling among Democrats they have a new face, fresh face, very impressive man who looks like he can beat Bush. But the real race is in Iowa and New Hampshire, and that's where the candidates who have been running well over a near-year now, people like Gephardt and Kerry and Dean and Lieberman have a real base of support and in those states Clark is running about third. So he has some work to do to catch up with the other candidate in the state first to vote.

LIN: Well, Jill, do you think that Iowa and New Hampshire still offer the big load to candidates? I mean, look what happened to John McCain?

JILL STEWART, POLITICAL COLUMNIST: Yes, I thing they do. I think because there's a lot of emotion to tied to who wins there. And I think what's going to happen, I expect one of the things to happen there, is that the other candidates are going to force Clark to prove that he's a real Democrat and that he isn't who his past shows perhaps a sympathizer with Republican issues and ideals, who is now just jumping into this parachuting into this race and an opportunist.

That's what they're going to go for, because they're all just furious that this guy comes out of nowhere, after all the work they've done. They're going crazy inside their campaigns and they're not going to let limb get away with it. There's going to be some very negative campaigning quickly here.

LIN: So, where else do you think he's vulnerable, other than his political credentials?

STEWART: Well, I think he's sort of a Schwarzenegger candidate in a way. He's going to have to figure out the issues very, very quickly. He made a comment, right out of the gate, that made it look like he doesn't understand how the Supreme Court works, saying he was going to appoint people based on their politics.

It was a bad step for him. You don't go around saying you're going to put people on the Supreme Court based on their politics. So, he sort of doesn't understand who he is if he's going to become president. Somebody needs to take him in a back room somewhere and train him on several policy issues and trot out some of his big policy issues so he looks like he's presidential. He's going to get into some serious trouble unless they do that for him.

LIN: Bill, what do you think about how Wesley Clark is coming across? I mean, he's getting all the ink and that raises the question of what that means to Howard Dean? So a couple topics there for you.

SCHNEIDER: Well, first of all, he has one thing that the other candidates don't have and that stature. No other candidate has the phrase Supreme Allied Commander after his name.

LIN: Pretty impressive, yes.

SCHNEIDER: He's also a former Rhodes scholar. First in his class at West Point. He, uniquely, can match Bush on credentials on national security. That should be very, very important to Democrats. I think he can deal with the issue of whether he's a real Democrat. But Jill was right when she pointed to the fact he's a novice politician. He's only been in politics, this is first elective office he's ever run for.

LIN: So that could be appealing to voters, right? That could be appealing.

SCHNEIDER: It can be. And that's one of the things a lot of people like about him, that he has a military background, he's not a professional politician. But It also means he can make mistakes, including the most serious one he made last week, when he didn't seem to have his position straight on whether or not he would have voted for the resolution in Congress authorizing the Iraq war.

First, he says he would have voted for it, and then next day, he corrected himself and said, no he would have voted against it. A lot of Democrats were scratching their heads and saying wait a minute. We have to find out more about this guy before we're ready to vote for him.

LIN: Where does that leave Howard Dean?

SCHNEIDER: Howard Dean is doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire but it means he might have to fight harder to win the races. Everyone has been all along, saying that if Howard Dean beats Dick Gephardt in Iowa and John Kerry in New Hampshire, he's unstoppable. But suddenly, here comes Wesley Clark.

And a lot who worry about Howard Dean at the top of the ticket. They worry he can't beat Bush. Why not? Well, because they say, if Dean is the nominee it would be an election on refighting the Iraq war, on gay civil unions, which he signed into law in Vermont and giving back all of Bush's tax cuts, canceling those tax cuts, just canceling those tax cuts.

Those are the not the Democrats best issues. So, the Democrats who want to stop Dean suddenly believe Wesley Clark is their guy and maybe they can stop Dean as early as New Hampshire with Clark. But he has a long way to go because he doesn't have a lot of operation on the ground. And, you know, New Hampshire is a state if a voter hasn't met you two or three times they're not going to vote for you.

LIN: Right, they like that up-close person-to-person hand shake. Jill, so does this leave John Kerry in catch-up position?

STEWART: Oh, my god, yes. I feel like he's -- who is this guy? I don't remember what he looks like anymore. He's going to have to do something so dramatic and so unlike John Kerry. His team must be sitting around scratching their heads trying to think of some brand new out of the gate approach they haven't discussed so far. They've got to be so angry with what's happened after all the time and effort, but look at the other candidates as well.

And that's politics in the United States. Somebody can come out of no where at the last minute and do this and he could possibly win.

LIN: And look at the sheer number of candidates we're talking about. You've really got to fight for air time in that group.

Let's talk about George W. Bush now. His poll numbers are dropping. He may be vulnerable next year. What's your prediction? How's he going to deal with the next year in terms of the economy, in terms of things going right or wrong in Iraq and the number of deaths going up almost daily with U.S. troops -- Jill.

STEWART: I think he's praying right now that the economy turns around. A lot of economists say that a president can't do that much about turning an economy around. We'll have to see. Some of the numbers look good and better every day. A few of the numbers keep pulling him back. It's almost like two steps forward, one step back. He's, I'm sure, trying to think of, throwing everything they can at the economy. But you don't see much activity there.

With Iraq, it's a quagmire. It goes on and on every day. What they're thinking now is can we get help from these other countries. Have we turned them off so much we are all alone and what can we do to make them agree with us and move forward with us again. Those discussions at the highest levels have to be the most fascinating going on in the world right now. I'd love to be a fly on the wall.

LIN: Bill we'll give you the last word here today.

SCHNEIDER: Well, the word is jobs. That's the last word. That's what people are angry about. Over 3 million jobs have been lost since 2000. And one of the consequences is that Bush has been hemorrhaging support among men, who were his strongest supporters. There's no gender gap because men are very worried about recovering those jobs.

His jobs program are the tax cuts and it isn't work. Even though there are positive economic signs the economy doesn't seem to be regenerating those lost jobs.

Iraq is now, in part, an economic issue. When the president spoke on September 7, he used the number $87 billion for Iraq. And Americans said wait a minute $87 billion for Iraq when the economy is suffering here at home. That doesn't make much sense. So, the economy is now -- Iraq is an economic issue.

By the polls, he's in worse shape than his father at this stage. He's at about 50 percent in the polls. His father in 1991, the year before his catastrophic re-election effort, his father didn't reach 50 percent until December. In one respect he's stronger than his father. He still has the staunch support of conservatives. His father had lost conservatives when broke his no new taxes pledge. But conservatives are still with this President George Bush, this President George Bush.

LIN: All right, thank you very much. Bill Schneider, Jill Stewart, good discussion today.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

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 September 28, 2003 - 18:16   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We've invited our political round table back. CNN's senior political analyst Bill Snider and syndicated columnist Jill Stewart.
OK folks, let's talk about presidential politics. Last night Wesley Clark touched on several subjects with some harsh criticism for President Bush, both on Iraq and the economy. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WESLEY CLARK, (D) RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the American people are really embarrassed by the leadership of this administration. He's taken us from a position where America was one of the most admired and respected countries in the world, to where around the world, people are increasingly angry and upset at this country.

We've been to an unnecessary war. It's an elective war. We're in there without a strategy to win and without a strategy to exit properly. And now the president's asked for $87 billion to prosecute it. I think the reality is really striking the American people.

President Bush gave us tax cuts for the rich, and they've made America poorer. And those tax cuts show in the poverty rates that just came out yesterday. That's another 1.7 million Americans that have dropped below the poverty level. I think it's a really testimony to the failure of this administration's economic plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Bill, let's start with you. What do you think about Wesley Clark, the candidate?

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he's a bit of a sensation. And he certainly sounds like a good Democrat. Some people are saying he once voted, he acknowledges, for Ronald Reagan and even Richard Nixon, but he's changed his views.

He praised George Bush, this President Bush just a couple years ago, but has changed his views and I'm not sure that's going to be a problem for Democrats. They should welcome anybody who wants to come into their polls. And we just heard him make comments I think most Democrats would say stand up and cheer.

He's a bit of a sensation. He's running first in the national polls, but there are two different races. The national polls reflect the a general feeling among Democrats they have a new face, fresh face, very impressive man who looks like he can beat Bush. But the real race is in Iowa and New Hampshire, and that's where the candidates who have been running well over a near-year now, people like Gephardt and Kerry and Dean and Lieberman have a real base of support and in those states Clark is running about third. So he has some work to do to catch up with the other candidate in the state first to vote.

LIN: Well, Jill, do you think that Iowa and New Hampshire still offer the big load to candidates? I mean, look what happened to John McCain?

JILL STEWART, POLITICAL COLUMNIST: Yes, I thing they do. I think because there's a lot of emotion to tied to who wins there. And I think what's going to happen, I expect one of the things to happen there, is that the other candidates are going to force Clark to prove that he's a real Democrat and that he isn't who his past shows perhaps a sympathizer with Republican issues and ideals, who is now just jumping into this parachuting into this race and an opportunist.

That's what they're going to go for, because they're all just furious that this guy comes out of nowhere, after all the work they've done. They're going crazy inside their campaigns and they're not going to let limb get away with it. There's going to be some very negative campaigning quickly here.

LIN: So, where else do you think he's vulnerable, other than his political credentials?

STEWART: Well, I think he's sort of a Schwarzenegger candidate in a way. He's going to have to figure out the issues very, very quickly. He made a comment, right out of the gate, that made it look like he doesn't understand how the Supreme Court works, saying he was going to appoint people based on their politics.

It was a bad step for him. You don't go around saying you're going to put people on the Supreme Court based on their politics. So, he sort of doesn't understand who he is if he's going to become president. Somebody needs to take him in a back room somewhere and train him on several policy issues and trot out some of his big policy issues so he looks like he's presidential. He's going to get into some serious trouble unless they do that for him.

LIN: Bill, what do you think about how Wesley Clark is coming across? I mean, he's getting all the ink and that raises the question of what that means to Howard Dean? So a couple topics there for you.

SCHNEIDER: Well, first of all, he has one thing that the other candidates don't have and that stature. No other candidate has the phrase Supreme Allied Commander after his name.

LIN: Pretty impressive, yes.

SCHNEIDER: He's also a former Rhodes scholar. First in his class at West Point. He, uniquely, can match Bush on credentials on national security. That should be very, very important to Democrats. I think he can deal with the issue of whether he's a real Democrat. But Jill was right when she pointed to the fact he's a novice politician. He's only been in politics, this is first elective office he's ever run for.

LIN: So that could be appealing to voters, right? That could be appealing.

SCHNEIDER: It can be. And that's one of the things a lot of people like about him, that he has a military background, he's not a professional politician. But It also means he can make mistakes, including the most serious one he made last week, when he didn't seem to have his position straight on whether or not he would have voted for the resolution in Congress authorizing the Iraq war.

First, he says he would have voted for it, and then next day, he corrected himself and said, no he would have voted against it. A lot of Democrats were scratching their heads and saying wait a minute. We have to find out more about this guy before we're ready to vote for him.

LIN: Where does that leave Howard Dean?

SCHNEIDER: Howard Dean is doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire but it means he might have to fight harder to win the races. Everyone has been all along, saying that if Howard Dean beats Dick Gephardt in Iowa and John Kerry in New Hampshire, he's unstoppable. But suddenly, here comes Wesley Clark.

And a lot who worry about Howard Dean at the top of the ticket. They worry he can't beat Bush. Why not? Well, because they say, if Dean is the nominee it would be an election on refighting the Iraq war, on gay civil unions, which he signed into law in Vermont and giving back all of Bush's tax cuts, canceling those tax cuts, just canceling those tax cuts.

Those are the not the Democrats best issues. So, the Democrats who want to stop Dean suddenly believe Wesley Clark is their guy and maybe they can stop Dean as early as New Hampshire with Clark. But he has a long way to go because he doesn't have a lot of operation on the ground. And, you know, New Hampshire is a state if a voter hasn't met you two or three times they're not going to vote for you.

LIN: Right, they like that up-close person-to-person hand shake. Jill, so does this leave John Kerry in catch-up position?

STEWART: Oh, my god, yes. I feel like he's -- who is this guy? I don't remember what he looks like anymore. He's going to have to do something so dramatic and so unlike John Kerry. His team must be sitting around scratching their heads trying to think of some brand new out of the gate approach they haven't discussed so far. They've got to be so angry with what's happened after all the time and effort, but look at the other candidates as well.

And that's politics in the United States. Somebody can come out of no where at the last minute and do this and he could possibly win.

LIN: And look at the sheer number of candidates we're talking about. You've really got to fight for air time in that group.

Let's talk about George W. Bush now. His poll numbers are dropping. He may be vulnerable next year. What's your prediction? How's he going to deal with the next year in terms of the economy, in terms of things going right or wrong in Iraq and the number of deaths going up almost daily with U.S. troops -- Jill.

STEWART: I think he's praying right now that the economy turns around. A lot of economists say that a president can't do that much about turning an economy around. We'll have to see. Some of the numbers look good and better every day. A few of the numbers keep pulling him back. It's almost like two steps forward, one step back. He's, I'm sure, trying to think of, throwing everything they can at the economy. But you don't see much activity there.

With Iraq, it's a quagmire. It goes on and on every day. What they're thinking now is can we get help from these other countries. Have we turned them off so much we are all alone and what can we do to make them agree with us and move forward with us again. Those discussions at the highest levels have to be the most fascinating going on in the world right now. I'd love to be a fly on the wall.

LIN: Bill we'll give you the last word here today.

SCHNEIDER: Well, the word is jobs. That's the last word. That's what people are angry about. Over 3 million jobs have been lost since 2000. And one of the consequences is that Bush has been hemorrhaging support among men, who were his strongest supporters. There's no gender gap because men are very worried about recovering those jobs.

His jobs program are the tax cuts and it isn't work. Even though there are positive economic signs the economy doesn't seem to be regenerating those lost jobs.

Iraq is now, in part, an economic issue. When the president spoke on September 7, he used the number $87 billion for Iraq. And Americans said wait a minute $87 billion for Iraq when the economy is suffering here at home. That doesn't make much sense. So, the economy is now -- Iraq is an economic issue.

By the polls, he's in worse shape than his father at this stage. He's at about 50 percent in the polls. His father in 1991, the year before his catastrophic re-election effort, his father didn't reach 50 percent until December. In one respect he's stronger than his father. He still has the staunch support of conservatives. His father had lost conservatives when broke his no new taxes pledge. But conservatives are still with this President George Bush, this President George Bush.

LIN: All right, thank you very much. Bill Schneider, Jill Stewart, good discussion today.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

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