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Morning News

Election 2000: Presidential Front-Runners Bush and Gore Score Political Points During Past Week

Aired January 17, 2000 - 9:28 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, we're beginning a weekly political segment on CNN MORNING NEWS that's taking us right up to election 2000. Each week, we'll talk about the political issues and the presidential campaign, who scored during the week, who didn't, and also who surprised us.

And who else could help us do this except our political analyst Bill Schneider. He's coming along today to tell us.

First we're going to start with who came out on top last week.

And, Bill, first I want to say, welcome to this segment and MORNING NEWS. We are thrilled to have you.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: My pleasure to be here, Daryn.

KAGAN: First with the winner: I understand you have George W. Bush.

SCHNEIDER: George W. Bush. It was really a good week for both parties' front-runners, Bush and Al Gore. Bush found his voice as a conservative. He's fighting a two-front war against Steve Forbes in Iowa and John McCain in New Hampshire, and he took them both on last week. He got tough with Forbes, reminding Republicans of how much damage Forbes did in 1996 with his harsh negative ad campaign. And Bush was backed up by Bob Dole who took out an ad this weekend in the "Des Moines Register" saying that Forbes hurt Republicans last time with his negative television ads.

Bush also got very tough with John McCain. In Saturday's debate in Iowa, Bush ambushed McCain with a new charge. Let's listen:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Governor Bush's plan has not one penny for Social Security, not one penny for Medicare, and not one penny for paying down the national debt. And when you run ads saying you're going to take care of Social Security, my friend, that's all hat and no cattle.

(LAUGHTER)

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's cute, but...

(LAUGHTER)

MCCAIN: You know, they're always cutest when they're true.

BUSH: That's not true.

MCCAIN: Yes, it is.

BUSH: I've got $2 trillion set aside for Social Security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: He also compared John McCain with Al Gore, which is the Republican version of, "get thee behind me, Satan."

KAGAN: Well, speaking of Al Gore, was this a winner or a loser week for him?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think Al Gore is controlling the agenda of the Democratic campaign, and he got Bill Bradley all shook up last week.

You know, for weeks, Gore has been pounding Bradley on quitting the Senate and threatening Medicaid and threatening return to deficit spending, and his farm record. Well, this week, a fed-up Bradley went on the attack, turned harsh and sarcastic. He attacked Gore's timid agenda, his previous campaigns, his voting record in the Senate.

And the Gore campaign says they are delighted because Bradley has always presented himself as someone who is above the fray and who won't resort to negative campaigning. Now Bradley's attacking like a pow (ph) and Gore has begun to present himself as someone who is positive and high-minded. And to cap it off, Gore won the endorsement of the "Boston Globe," which is very influential among New Hampshire Democratic voters.

KAGAN: And, bill, what about a surprise for the week?

SCHNEIDER: Big surprise: Bradley surprise a lot of people by charging that Al Gore injected race into the 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis by bringing up the Willie Horton issue. Now, Gore did bring up Dukakis's criminal furlough program in the 1988 Democratic primary debate, but Gore never mentioned Willie Horton or made any racial allegations. That did not happen until an independent conservative group ran ads featuring Horton, and the George Bush campaign then took up that racially charged issue. It was a wild charge and bad luck for Bill Bradley. Dukakis, who is now supporting Gore, defended Gore against Bradley's charges.

KAGAN: And, Bill, here we are one week and counting to Iowa. This is really in the thick of things. What do the candidates need to do as we head down to the caucuses?

SCHNEIDER: Well, Daryn, what they're all going to be doing this week is manipulating expectations. It's called the expectations game. Bush and Gore are expected to win the caucuses a week from today, but the question is: Will they do as well as expected? So everyone's trying to define what Bush and Gore are expected to do.

For instance, the most recent polls of Democrats showed that Gore leads Bradley by about 20 points. So, the Bradley campaign is saying, if Gore wins by, say, only 10 points, he'll do worse than expected and it'll be a victory for Bradley. The Bush campaign says they have to beat the best previous showing by a Republican in Iowa, which was 37 percent for Bob Dole in 1988. Now, Bush is pretty likely to do that, so then the Bush campaign will claim they did better than expected. You know, it's all spin.

It does matter. In 1984, Walter Mondale got 49 percent, Gary Hart, 16. But because Mondale didn't get a majority, people said he did worse than expected; hart came in second, he did better than expected and then went on to beat him in New Hampshire a week later. We'll be reporting the results on Monday night and our job is going to be to separate the spin from the reality -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And, Bill, our great expectation is that we expect to see you here with us every Monday morning leading up to the election, and looking forward to it.

SCHNEIDER: I look forward to it.

KAGAN: Thank you for your time.

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