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Morning News

Rudin: Debates Will Make the Presidential Race

Aired September 25, 2000 - 11:47 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: Time once again for all of you political junkies to gather around, as we do another check of the presidential campaign. We are doing that with Ken Rudin, political editor for National Public Radio, joining us from Washington.

Ken, this is becoming a regular thing.

KEN RUDIN, POLITICAL EDITOR, NPR: I like it.

KAGAN: Yes, we do too. It is good to have you along.

RUDIN: Thank you.

KAGAN: What do you make of these latest numbers that makes the presidential election look like even more of a statistic dead heat than it has in recent weeks?

RUDIN: First of all, as a junky, as you say, I am glad to see that. But, you know, this is not the Olympics where you know the results before you even turn on the TV. We really don't know what is happening, who is ahead. The early Gore lead of 10 points last week. I really thought it was not real because Bush seemed to be peaking. Gore has been on the defensive, unusual for Gore. And so it really is a dead heat. And now basically, the debates is what is going to make this race happen.

KAGAN: Another little movement we saw over the last week, when we were looking at those the latest Gallup numbers, that women appear to be moving a little bit more towards Bush, than they had in recent weeks.

What do you attribute that to, all those talk show appearances?

RUDIN: Well, I mean, this is the warm, fuzzy image that George Bush is trying to perceive. He got an ugly bounce out of the South Carolina. He was seen as too ideological, too harsh. Of course, Al Gore did well with women with the famous kiss of his wife at the Democratic convention. So perhaps Bush's kiss when he was visiting Oprah and the Regis Philbin show.

But again, you know, if Gore doesn't have a double-digit lead among women voters that is going to be tough for the vice president because the men still seem to be in Bush's corner, and that is where the election seems to be played out. KAGAN: Article is today's "Washington Post" talking about the media, as if it's one person, but the media perhaps giving favorable coverage to Gore. Do you think that that is a fair charge?

RUDIN: The charge is widespread. It's been there in every presidential election I can remember. I think what really happens here is that the media likes to jump on the front-runner. When, back in 1992, for example, when George Bush, President George Bush was doing well much, the media jumped on Bill Clinton and the Vietnam deferment, or the, you know, getting out of the draft and the women. And then when it got closer to the election, and Clinton seemed to be moving ahead, then they jumped on Bush.

It seems like -- there seems to be a target of the week for the media. And I think there is -- the question of bias seems to be more of who is ahead and who is not ahead. And certainly, last week, Gore seems to be getting his lumps.

KAGAN: What about this issue we are hearing of a Gore spy within the Bush campaign. It almost sounds like conspiracy theory stuff?

RUDIN: Well, we like that stuff because, I mean, what happened here is that an anonymous Bush preparation tape appeared at one of Gore's key handlers. And, of course, this handler, Tom Downey, immediately gave it to the FBI. And the question is whether Gore has a mole inside the Bush camp, or maybe just some dissatisfied Bush campaign person is feeding Gore information.

I mean, it's grist for gossip and rumor columns, but really that is not really what anybody is concerned about. Really, everybody is concerned about -- who is going to take this country into the future, and what is going to happen in preparation for the debate.

Right now, nobody is really paying attention. Nothing is really going to change from now until October 3, when the debates begin.

KAGAN: Well, hopefully, we will have you back before then,

RUDIN: Thank you.

KAGAN: Ken Rudin, from NPR.

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