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Morning News

Election 2000: Pia Nordlinger of 'New York Post,' Viveca Novak of 'Time' Weigh in on Next Bush-Gore Debate

Aired October 9, 2000 - 11:25 a.m. ET

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

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: On the presidential campaign trail, you saw the graphic we just had on the screen. Al Gore, George W. Bush, getting ready now for their second debate. The two men face off in North Carolina on Wednesday night. Let's talk about more politics now.

Pia Nordlinger, an editorial writer at "New York Post," joins us live and Viveca Novak, "Time" magazine's Washington correspondent with us as well.

Good morning to both of you.

PIA NORDLINGER, "NEW YORK POST": Good morning.

VIVECA NOVAK, "TIME": Good morning.

HEMMER: All right, let's talk about the White House second. Let's talk about the New York Senate race first. Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton squared off again yesterday.

Pia, what did you think? any fireworks out of this? or were they more like a Lieberman-Cheney debate yesterday in New York?

NORDLINGER: Well, I think the thing that I took away was that Hillary does not want a West Side stadium, and that's all you need to know.

HEMMER: Is that good or bad?

NORDLINGER: That's bad. Rick Lazio wants a stadium, and that's fun. We like sports in New York.

HEMMER: Viveca, what did you make of the sparring between the two?

NOVAK: Well, sparring is kind of overstating it. It was reasonably civil. And, I think, you know, Hillary Clinton was jabbing a little bit. She was trying to needle Lazio a little bit more than he was doing the reverse. He was chained to his podium as he said later. It was -- it was more to order of Cheney-Lieberman.

HEMMER: Give us an idea, for those of us who don't live in the state of New York why it appears in all the polling that Hillary Clinton is leading in this right now, Viveca.

NOVAK: Well, I don't live in the state of New York, either, but it appears that she has, for one thing, she has worked harder. She has visited more parts of the state than Lazio has, and, Lazio, I think, has had trouble defining himself. He is very little other than the anti-Hillary candidate, which is enough for some people but may not be enough for everyone.

HEMMER: Pia, do you agree it that with regard to Rick Lazio?

NORDLINGER: He does need to get out there a little more to make a stronger showing. I disagree, though, that the soft money pact and the soft money advertising issue is hurting him.

HEMMER: All right, that was it? OK.

Let's move on to the presidential race now, the election in the White House. Debate number two coming up on Wednesday night. Viveca, what do you think? do the gloves come off a lot more in this debate than they were in number one?

NOVAK: I think both candidates will have done some homework. Bush will have done some homework so he can come up with some specifics to rebut some of the charges that Gore makes about his tax plan. And Gore, I think, will have done some homework on his personality, trying to tone down the sighing and the sort of excessive trying to get the last word in.

HEMMER: How do we gauge this then? Pia, jump in on this one too. How does Al Gore go after George Bush knowing that for the past week a lot of people were turned off by his attitude and statements and behavior in debate number one? is that pretty tender an issue for him?

NORDLINGER: Well, what Al Gore has to do is stop exaggerating, stop lying. I think those lies and exaggerations he gave in the last debate resonated a lot with viewers and voters. He does have to sort of stick to the straight and narrow this time.

HEMMER: What is your prediction then for debate number two Wednesday night?

NORDLINGER: Well, if Gore sort of sticks to the truth on a couple things he might do pretty well. Bush needs to keep hammering the philosophical differences between Democrats and Republicans. And he did that pretty well in the last debate.

HEMMER: We're going to get an update on our latest polling numbers in just a second from Frank Newport. But just to give you an idea, we saw major transition, a major change over the past weekend, since debate number one, where George Bush has actually gone ahead by 8 points over Al Gore.

Viveca, what do you point to when you see those numbers over the past few days? NOVAK: It's a funny thing, because most people also think that Al Gore won the debate and yet Bush has edged up again, so that in our latest poll he was leading by 2 points. I think it says a lot about the fact that people seem to find Al Gore hard to love. They don't trust his exaggerations. They don't necessarily like his persona. They don't like being talked down to, but they do feel that he's strong on substance.

HEMMER: If that's the case, then, and if you're on the Gore campaign and you're working out of Nashville, how do you advise the vice president to change his demeanor and tone?

NORDLINGER: I think they've been trying that for a while. I think it is probably, I think we are going to see the results on Wednesday. I think that you will not see Al Gore sighing. I think this is -- this is something he will be able to reign in at least for the evening.

HEMMER: All right, Pia, jump in here quickly. Get the last comment.

NORDLINGER: Al Gore needs to tell us exactly how he is going to expand the government and give us all these great new programs, and yet cut the government workers' rolls by something like 300,000. That's what I'd like to know. How does that work?

HEMMER: We shall see, Pia Nordlinger, Viveca Novak, live this morning with us, one in Washington, the other in New York City. Many thanks, OK.

NORDLINGER: Thank you.

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