*EPF308 01/14/2004
Transcript: Political Analyst Charles Cook on 2004 Election Trends
(Interview from new elections newsletter, Election Focus 2004) (3650)

Charles E. Cook, Jr., editor and publisher of The Cook Report, is a political analyst for the National Journal Group, and is regarded as one of the nation's leading authorities on U.S. elections and political trends. Recently, Washington File Staff writer Darlisa Crawford talked to Cook about the 2004 presidential election. He predicts that the upcoming presidential race will be a "big-issue" election with trade, the economy, job growth and the war in Iraq, dominating the campaign. This interview also appears in the State Department's new elections newsletter, Election Focus 2004, which can be accessed at: http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/democracy/elections/elections_newsletter.html

A transcript of the interview follows:

(begin transcript)

Q: What will be the major issues in the 2004 elections?

A: If I had a choice, if I had to predict whether President Bush was going to get reelected or not, and if I had a choice of knowing either who the Democratic nominee was going to be or how the war in Iraq is doing in the three or four months leading into the election, I'd rather know how the war is doing. I think that's more relevant.

If I had a choice of knowing who the Democratic nominee was going to be or what the economy is looking like in 2004, particularly in the second quarter of 2004����because we know from history that it's the second quarter economic statistics that are the best predictors of how an incumbent president is going to do����I would rather know that, not just what's the gross domestic product growth rate, but also what's the unemployment rate, what's the employment number, and how does that number compare to January 2001, and what's the degree of under-employment of people that have lesser jobs today than two or three or four years ago? I'd like to know that.

And it's not to say that who the Democrats nominate isn't important, because it is, but overwhelmingly we know that when an incumbent president is up for reelection, it's basically a referendum on the incumbent more than it is a comparison between two candidates. It's "do you believe that this incumbent has performed well enough to deserve reelection; do you have confidence in that incumbent leading us for the next four years?"

And the answers are "yes," "no" and "maybe." If the answer is yes, then the voters do believe that the president deserves reelection and they do have confidence in the president to lead us for the next four years, and then it really doesn't matter who the opponent is.

And conversely, if people have lost confidence in a president, if they don't believe he deserves reelection, they don't have confidence in him to lead us for the next four years, then it almost doesn't matter who the opponent is, either. Any Democrat would have a plausible chance of winning the Democratic nomination, and would be perfectly capable of winning.

It's only if it's in that narrow "maybe" zone, where the voters are not sure if a president deserves reelection; they're not sure they have confidence in the president for the next four years, and only then is the identity and the caliber of the opponent really relevant.
I tend to think that that "maybe" zone in the middle may be where we're headed, because I think it's unlikely that the situation in Iraq will be significantly better. I don't think it's going to be resolved by then. The overall economy may or may not be better, but is the job situation going to be significantly better by then? We don't know that.

Q: How will the Democratic candidates discuss and/or criticize the administration's policy on Iraq after the capture of Saddam?

A: I think this creates a period of time of a month or so where it's going to be awkward for Democrats to attack the president. But I also suspect it's only going to be weeks or a month����not all the way to the election����because these situations tend to have what we call a "short shelf life," where they don't last very long and tend to be overtaken by events.
It also depends on who the Democratic candidate is.

Obviously, if you're Howard Dean and oppose the war completely, your attacks are of one nature.

If you're Joe Lieberman, and were fully supportive of the war, enthusiastic about the war, but have differences with how the president has conducted it, that's very different.
And John Kerry and Dick Gephardt are yet different again.

So, it depends on who the Democratic candidate is.

I think what you'll probably see is more Democrats saying that it's great that Saddam Hussein has been captured and brought to justice, and this is a good thing, but that we probably should have waited for greater, more widespread international participation, that we shouldn't have been in such a hurry, and that the whole second phase of the war should have been planned better.

Q: How will Dean maintain his lead as the Democratic front runner?

A: I think everything comes down to January 19th when the Iowa caucus takes place. If Governor Dean wins in Iowa, if he beats Congressman Dick Gephardt����and they are����right now as we say, neck and neck in the polls���� absolutely tied����then if Governor Dean wins Iowa, I think there's probably a 90 percent chance that he'll win the nomination. He'll have so much momentum and his trajectory will be so high that he could win New Hampshire by an enormous margin, and then he would be very difficult to beat even on February 3rd when you have the third round of events, which is primaries and caucuses in South Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Delaware.

If Dean were to lose to Gephardt in Iowa, I think that, at that point, his chances of getting the nomination would drop down to maybe 60 percent. He could still go on to win in New Hampshire, because he has such a huge lead there, but his momentum would be slow enough and his trajectory low enough where the chances of Gephardt or former General Wesley Clark or John Edwards from North Carolina, or maybe even John Kerry of Massachusetts, could catch him on or after February 3rd.

But I really think that the defining event will be the Iowa caucus, that will sort of tell us whether Dean is likely to roll on and win the nomination or whether he's going to have a tough fight ahead.

Q: Senator Lieberman and General Clark have chosen not to participate in the
Iowa caucuses. How will this decision affect their respective campaigns?

A: Senator Lieberman and General Clark decided not to compete in Iowa because they realized that they just had absolutely no chance of winning, in fact, not much of a chance of even coming in second, third or even fourth place; and so they decided, rather than fight and spend a lot of money and lose, that they would hold their resources back and compete more aggressively in New Hampshire or in the February 3rd primaries. I think it's bad for a campaign to be in a position where they feel like they have to pull out of Iowa and not compete, but under the circumstances, I think their assessment was exactly right. They weren't going to do well.

So does forfeiting Iowa hurt their credibility? Yes. But since they weren't going to win it, they are probably better off taking that money they would have spent in Iowa and trying to improve their chances of winning in New Hampshire or South Carolina or some of the other February 3rd states.

Q: Senator John Kerry, former Governor Howard Dean, and President Bush have rejected public financing. How will this decision affect their respective strategies?

A: I don't think voters understand public financing, matching funds, and I don't think they really care.

In terms of affecting the candidates' strategies, it just gives them greater flexibility, that, under the law, if you accept the matching funds, there's a limit to how much money you can spend in each individual state, an individual spending limit.

And so now, if they're in a tough fight in one state or another state, they can spend as much as they want, which is a flexibility that's very, very important, and that helps them a great deal.

So it's not just a matter of being able to spend more money total, it's being able to spend more money in places where you need to spend it the most, and not be hampered.
For example, if Kerry needs to spend all the money in the world in New Hampshire, but not spend as much money in Iowa, he can do that. He's got that flexibility that he would not have had had he abided by matching funds.

Q: Dean won the endorsement of Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and former Vice President Al Gore, as well as a dozen state and local lawmakers in Georgia. Will this position Dean as the "favorite candidate" for the African American community?

A: I think Governor Dean has made a big deal out of some of these endorsements, but I think he's done that because he doesn't have real strong support on the grassroots level in the African American community, and so he's trying to kind of leverage support among some of the leaders into grassroots support.

The polling I've seen in places like South Carolina, for example, the African American vote is absolutely wide open. I mean, it is absolutely up for grabs. Dean is getting very little of it now. If he wins Iowa, if he wins New Hampshire, he'll probably get a very healthy share.

I think the most important endorsement was when South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, who is African American, and is, arguably, the most influential Democrat in the state, endorsed Dick Gephardt. I'd rather have Jim Clyburn's endorsement than Al Gore's, because Howard Dean was doing so well that I'm not sure any endorsement would help him enormously. Conversely, had anyone else won the Gore endorsement, it would mean a lot more to them, because they all needed a break.

So, in terms of translating into votes, I would rather have Jim Clyburn's support, because I think South Carolina is going to be a critical primary, and I think he would probably have more sway among voters in South Carolina, particularly African American voters in South Carolina than Al Gore would have nationally.

Q: Do you think Gore's endorsement of Dean increases his base of support in the South?

A: I think Governor Dean is now trying to create a beachhead in the South, and he's trying to do it with endorsements from key leaders, but he hasn't been endorsed by that many significant figures in either the white or African American communities in the South.

Q: How will the Supreme Court decision to ban soft money and restrict some TV and radio issue ads influence the campaign strategies of the candidates?

A: In the primary, it's not going to make much of a difference in the fight for the Democratic nomination.

In the general election, what it means is that a lot of the money that the national parties would be spending on behalf of the presidential campaigns, instead will be spent by other independent groups who will be cropping up on both the Republican and Democratic sides, and who will raise and spend much of the soft money that was being raised and spent by the national parties.

So to be honest, I don't think the new law will end the influence of big money. It will just rechannel it away from the parties and more into these new independent groups.

Q: What role will the Internet play in the 2004 election?

A: The Internet is a very, very useful tool. So is the telephone. So is the fax machine. So is the photocopy machine and the printing press. It's an instrument.

Some campaigns are in a position to use the Internet more effectively than others.
For example, Howard Dean's campaign has used the Internet very effectively, both in terms of being able to raise money from non-traditional campaign donors, and as an organizational tool.

In some cases people who have never given to a political candidate before are simply going on the Internet and going on Dean's website and contributing money using a credit card right over the Internet.

In other cases, it's an organizational tool����helping people communicate with other people and to organize rallies and events for Dean, to organize groups of supporters, either in a geographic area or with a common interest to support Governor Dean.
So he's used it extremely effectively.

I also think, though, that the kind of supporters that Howard Dean usually has are younger, a little bit more affluent, tend to be more open to technology. His appeal is uniquely suited towards the Internet. Another candidate, like Dick Gephardt, could have just as good a website and pour just as much money into using the Internet as Howard Dean has, but it wouldn't do nearly as well, because his membership tends to be older, they tend to be a little bit less affluent, they tend to be more unionized, and they're a lot less wired to the Internet than, say, Dean's pool of potential supporters.

Q: How will the role of private contributors such as Soros's commitment to voter funds influence the outcome of the 2004 election?

A: I think President Bush is going to raise and spend far more money than the Democratic nominee will, and I think it's safe to say that the Republican National Committee will raise and spend considerably more than the Democratic National Committee will spend.

But having said that, I think there's going to be more money raised outside of the two campaigns and outside of the two major national party committees.

I think there will be more money raised on the left, on the liberal, labor, pro-Democratic side, than there will be on the business, conservative, pro-Republican side once you take out the two candidates, the two national committees.

I think there's going to be more money on the left than on the right, and that it will partially, not entirely but partially, offset the Republican spending advantage that otherwise is going to be taking place. I think it's going to make the fight a little bit more evenly split between the two sides.

Q: If Ralph Nader decides to run for the 2004 presidency on the Green Party ticket, how will that decision affect the other candidates?

A: If the election is very close, any other candidate on the ballot even getting a relatively small number of votes can make the difference.

The question is, is the election going to be close enough so that Nader could make a difference if he decides to run?

I tend to think that Nader will get even fewer votes in 2004 than he did in 2000, just as I think if there is a conservative third-party candidate running, they will probably get even fewer votes than Pat Buchanan did in 2000.

And I think the reason for that is that because the last election was so close, I think there's going to be a reluctance on the part of voters on the liberal or the conservative side to "throw away" their vote for someone else.

If I were a liberal living in Florida and I had voted for Ralph Nader, I would probably have regretted that vote every single day since the 2000 election; and conversely, if Al Gore had won Florida and the election by 537 votes, and if I were a conservative who had voted for Pat Buchanan in Florida, I probably would have regretted that vote every single day, too, because I would have seen that there was an enormous difference between Gore and Bush and that, voting for a third candidate hurt the cause.

So I would say there's going to be a lower third party vote in 2004 than there was in 2000, and it just depends on how close the election is as to whether it's enough to make a difference.

Q: Dean secured the endorsement from two politically powerful labor unions, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union. How critical is the role of labor unions in the upcoming
election, and are there particular states that are more labor union intensive in terms of voting?

A: Within the Republican Party, labor is of minimal influence. But on the Democratic side, labor does have a great deal of influence. But there's an enormous split this year within the world of labor. The unions that have traditionally hired manufacturing workers, for instance, have largely backed Gephardt, while unions of public employees, government employees and of service employee workers have gone more with Howard Dean.

And it comes down to trade. The unions that care about trade are almost all backing Gephardt and the unions for which trade is of no consequence whatsoever tend to be backing Dean.

It's what we call "white collar" or government employee and public sector and service employee unions on the one side versus "blue collar" manufacturing-oriented jobs, going with Gephardt.

Now, which states?

Iowa is a key state with unions. The Michigan caucus which is coming up on February 7th is a huge state with industrial unions playing a large part.

Q: How will General Wesley Clark's extensive military and foreign policy experience pose a threat to the other Democratic candidates?

General Clark's background is obviously a huge advantage in a key area. It gives him a level of credibility and authority that no other Democrat has. However, it's offset by the fact that he's not as experienced in politics.

If Dean were to win the nomination, I think the chances are very strong that he would pick General Clark, because Clark's strength is Howard Dean's weakness, and I think they would complement each other a great deal. In fact, I have a hard time seeing how Dean would pick anyone other than Wesley Clark.

Clark may or may not be the best running mate for other candidates, but I think he would be a much bigger asset for Dean than anyone else.

Q: Do you want to add any other comments or reflections?

A: I think it's going to be a big-issue election, not a small-issue election.
When the economy is good and when there is no war, then issues like abortion or gay rights or the environment, some of these other kinds of issues have an opportunity to kind of percolate, to come up to the top, and to dominate.

But when you've got big issues like war and peace, prosperity or economic turmoil, then those issues are going to dominate over anything else.

The other thing I would suggest is that I have not seen trade as a major campaign issue since the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988, but I see trade really picking up as an issue in this election, and it's because of some of the structural job losses that we've seen.

There was a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that was released back in August, and it looked at the last four economic downturns. In the downturns of the mid-'70s, 49 percent of the job losses were what we call cyclical job losses����temporary job losses����but when the economy comes back, those jobs come back, and 51 percent of the job losses were structural, were more permanent job losses.

In the downturn of the early ����80s, the percentages were exactly the same����49 cyclical, 51 structural.

In the downturn of the early ����90s, though, the cyclical����the temporary job loses����dropped down to 43 and the structural ones went up to 57.
But the current downturn, only 21 percent of the job losses were cyclical; 79 percent were structural.

And we know that it always takes longer to create brand new jobs than it does to basically bring people back to old jobs: it doesn't take long to add another shift back at the factory or to call back salespeople that had been laid off when sales were down. That happens pretty quickly.

But when you have to create whole new jobs, sometimes from entirely new companies, or from entirely new industries, that takes much, much longer.

So, the jobs issue, I think, is going to be a very big one in this campaign, because I think that it will require an unusually high level of economic growth to create enough new jobs to get us back to anywhere near where we were in January 2001.

And that's why I think the trade issue is going to be big, and one thing that complicates it is that a lot of these job losses are white collar jobs. In many cases, they're knowledge-based jobs that are going to foreign countries, and they're very high-paying jobs. They're the jobs that we were training people to get out of manufacturing and go into knowledge-based jobs that would be more permanent jobs, that would last them for a career, and now we're starting to lose many of these.

And that's why I think the economy is going to continue to be an issue and jobs will continue to likely be an issue through this election, much more so than in other recent elections.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.

(end transcript)

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