Running Start for Bush Campaign; Goodbye Hanging Chad
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We update the top stories for you every 15 minutes. Our next update, of course, coming up at 6:45 Eastern Time this morning. It is only March, but there is a hint of fall in the air. I'm referring to the political climate that is, now that John Kerry has virtually wrapped up the Democratic nomination. President Bush's re-election ads begin airing this morning, and the president got more cash for future ads last night. CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash is in Los Angeles with more.</s>DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Bush came to California and came out swinging for the first time against his newly- minted Democratic opponent. He retooled his stump speech to squarely and directly hit Senator Kerry as somebody who has waffled on a host of issues throughout his career.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He spent two decades in Congress. He's built up quite a record. In fact, Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.</s>BASH: The president began to set up what he said will be a clear choice for the American people between what he believes in and what Senator Kerry believes in on almost every major issue that will be before them during this campaign season -- talking about everything from tax cuts to the war in Iraq to the war on terrorism.</s>BUSH: My opponent hasn't offered much in the way of strategies to win the war or policies to expand our economy. So far, all we hear from that side is a lot of old bitterness and partisan anger. Anger is not an agenda for the future of America.</s>BASH: The president launched this newly-aggressive criticism of Senator Kerry just 24 hours after calling to congratulate him for locking up the Democratic nomination. And he did it at a fund-raiser in Los Angeles, where he raised more than $800,000 for his re-election campaign. Now, California is a state that President Bush lost by 11 percentage points in 2000 to Al Gore. It is a state that his campaign concedes will be hard to win in 2004, but he is hoping that with the popularity of the new Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger -- who is also the honorary chairman of his campaign here -- it will help him at least get the state in play. Dana Bash, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>CALLAWAY: And we will get some inside information on the Bush campaign on "AMERICAN MORNING." Bush advisor Karen Hughes will be a guest in the 7:00 a.m. Eastern hour. Well, John Kerry may no longer have a formidable Democratic opponent, but he's still campaigning in the primaries. He was in Florida ahead of that state's vote next week. He attacked President Bush for what he is not talking about.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: George Bush likes to describe himself as a war president, and you noticed that the first 30 minutes of the State of the Union message were almost exclusively on the war on terror, which we all know we're involved in. And he talked about Afghanistan. He talked about this, talked about that, talked about a whole bunch of things, which we have no contest with. But he didn't talk about providing health care to all Americans. All Americans. He didn't talk about keeping his promise for No Child Left Behind. He didn't even mention the word once in his entire speech, "environment." He didn't mention the word once in his entire speech, "veteran."</s>CALLAWAY: Meanwhile, political satirist Bill Maher says that John Kerry is more vulnerable to Republican attacks now that the Democratic race is over. He was a guest on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE" last night.</s>BILL MAHER, HOST, HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": I think John Kerry probably would have actually liked it better if John Edwards had been in it for a longer time, because this way, you know, it's all about him now. He's a walking point, as he might say, about his Vietnam service. And the Republican slime machine, of course, will be getting busy. I'm sure there will be pictures of him tomorrow on a chopper with Peter Fonda going to New Orleans to sell acid.</s>CALLAWAY: OK. Well, when we finally go to the polls in November, many of us will be voting electronically. Now, this new system is supposed to make the hanging chad a thing of the past. But as our Kitty Pilgrim reports, it's also creating some new problems.</s>KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The classic excuse: a computer glitch. In California, the electronic voting was delayed as technicians tinkered with the machines. In Georgia, everyone voted electronically with some problems in programming and voter cards for certain districts. Officials blamed human error in programming, saying it was a -- quote -- "learning curve problem with election workers." In Maryland, there were voter card problems.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My key card would not work.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We found that by wiping them off, it was apparently a film or something.</s>PILGRIM: One of the biggest problems: not all election workers are computer-literate and computers don't run themselves.</s>KIMBALL BRACE, ELECTION DATA SERVICES: Training is one of the biggest issues that election administrators face, and inevitably somebody was asleep somewhere in some class and didn't hear all of the instructions.</s>PILGRIM: Fifty million people are expected to vote electronically in the upcoming presidential election. After the hanging chad debacle in the 2000 elections, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 was supposed to distribute $3.6 billion to help local districts switch to electronic voting. But the funding has lagged.</s>DEFOREST SOARIES, U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION: The funding has been slow in getting out. But the good news is by the middle of May, we will distribute $2.4 billion.</s>PILGRIM: Some legislators have enough doubts about e-voting to worry about using it in the presidential election.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unless Congress deals with this nationally by requiring a voter-verified paper record of each vote each time a voter votes, we will have questions every time there is an election, including this November.</s>PILGRIM: Holtz (ph) has proposed legislation that requires a paper trail and other ways to verify that the system has not malfunctioned, been hacked, or tampered with. Kitty Pilgrim, CNN, New York.</s>CALLAWAY: Let's go to Rob for a quick look at the travel forecast this morning.</s>CALLAWAY: So, does the name David Beckham ring a bell? Well, some might say he's the hottest player in the game of soccer or football, depending on where you live. But now, his fans can prove it. Also ahead, what foods can you add to your diet to ward off cancer? And, we'll tell you why this lady golfer is making history.