Politics and Terrorism: Assessing new Threats
ANNOUNCER: Food for thought. In Iowa, are the '04 Democrats serving up a strong message?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole pack in general seems to be running in a pack to me. I don't see a great deal of difference.</s>ANNOUNCER: Betting the House on the White House. What does it say about John Kerry's campaign? The Patriot Act: one candidate's "Hail Mary" pass in New Hampshire.</s>ANNOUNCER: Now, live from Washington,</s>JUDY WOODRUFF'S  INSIDE POLITICS. BOB FRANKEN, HOST: And by now you've probably figured out that I'm not Judy Woodruff. Thank you for joining us. I'm Bob Franken. Judy is off today. And while many Americans are getting into the holiday spirit, those of us who love politics are downright tingly with anticipation. No, not for Hanukkah nor Christmas nor Kwanza, but for the Iowa caucuses. That's right. The first big caucus of the presidential election is exactly one month away, and frontrunner Howard Dean is one of several Democratic candidates in the Hawkeye State today. In the competition for the most days spent in Iowa, Dean is now tied for first place with John Kerry, followed by Dick Gephardt. The campaign activity is another barometer of how crucial Iowa is expected to be in the '04 election. And my colleague, Judy Woodruff, reports on the pre-caucus action by the dueling Dean and Gephardt camps.</s>JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT  (voice-over): Brett Voorhees (ph), of the Steel Workers Union, is organizing labor in Iowa for Dick Gephardt. Tuesday, he took the message to a job site in downtown Des Moines.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to take care of us.</s>WOODRUFF: In some respects, he's preaching to the choir.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's who my union's backing. You know, you come from a union background so I'm for Gephardt.</s>WOODRUFF: But even under the labor blanket, there is wavering.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No I'm undecided.</s>WOODRUFF: Top of mind, the economy and jobs.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That and the war that Bush got us into. I don't think we ought to be over there.</s>WOODRUFF: With the caucuses just a month away, many Iowans remain largely in limbo, torn between a former sweetheart and this year's star.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, this is Vanessa. And I'm volunteering for Howard Dean's presidential campaign.</s>WOODRUFF: Tuesday is high school night at Howard Dean's Iowa headquarters. Many of the volunteers admit the future of the nation wasn't really their biggest motivation for signing up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We needed extra credit and we came here. And we basically just picked it because it's the closest one to our house.</s>WOODRUFF: And senior Abigail Masters (ph), who will attend her first caucus next month, says she's not even sure whom she'll support.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really, for me, it's either between Edwards or Dean.</s>WOODRUFF: Another undecided Iowa voter. Gerri Powell (ph) is going door to door on behalf of John Edwards.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you mind if we got you a yard sign?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, good. I'll be back and bring a yard sign for you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.</s>WOODRUFF: You see a lot of shoe leather campaigning here, workers taking their message right to Democrats' door steps.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The caucus is so personal, you know, we're asking people to actually go amongst their neighbors and family and friends and actually stand up in support of a candidate.</s>WOODRUFF: And just 31 shopping days left.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One is over easy and one is sunny side up.</s>WOODRUFF: At Drake's Diner, that may not be enough.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole pack in general seems to be running in a pack, to me. I don't see a great deal of difference.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm looking for someone that has got the charisma that will get the people behind him, and I haven't seen that yet.</s>WOODRUFF: Some thought they had it figured out, until U.S. troops found Saddam Hussein.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was for Dean, and now I'm against him because of his statements against the war.</s>WOODRUFF: But at an adjoining table, an enthusiastic group of Dean supporters stands firm.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are our troops back from Iraq? No, they're still, like, over there. And are we safe from, like, terrorism? No, we're still not.</s>WOODRUFF: So the game is still open and the competition is fierce. So many visits to the diner.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, we've had, let's see, Dennis Kucinich, John Kerry, Gephardt, Hillary Clinton. She's not running, but she came in.</s>WOODRUFF: But still no guest of honor.</s>FRANKEN: That was our own Judy Woodruff reporting. Given the heightened interest in the Iowa results, the state Democratic Party has decided to go high tech this time around. Officials say precinct captains will phone in their caucus results using a special 800 number, just like when you check your bank account or credit card balance. The results will automatically appear on the official Democratic caucus Web site and can be viewed in real time by anybody who has Internet access. Another innovation, each caucus-goer will get a bar code to better keep track of who is participating. And now, turning to the political debate over the war on terror, home security officials say they are working to determine the credibility of information regarding potential threats against New York, Washington, and Los Angeles. For their part, New York police say they have no intelligence pointing to a credible threat. And also today, on audiotape, a tape reported to contain the voice of al Qaeda's second in command, it was played on the Arab TV network Al Jazeera. And, among other things, the voice claims that American forces are on the run in Afghanistan. Well, the irony is that since the capture of Saddam Hussein, some of the Democratic hopefuls have focused their attention away from Iraq and toward wider concerns about the war on terror. Among them is retired General Wesley Clark, who told CNN yesterday the Bush administration should have made terror threats a higher priority before September 11.</s>WESLEY CLARK (D), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't know all the details of this. We'll have to wait and see the report. But I've seen from the beginning that there was a massive failure of government and, as I said in a speech maybe two months ago, I said you cannot blame this on mid-level FBI and CIA officials. It's a lot bigger problem than that. It starts at the top.</s>FRANKEN: Well, I'm joined now by our senior White House correspondent John King. And John, what about the irony in this week after Saddam Hussein was captured that there so is much Democratic criticism on terror issues?</s>JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bob, you see a boost in the president's approval rating in the poll. And they attribute that directly to the capture of Saddam Hussein. But at the same time, Republicans, including those on the Bush political team, say that catching Saddam Hussein has reminded the American people that Osama bin Laden remains at large. So that remains a key concern. And the White House message will be that just like the search went on persistently for Saddam Hussein, it is going on persistently and consistently for Osama bin Laden. They also know that report of the 9/11 Commission will be out early next year. They expect some criticism of how the administration dealt with intelligence. And they say they'll deal with it when it comes out in public. They do expect very aggressive criticism from the Democrats at this point. But Bob, the bottom line here is this: they say right now this president still enjoys, despite all the criticism, a very big gap, a very big advantage when compared to the Democrats on the issue of terrorism and national security.</s>FRANKEN: But it hasn't been a grand slam for the administration. There was the New York appeals court ruling yesterday about Jose Padilla, who is the suspected al Qaeda operative who was being held as an enemy combatant. And now the court is saying that he cannot be held more than 30 days. What's the administration's view?</s>KING: Well, there's both a legal strategy and a political strategy. The administration appealing the decision in the Padilla case, asking for a stay. The court ordered him to be released in 30 days. That is one challenge of the Bush administration's broad powers in the anti-terror fight. And the Supreme Court also concerning the issue of whether the enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba should have access to lawyers and the legal system. So there is a legal challenge. From a political standpoint, the administration believes the president's on pretty steady ground, that those who flatly oppose this broad use of powers tend to be liberals, tend to be Democrats. Most of the Democratic candidates take after Attorney General John Ashcroft almost at times as much as they take after the president. But the administration believes as it fights the legal fight, on the political terrain, that, yes, the Democrats can use that issue to rally the left. They believe at the same time, though, it just has a reactionary rallying point on the right as well.</s>FRANKEN: John King at the White House. And still ahead, we'll talk more about the possible fallout for the president from that ruling on Jose Padilla and the questions that it raises about civil liberties. Plus, more on the '04 Democrats and the countdown to Iowa. We'll put it all in perspective and have some Friday fun in our journalist roundtable. This is INSIDE POLITICS, the place for campaign news.