Bill Simon Pulls Out Of California Race
HUNT: Welcome back. Beginning his campaign for governor in the recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger finally revealed something about his economic policy.</s>ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: We must immediately attack the operating deficit head on. Does this mean I'm willing to raise taxes? No.</s>HUNT: And the Republican actor chastised his economic adviser, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, for advocating higher property taxes.</s>SCHWARZENEGGER: I told Warren, if he mentions Prop 13 one more time, he has to do 500 sit-ups.</s>HUNT: Schwarzenegger's Democratic opponent, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, attacked the recall but praised the voters who wanted it.</s>LT. GOV. CRUZ BUSTAMANTE (D), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think that the recall is a hijacking of democracy. The people who signed that initiative were sending a real strong message to Sacramento.</s>HUNT: Today, Bill Simon, the 2002 Republican nominee for governor, pulled out of the race. And a poll released by "The Los Angeles Times" shows only a 5-point margin against Davis on the recall, a significant improvement over previous surveys.</s>GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: This recall is larger than just California. It's something that's been going on nationally for some time.</s>HUNT: Ron, you just returned from California. Are the tides running in Arnold's favor?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think most people would agree, he's had a pretty strong debut as a candidate. But he faces a fundamental structural problem. California is a Democratic leaning state to begin with. And even with Simon out of the race today, you have three viable Republicans still in the field, and only the one Democrat, Cruz Bustamante. You see the impact of the math, that math, in the poll "The L.A. Times" is going to be releasing tomorrow morning. It shows Bustamante leading Schwarzenegger 35 to 22 on the replacement ballot, largely because Bustamante is winning two-thirds of Democrats, and Schwarzenegger is only attracting about 40 percent of Republicans.</s>HUNT: Boy, that's really interesting. Bob, it looks tome, though, like the Terminator has almost terminated most of the right- wing opposition in California.</s>NOVAK: Well, what he had to do, he had to get right on the tax issue. I know that hurts you doesn't it, to know that that's an important issue. If he was going to be pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and antitax cut, he was dead. So his billionaire stock picker</s>MEEHAN: Put some pressure on the other</s>BROWNSTEIN: You know, there's still a little bit of turbulence on taxes, Bob. You have Tom McClintock out there on his right, saying that he assigned the pledge, the Americans for Tax Reform, that Grover Norquist promotes, not to raise taxes under any circumstances. Schwarzenegger hasn't done that so far. And McClintock, in our poll, is emerging as a serious competitor for conservative Republican votes. That's something that Schwarzenegger's going to have to figure out how to deal with. It is going to</s>HUNT: And I think that Warren Buffett you just referred to is probably the most successful and maybe learned economic...</s>NOVAK: He's a liberal Democrat too.</s>HUNT: Kate, let me ask you, Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was a good debut, I agree. But he is not going to, he's not going to increase taxes, he's not going to cut the education budget, which is over 50 percent of the California budget. And yet he's going to address a $12 billion deficit. Do people care that the details will be provided later?</s>O'BEIRNE: I -- he can probably get away without, I think, the real details. Bustamante's not coming up with too many himself. He did say he'd raise taxes by $8 billion, Bustamante. But beyond that, nobody's saying what gets cut. I think he helped himself this week, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with economic conservatives. He reiterated his strong support for Prop 13, meaning no increases in property taxes. He said the number one problem in Sacramento is spending. Economic conservatives want to hear that. But there are going to be some who aren't persuaded, based on all of the issues, and some suspicion about him on economics. And as Ron said, as long as that's split, it's sort of tough. And then I see a co-dependency going on. If conservative voters really wanted to see Davis out of office, can't bring themselves to split Schwarzenegger, and don't think their guy, if he's still in the race, can make it, maybe they don't show up to vote against Davis. You know? I mean, there are so many moving parts here, it's really difficult to predict.</s>HUNT: Marty, what are the stakes for your party to keep the governorship of California?</s>MEEHAN: Well, aside from the party, I mean, 3.5 million Californians voted in November for Gray Davis for better or for worse. And now you're going to have...</s>MEEHAN: ... and now, and now you're going to have someone with a much smaller amount -- number of people who are going to vote, and potentially elect a new governor. This -- it's wrong to have a recall right after an election like that. I know a lot of people signed the petitions, a lot of people got paid a lot of money to go get the signatures. But don't politicians pander enough to the public? Now we're going to say, anyone is open to being recalled. I just don't think it's a very effective way to govern, particularly when there are -- were 41 states across the country that have serious economic problems and fiscal issues right now that they're trying to deal with.</s>NOVAK: Of course, there are professional politicians like you, Marty, just hate the, hate to have the people have that power in their hands.</s>HUNT: I don't think you'd want to have a recall...</s>HUNT: ... in the state of Georgia right now, though, would you, Bob, for instance?</s>NOVAK: Any time, anything the people want is OK...</s>HUNT: Well, let me ask...</s>NOVAK: ...</s>HUNT: ... Ron, let me ask Ron about the Democrats and about Gray Davis. It seems to me there's a very complicated mixed message here that they're trying to get out, or the -- most of the Democrats are, vote no on recall, but if it happens to pass, vote yes for Bustamante. Two questions. Is -- can you have that mixed message for the next six weeks? And will Gray Davis really go along with it?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think Kate used the phrase co-dependency. I think you're going to see that on the Democratic side. Yes, I do think that is going to be the message the Democrats are coalescing around. You saw the congressional delegation this week say that was the message they wanted to pursue. The state AFL-CIO is going to be meeting next week and is likely to move in that direction as well. And I think Davis is facing increasing pressure, despite his enormous unhappiness with the fact that Bustamante was on the ballot at all, to accept the idea that a no-recall, yes-Bustamante message helps them generate turnout and really helps them on both ends of the ballot.</s>NOVAK: The problem is, the Latino votes that Bustamante is bringing in, can they really say, Boy, I want Bustamante to be my governor, I'm going to vote against the recall? Do you think they can really turn that corner? That's -- who knows what they'll do on election day? The other thing is, I wanted, I think we ought to say that Gray Davis's use of the Hillary Clinton vast right-wing conspiracy, that Republicans are stealing elections is just a kind of. I think just somebody ought to say it's a mean and nasty way to play politics</s>BROWNSTEIN: And a good way to pick up his Democrats vote, which is what he's done significantly this week.</s>O'BEIRNE: Arnold Schwarzenegger's...</s>HUNT: Kate, Kate, let me ask...</s>O'BEIRNE: ... particularly popular, as you well know, among young Latino males. Now, I don't know if they vote in very large numbers, but he has a real base of support in the Latino community.</s>HUNT: Ron, let me give you a final question. If McClintock is in double figures, and you -- administration Ueberroth...</s>HUNT: ... and Ueberroth is at, what, 4, 5?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Seven.</s>HUNT: Seven, that's 20 percent. Will they get out of the race before...</s>BROWNSTEIN: I think they...</s>HUNT: ...</s>BROWNSTEIN: Look, there was clearly pressure on Simon, there's clearly pressure on McClintock, the thought of maybe trying to bring him into a Schwarzenegger campaign. I think they're going to resist for a long time on ideological reasons. But if you get to the end and Bustamante is still ahead, that pressure is going to come enormous, especially on McClintock.</s>HUNT: ... Marty Meehan...</s>HUNT: ...</s>MEEHAN: ... if the Republicans win this thing, the Democrats can have another recall. We can be recalling in California for the next four or five years.</s>HUNT: Poor Bob Novak would...</s>HUNT: Coming up on the second half of CAPITAL GANG, our Newsmaker of the Week is Attorney General John Ashcroft. Beyond the Beltway looks at the Alabama Republican governor's big tax increase with "Mobile Register" reporter Sally Owen. And our Outrages of the Week, all after the latest news headlines.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington,</s>THE CAPITAL GANG. HUNT: Welcome back to the second half of CAPITAL GANG. I'm Al Hunt, with Robert Novak, Kate O'Beirne, and Ron Brownstein of "The Los Angeles Times." Our Newsmaker of the Week is John Ashcroft, attorney general of the United States. John Ashcroft, age 61, residence Washington, D.C., religion Pentecostal. Yale undergraduate, University of Chicago Law School. Missouri state auditor and state attorney general, governor of Missouri 1985 through 1993. United States senator, 1994 through 2000. Earlier this week, Kate O'Beirne sat down with the attorney general at the Justice Department.</s>O'BEIRNE: You believe that the attacks on 9/11 taught some lethal lessons. Like what?</s>JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, that we need to be better prepared to fight against terror, that terrorists use this high technology, it uses disposable telephones, it uses modern communications techniques that, frankly, weren't available in the fight against terror. And we needed to be prepared to stop additional terrorist attacks.</s>O'BEIRNE: How important has the PATRIOT Act been in preventing additional attacks?</s>ASHCROFT: Well, the PATRIOT Act did about three things. One, it took a number of authorities that we had against other kinds of criminal activities, say drugs and organized crime, and made those authorities available to fight against terror. Number two, it gave us the ability to have the kind of technology against terror that would match the technology of the terrorists, so that we could use digital surveillance techniques to surveil digital communications. And number three, it took down the wall of separation between the CIA intelligence capacity of the country and the FBI, the law enforcement capacity, so information we learned in the intelligence world could be used to prevent additional terrorist attacks.</s>O'BEIRNE: Now, the Patriot Act passed Congress six weeks after 9/11 by a vote of 98 to 1 in the Senate and overwhelmingly in the House. Why is it apparently more controversial now than it was back then?</s>ASHCROFT: Well, I really can't say, unless it is that the country is less focused on the need to interrupt the kind of violent terrorist attacks that really galvanized our attention. There was a vigorous debate for the full six weeks we were focused on this. We had a proposed act ready to go within six days, but it took the kind of careful inspection to which the Congress</s>O'BEIRNE: Last month, a provision that permits delayed notification of warrants was effectively repealed by a large margin in the House, including over 100 Republicans. Does that tell you that even the president's supporters have now become critics of the act?</s>ASHCROFT: No, that was a late-night amendment that hadn't been debated, it hadn't been before committee. There were people on the floor saying, I don't know what this does. People were told that this was some kind of novel intrusion into the civil rights of Americans. Judicially supervised delayed notification has been part of our law for decades. And it allows us to, under the supervision of a court, to make certain kinds of searches and delay giving notice, so that we don't tip off the criminal or the person who is, who is, who is being examined. This authority has been available against organized crime and against drug dealers and the like, certain kinds of fraud...</s>O'BEIRNE: Another specific. Under the act, can federal agents conduct wiretaps, seize property, or make arrests without warrants?</s>ASHCROFT: Absolutely not. Now, a warrant to get records under the PATRIOT Act has to be approved by a federal judge, so is that -- there is that layer of case-specific examination by a federal judge to see to it that it's proper and appropriate, and then, of course, ultimately, the twice-yearly reports by the Justice Department on the PATRIOT Act to the Congress, they provide another layer of oversight in the congressional branch...</s>O'BEIRNE: Can immigrants now be held indefinitely without the right to attorneys?</s>ASHCROFT: Absolutely not. Immigrants cannot be held without a reason to hold them. Now people who are in violation of the law can be held. They are always given notice of their right to an attorney.</s>O'BEIRNE: Do you have the necessary tools now, or do you need additional legislation to continue the success in preventing another attack?</s>ASHCROFT: Well, I think we're always going to have to be sensitive to the fact that the terrorist evolves. He changes his operation to try and avoid the techniques and the capacities we have. So we should always be open to finding ways to protect American lives, American liberties against terrorism. Let me give you another example. People who commit violent crimes or people who are major drug dealers, there is a presumption that they should be detained while their case is being adjudicated. It's not a -- not automatic, but there is a presumption that they wouldn't be sent out on bond. We don't have that presumption about terrorists.</s>O'BEIRNE: Some of these changes would fit into a PATRIOT II?</s>ASHCROFT: We know that there is a continuing threat, and that it's an evolving threat, and that we ought to be sensitive to doing what's necessary to protect the lives and liberty of Americans. And if it needs -- if we need to ask the Congress to act again, I'm confident that the Congress will. They acted wisely, it's been a success, it's been a substantial part of our ability to protect America.</s>HUNT: Kate, is Attorney General Ashcroft ignoring the now bipartisan reservations in Congress about the PATRIOT Act?</s>O'BEIRNE: No, he's traveling in order to counter this disinformation campaign about the PATRIOT Act. Look, I am as distrustful of the federal government and recognize federal law enforcement is a fearsome thing as the next card-carrying conservative. But there is so much misinformation about the PATRIOT Act. The ACLU, fine, they object. They object when these tools are available against the Mafia and drug dealers. They're certainly going to object to terrorists. Having the same tools now available with respect to terrorism, in some cases, even a higher burden investigating terrorism. So, as I said, the attorney general, I wanted to give him an opportunity to answer the specific charges. These are commonsense provisions that have clearly</s>HUNT: Ron, you're taking the attorney general's travels around the country?</s>BROWNSTEIN: No, Al, I'm out with the Democratic presidential candidates. It's always a huge applause line to be condemning the PATRIOT Act and John Ashcroft. And there is a left-right coalition, skeptical here in Washington. But my instinct is that the public is going to give the administration a lot of rope for anything they present as making it less likely to have another 9/11.</s>NOVAK: Ron, you're 100 percent correct. John Ashcroft, though, has a deaf ear on civil liberties, as many attorney generals have going back to Mitchell Palmer in the Woodrow Wilson administration. The problem is that the American people will go along with the attorney general on violating their own civil liberties, as they did in the Wilson days. And it is up not only to the media and reporters, but it's up to conservative Republicans, who are suspicious of government, to keep him in check. It's a hard thing to do.</s>HUNT: Right on, Brother Novak! Whoa!</s>O'BEIRNE: But the act is not doing that, Bob.</s>HUNT: The act is not doing what, Kate? The act...</s>O'BEIRNE: Violating civil liberties.</s>O'BEIRNE: ... all you have to do is say to Bob, What in particular? And you'll have no answer, because...</s>NOVAK: I have the, I have an answer...</s>O'BEIRNE: ...</s>NOVAK: ... but we don't have time.</s>HUNT: I think he has an answer, but time doesn't permit right now, but we'll come...</s>BROWNSTEIN: ... Edwards, Bob Novak coalition.</s>HUNT: And we will come back to it later.</s>O'BEIRNE: ...</s>HUNT: Coming up, THE CAPITAL GANG Classic, a terrorist bombing six years ago that threatened the Middle East peace process.