Why Is Election 2000 So Close?
AL GORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to tell the truth and they'll think it hell, but I need you to give them hell.</s>GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're coming down the stretch and I feel great about our chances.</s>MARY MATALIN, CO-HOST: Tonight, with just 12 days to go, Al Gore and George W. Bush battle it out in the battleground states. Why hasn't Gore got his home state locked up and why is Bush working so hard in a state where his brother is Governor?</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press; on the right, Mary Matalin. In the crossfire, Senator John Breaux of Louisiana, a Gore supporter, and Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, a Bush supporter.</s>MATALIN: Good evening, and welcome to CROSSFIRE. The crowds are huge, the speeches are hot, and the candidates are both hopeful as they come down the home stretch. Barnstorming battleground states, George W. Bush stumped with General Colin Powell, touting his brand of responsible leadership while blasting Al Gore's big-government proposals. The vice president grew heated over global warming and Bush's environmental record. Speaking of hot, Gore conceded to Queen Latifah his preference for lace over leather on a woman...</s>BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Whoo!</s>MATALIN: So tonight, so much battleground to cover, such little time. Why are so many states still in play? What will finally move those undecideds? And is there a lace vote? Bill, you're a leather man, aren't you?</s>PRESS: There is a lace vote, I want you to know. There is a lace vote, but it's a secret vote.</s>MATALIN: I wish -- we've got three leather men here.</s>PRESS: Speaking, Senator Thompson, of secret, silent votes, there was an endorsement that came out this week. There was no press release, there was no news conference, there was no announcement. On its Web site, the NRA put out that it has endorsed George W. Bush. Why such a secret? Is Bush ashamed of being the gun lobby's candidate?</s>SEN. FRED THOMPSON (R-TN), BUSH SUPPORTER: No, I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I was struck by the fact that in the last debate I couldn't tell where Vice President Gore stood on that issue anymore. I mean, he came out strong early in the campaign anti-gun basically. He's seen that that's not working. There's some of these battleground states, like Michigan, for example, where that's cutting against him. So he's backed way off. I don't think Bush has talked about that much on the campaign trail, but's pretty clear where the NRA's support has been all along.</s>PRESS: Well, and it's pretty clear why, as one of their vice presidents said earlier this year, Mr. Kayne Robinson, said that if Bush wins -- quote -- "We'll have a president where we can work out of their office." Forget the grammatical errors, I mean, it's pretty clear there's not going to be any gun control legislation if Bush ever wins that does not have the full support of the NRA, which means meaningless, right?</s>THOMPSON: I hope that neither candidate nor either one of us are held accountable for every statement that, dumb statement that somebody might make on the campaign trail. Legislation gets passed in the Congress. The president can propose, the Congress will dispose. And they're just like -- they're just like so many other groups. They'll have their voice, but they don't control anything.</s>PRESS: But it is clear, I mean, this is a candidate who opposed closing the gun-show loophole, who opposed mandatory trigger locks, who signed a law in Texas allowing people to carry concealed weapons even in the churches. I mean, this guy is owned lock, stock and barrel by the NRA, isn't he, senator?</s>THOMPSON: Bill, that debate is over as evidenced by the fact that Gore is running away from the issue. I mean, people in this country basically have decided that the criminals are the problem and not law-abiding citizens, and there are some reasonable restraints that you can place, and Bush has come out for some of those. But basically, if you're going to over-regulate, especially from the federal level, you're going to clamp down on law-abiding citizens and do nothing to deter crime.</s>MATALIN: All right, senator, Al Gore has run away from the gun issue, but he was back on another one of his initiating issues today, the environment: very important issue in very many states. Let me show you -- show you a spot that the Michigan Republicans are running in that very important state. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN STATE COMMITTEE AD) NARRATOR: Lee Iacocca.</s>LEE IACOCCA: Hey, we're car people in Michigan. Our state has overcome some tough times to build the best cars on the planet. But Al Gore's extreme ideas about cars could cost a lot of Michigan families their jobs.</s>MATALIN: You come from an energy state, a little bit different issue, but the Gore's environmental extremism, the energy taxes, the objection to oil exploration, the suffocating regulations: Are Louisiana voters supporting Gore? Let me ask this a different way. Is that why Bush is winning Louisiana, because of Gore's environmental extremism?</s>SEN. JOHN BREAUX (D-LA), GORE SUPPORTER: Well, I think, Mary Louisiana is very much up for grabs. The polls are very, very close, and traditionally, a Republican has to be ahead by a large margin in a state like Louisiana because of the large number of undecided votes. I think Gore is in a pretty good shape in Louisiana. He came in New Orleans and talked about offshore development, and it's interesting that his position on offshore development in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana is exactly the same as vice -- as Governor Bush. Governor Bush opposes offshore development off California, he opposes it off Florida. Their positions on that type of issue from my state's perspective is exactly the same. I think people in Louisiana want a clean environment just like any other state.</s>MATALIN: But don't Louisianians want environmental regulations that -- not at the cost of jobs? Don't they believe the two can work concomitantly?</s>BREAUX: They want balanced regulations. I don't think anyone has heard Vice President Gore say he wants unbalanced regulations. He's emphasized clean air and clean water.</s>MATALIN: Senator, he's not going to say it like that, but his regulations that have come out have not even been based on science. Let me run something else he's been talking about. As you've been listening to Governor Bush, you understand what he's saying about the 285 new proposals, new government programs that Gore has laid out there on the campaign trail which would require some 20,000 to 30,000 new federal bureaucrats, not to mention that they cost three times more of the spending that Clinton proposed. Now, this is what Gore had to say on the campaign trail. He pledged not to hire a single new federal worker. Let me use his words. He "guaranteed" -- quote/unquote -- he will not increase -- quote -- "by even one position the number of people working for the federal government." Do you believe that, senator?</s>BREAUX: Well, you look at the record, Mary. We've had 300,000 fewer federal workers in this administration. Gore headed up for President Clinton the reinventing government effort, straight out of the Democratic Leadership Council's play book. They have reduced the number of federal bureaucrats. They've said they would continue with that. They have a proven record doing that. And I think that's a pretty good indication of what's likely to happen in the future.</s>MATALIN: Can I -- can I tell you what the Office of Personnel and Management says about those numbers? Eighty-seven percent of that -- of those job losses were in the veterans affairs of the military, which leaves a grand total of 1,282 fewer federal workers...</s>BREAUX: Mary, that's pretty significant when you have the growth that we've had in this country.</s>MATALIN: Twelve hundred federal workers when he's claiming 300,000?</s>BREAUX: Even if we didn't have any reduction at all, just maintaining the status quo, with the growth we've seen in the country, I think it's quite an achievement.</s>PRESS: Senator Thompson, I want to come back to this issue that Mary raised about the environment, because there was a new report that came out today, this panel of U.N. scientists, saying there's more evidence about global warming and there's more evidence that it is caused by human activity. Duh, as if we didn't know that. I mean, don't you really have to be like a member of the Flat Earth Society to, you know, to believe there's no global warming problem today?</s>THOMPSON: Well, I think that most people do think that it's something we're going to have to deal with. The problem that we've had in this public debate over this, No. 1, is the Kyoto treaty would -- would not cause some of the greatest polluting countries to have to step up and do their part, China and other countries. And the United States cannot clean up the world by itself. So it's, again, it's a matter of balance. We're concerned about it. We're going to have to do something, I think, long range. But we've got scientific opinion all over the place on this issue, and we need to be -- we need to be thoughtful and careful as to how we approach it.</s>PRESS: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, and I think you're like light years ahead of your candidate, if I may suggest. In the second debate, here's George Bush's profound statement on global warming.</s>BUSH: I -- of course, there's a lot -- I mean, look, global warming needs to be taken very seriously, and I take it seriously. But science, there's a lot -- there's differing opinions, and before we react, I think it's best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what's taking place.</s>THOMPSON: That sounds like exactly what I just said.</s>PRESS: But there are 2,600, 2,600 scientists, many of them Nobel Prize winners, on this U.N. panel. There are two scientists that we've ever been able to find here in this show in the United States -- one worked for the coal companies, the other worked for the oil company -- who say there is not global warming problem. And here's Bush saying we need more study. How long are you going to study this thing, senator? I mean, isn't it time to act and isn't Bush being irresponsible on this thing?</s>THOMPSON: Well, I think it's like Social Security and a lot of other issues. It's not -- it's not -- you don't need more time to understand that you've got a real problem down the road, but you do need time as to what to do about it. Sometimes these things have unintended consequences. I mean, government proves that every day with a lot of its programs. So I think that's where the thought and the study needs to come in.</s>PRESS: I want -- with the senator here, I want to point out, according to "The New York Times," global warming -- here's the effect. Losing 30 percent of the citrus crop in Florida and California, 3,000 square miles of coastline and wetlands in Louisiana. You know what that means for the shrimp, for the crayfish, everything else down there?</s>BREAUX: My state is disappearing.</s>PRESS: Ten thousand square miles of U.S. coastline. And we need more study?</s>THOMPSON: I don't know where that comes from, but it sounds to me absurd, those particular dire warnings that can be directly traced to that particular -- we've got all kinds of environmental problems. We've got...</s>PRESS: Raise the temperature 11 degrees, senator.</s>THOMPSON: We've got -- we've got -- we've got national parks that are more polluted than some of our cities caused by various factors, ozone and whatnot. We've got -- we've got an awful lot of problems. We can't put all of those in the global warming basket and expect some international solution where the major polluting countries are cut out of it. And that's been the proposal from most of these people to address the problem.</s>MATALIN: It is the presentation of data like that, the exclusion of balancing data, which is what Governor Bush is suggesting should be put on the table. There are more than two scientists who think this thing needs to be studied further and what to do about it. But isn't it the presentation like that and all the other issues, and as we're coming down the home stretch, that Gore's even exacerbated that nature of approach that ends up giving him numbers like this. This is from our latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll. Who is more honest and trustworthy? Bush, 47; Gore, 33.</s>BREAUX: Mary, we've got polls on everything. We've got polls of who's the best-looking, who dresses the best, you name the subject. But the final poll that's going to count is who the people feel is the most competent to become president of the United States. We're not elected the president of the class. We're not looking for who's the most popular, but who is most competent to have the awesome job and responsibility of being president of the United States. Quite frankly, when people see Governor Bush answer some questions, they become very unsettled, because they feel he's unsure of himself. And therefore, that makes him unacceptable to many of them.</s>MATALIN: ... show that. No polls show that. Not one poll shows anything other than Bush leads Gore on leadership. In every</s>BREAUX: He's probably more popular, someone you'd like to spend the weekend with, but that's not what we're voting for.</s>MATALIN: Leadership, not beer-drinking, buddy.</s>BREAUX: No, that's popularity.</s>PRESS: Let me just say, on that same poll that Mary points out, understanding complex issues, Gore leads Bush by about nine or 10 points.</s>BREAUX: And this is a pretty complex job we're talking about.</s>PRESS: The polls do show that.</s>MATALIN: Trust and leadership.</s>PRESS: He doesn't understand the issues, according to the</s>MATALIN: Trust and leadership.</s>PRESS: We're going to have to take a break. Senators, if you could just hold on there for just a minute. And -- well, here's your lucky chance. You know, you always wanted to debate with me. You're going to get your chance tonight. I'm going to stay around in the chat room, cnn.com/crossfire, right after the show. And when we come back, we're going to be talking about what the tipping point might be in this campaign and when are we ever going to see it. And as we go to a break, here's Governor Bush campaigning live, as we speak, in Toledo, Ohio: no rest for the weary. These guys are working around the clock. So are we. We'll be right back.</s>BUSH: Thank you all for coming. I've had a long day, but it's made a lot shorter by walking through these thousands of people. I can't thank you enough. It lifts my spirits to have you on my team.</s>PRESS: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We just saw George W. Bush in Toledo. We'd hoped to bring you Al Gore campaigning in Madison, Wisconsin, but he just left the stage, so we -- we'll catch up with the vice president another day here. Meanwhile in this election, we thought it was going to be settled by Labor Day, but it wasn't. Then we knew it would be decided by the debates. It still wasn't. Now, with the last two weeks to go, it's still up in the air, and Bush and Gore are still fighting for states they should have locked up a long time ago. How to win this darn thing? We look for answers tonight from two master politicians, Senator Fred Thompson, Republican from Tennessee, who's supporting the governor of Texas over Tennessee's favorite son, and Senator John Breaux, Democrat from Louisiana, enthusiastic supporter of Al Gore -- Mary.</s>MATALIN: Senator, I'll tell you something else that's been going forever and forever, and that's reforming Medicare and Social Security. Today, the American Academy of Actuaries released a report saying that Gore's lockbox, lockboxing Medicare, is a quote -- their words, not mine -- "imaginary solution." Quote: "There are no structural reforms." You personally headed up a bipartisan commission. You worked very hard for very long, brought your colleagues together, including Senator Kerrey, who was on last night, and came up with a long-term solution for Medicare reform, which was kiboshed by this White House because, it was said at the time, they were urged by their Democratic compatriots on the Hill to leave the issue for politics, not to come up with a solution. If Gore didn't deliver a solution when he had eight years to do it, in the past, why should we believe he's going to work on it in the future?</s>BREAUX: Well, the next Congress is going to deal with Medicare, and hopefully, we have to deal with in a bipartisan fashion. If anybody thinks, whether it's George Bush or it's Al Gore, they can do it by themselves, they are totally, absolutely wrong. I think both sides are trying to do it by ourselves, and we haven't been successful. It's going to have to a bipartisan plan in order to get signed by the president and passed by Congress. I think that our plan was the right plan when we offered it, and I hope they both come to that conclusion.</s>MATALIN: Don't you think Bush's plan and approach is closer to yours in...</s>BREAUX: On his Medicare plan, I think the only thing he said, he liked the commission, which I like him saying that, so I can't argue with that. But I think that Al Gore recognizes that in the meantime you're going to have to do something to provide prescription drugs up front to seniors, and I think he's going to have to do that in the short term. He suggest that. George Bush has suggest it as well. And both of them are trying to make the same arguments when it comes to Medicare and they both want to protect it.</s>MATALIN: You know, listening to you, I'm put in the mind of the tone of this race. You are known here as the voice of reason, as the spirit of bipartisanship. You're an engaging Cajun and not a ragin' Cajun.</s>PRESS: Watch out, senator. Watch out.</s>BREAUX: I know that fella.</s>MATALIN: I have a soft spot, I concede, for you Cajuns. But in those waning days here, the vice president sent Ed -- sent Ed Asner out to scare seniors. He's sent the Cabinet out to attack Bush. The NAACP is running a despicable and racist ad. I mean, is this the kind of tone we need for the next four years?</s>BREAUX: Well, all campaigns get negative, Mary, and this one is no exception, from both sides. But I want you to know that seniors should be concerned about George Bush's recommendations on Social Security, because while the idea might be moving in the right direction, he doesn't have the money to implement it. He's already spent the trillion dollars on the tax cut, and where I'm coming from, you can only spend $1 trillion one time. You can't spend it twice.</s>PRESS: Yes, I want to pick up there, Senator Thompson. As Paul Harvey says, "Now the rest of the story." That American Actuaries report that came out today actually said both candidates' plans are flawed, both of them are incomplete, and it did say that George Bush's plan would mean bringing back the deficit, back to a time of deficits by the year 2015. That was today. Yesterday, the United States secretary of the treasury, Larry Summers, said -- quote -- that Bush's Social Security plans -- quote -- "... reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the system. It's an arithmetic challenge that cannot be met." I mean, granted that Larry Summers works for Bill Clinton, but</s>THOMPSON: Yes, secretaries of treasury historically have been held out of the political fray. Secretaries of state have been. But they've been politicized here.</s>PRESS: He was asked a question and he answered it.</s>BREAUX: He's also an actuary, though. He's a member of the actuary board.</s>THOMPSON: Along with the -- along with the attorney general, I might add. So, that doesn't surprise me at all. You're right. They criticized both plans to one extent or another. Here's the deal, everyone recognizes that we've got a broken system and we're going to have to do some things. John's done a lot of great work on that. We are on some of the same legislation to try to address that. Neither one of these plans go down the road totally in the way in which we might do it. What you've got to ask -- and he's right, and Congress will finally have to work it out and it will have to be on a bipartisan basis. But what you've got here is a different approach. The Gore approach to these entitlements is to keep on piling on to this broken system without any reform. What Bush is at least trying to do is recognize the broken nature of the situation and come with some kind of reform that countries like Chile and England and even some Scandinavian countries are moving toward.</s>PRESS: But here's the problem that Senator Breaux pointed out, it's basic arithmetic, right? I mean, Bush says he's going to allow people to take a trillion dollars out and invest in the market. That means you've got a trillion dollars less to spend on benefits for the people that are there. It doesn't add up, senator.</s>THOMPSON: Let's -- let's walk through that. If you take a trillion dollars out of the Social Security surplus, it leaves 1.4 trillion there. We have a surplus now. It's called -- that's why we call it a Social Security surplus. So, that money is there. Now eventually, it won't be there, but the return that you're going to get from the stock market by accident will give you more than the 2 percent and will more than make up for that. That's the theory. I think it's a sound theory, but there a lot of details that have to be worked out.</s>PRESS: Last week, on one day, the stock market crashed 400 points, and you're telling me and Bush is, you can invest in the stock market and it's a sure thing. Sounds like snake oil to me.</s>THOMPSON: You look at the worst worst-case scenarios historically speaking, and you'll get more by accident...</s>PRESS: Last word, senator.</s>BREAUX: ... unsettled, they feel he's unsure of what he's proposing, and that's why they find his proposal unacceptable.</s>MATALIN: That's so unlike you.</s>PRESS: And don't forget, all your campaign 2000 questions are fair game with me tonight. Just go to cnn.com/crossfire right after the show. I won't duck any questions. Get ready to take me on.</s>MATALIN: All right. Lace or leather? I'm asking you right now.</s>PRESS: I'm a leather man, but I do like lace. I -- my question to you, is this thing ever going to end?</s>MATALIN: See, this is why Gore is a divider: You should like lace and leather. He can't even govern as a uniter, how is he -- can't campaign as a uniter, how is he going to govern?</s>PRESS: Why don't you call up your candidate and tell him to talk about that tomorrow. Listen, let me...</s>MATALIN: Your candidate was talking about it today.</s>PRESS: Let me -- let me tell you something, Mary. You know, bad times here. Yesterday, there was a report that slams Bush's education record. Today, a report that slams his Social Security program. I think your house of cards is collapsing.</s>MATALIN: And in both cases, those reports were distorted by your campaign. You're lying about what the reports were, you're taking them out of context. You have Ed Asner scaring seniors. You have that despicable spot scaring African-Americans. You have the Cabinet out there beating up on Bush. I will say it again in a more serious way: If he campaigns as a divider, how can he ever govern as a uniter? It's been a horrific campaign...</s>PRESS: The RAND Corporation, the American Association of Actuaries, they tell the truth. They're in nobody's pocket.</s>MATALIN: The president of RAND really -- the president of RAND took exception to Gore's characterization.</s>PRESS: You don't want to accept that.</s>MATALIN: And that's a lie.</s>PRESS: From the left, we're out of time. Too bad. Good night for CROSSFIRE. I'm Bill Press.</s>MATALIN: From the right, get the facts. I'm Mary Matalin. Join us again tomorrow night for more CROSSFIRE.