Should Bush Stop Baseball Strike?
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington. Baseball players and owners are talking as a strike deadline draws near. And the first fan is watching, but will he intervene?</s>JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: I'm Jeff Greenfield in New York with some invaluable advice for President Bush that could help the game he loves and his political party.</s>KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kate Snow at the Maryland State fair in Timonium, the heart of Maryland's second Congressional district. A blue ribbon here for Democrats could mean control of the U.S. House.</s>WOODRUFF: Also ahead, a clash on the streets of Washington.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are trying to lower the value of human beings by elevating animals to their level.</s>WOODRUFF: The story behind an elephant creating a political circus. Thank you for joining us. Well, like many avid baseball fans, President Bush is going about his business but anxiously waiting to find out if the Major League season will be cut short by a strike. Mr. Bush is in Little Rock, Arkansas this hour. He's talking about education at a back to school event. Earlier his spokesman talked about the president's position on a baseball walkout. White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace is traveling with Mr. Bush. Hi, Kelly.</s>KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. Well, when asked if President Bush would step in and try and avert a strike, the message from the White House is no. The president's spokesman saying he believes this is something the owners and the players need to resolve themselves. But, the president is stepping up the pressure a bit. Of course Judy as we said, he is an avid baseball fan. We saw him throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium last year. He is the only president who is also at one time a former major league baseball owner. Well, the president's spokesman, Scott McClellan saying today, the president would be furious if there is a strike. That is a message the president conveyed himself a couple of weeks back in Crawford, Texas.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The baseball owners and the baseball players must understand that if there is a stoppage, work stoppage, a lot of fans are going to be furious, and I'm one. It is very important for these people to get together. And you can make every excuse in the book not to reach an accord. It is bad for them not to reach an accord. They need to keep working.</s>WALLACE: Now back in 1994, former President Clinton did not get involved until after the players walked. Months after the strike got underway, the former president appointed a special mediator. Months after that, he summoned players and owners to the White House. But he was unable it broker a deal. In the end Judy a Federal judge stepped in and got baseball back up and running again. Judy, back to you.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, Kelly, thanks. And now let's get an update on the talks that are going on between baseball players and owners. CNN's Josie Karp is in New York. Josie, what's going on?</s>JOSIE KARP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the two sides are trying to get it done on their own. They've met twice today face-to-face. The first one in the morning. It lasted about an hour and 40 minutes. The last meeting ended just about an hour ago. It lasted about 45 minutes. After that meeting, we asked one of the negotiators for the owner's side if he felt like the two sides were closer than they were when he left this building behind me at 1:30 a.m. this morning to get a few hours of sleep. He thought about it for a minute and then he said, no. They do plan, though, to meet again. They have plans to go as long as it takes, as long as they feel like they are still making any progress or still have something to talk about. Right now, the two issues that are separating them. There's one that we've heard a lot about. That's the luxury tax. The other one, just recently came up within the last 24 to 48 hours, and that's when this four-year agreement will end, on October 31 or December 31. It makes a big difference to the owners and players. The owners want it to end earlier so they know what is going on before a free agent signing period would begin. It's an issue that has come up before. It's now come up again. There are two major figure heads in this negotiation and we haven't seen a lot of either one. The first is the executive director of the player's union. That's Donald Fehr. We haven't seen him for a couple days actually going back and forth from office to office for these negotiations. But we have learned that he did make a brief appearance at the last meeting when asked if it was a significant brief appearance. We were told, yes it was. The other figure head is commissioner Bud Selig for major league baseball. He made a dramatic arrival here in New York yesterday from his home in Milwaukee. But he hasn't actually been sitting in at the table for these negotiations. We asked what he was doing and we were told by one negotiator, he is on the phone constantly with all of the other owners. Clearly there are a couple things at play here. The owners need to get a deal done with the union they'll accept, but they also have to come to an agreement on what they feel like they can do, how far they can go -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: A whole lot to follow, Josie Karp. A lot for them to work out. Thanks a lot. Well, if the players do walk out, the game that is underway right now between the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers could be one of the last for a while. CNN's Jeff Flock has been talking to fans out at the ballpark in Milwaukee. What are they saying, Jeff?</s>JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, indeed, 10 to 3 by the way, in case you care, Cubs over the Brewers, and I'll tell you some of those sort of angry Brewers fans were chanting just a little while ago, "Go on strike! Go on strike!" Probably no secret that they haven't had the greatest season in the world. But we've been, as you say, talking to fans as well as the players earlier trying to get some sense of what's on people's mind. Got a whole group of them we've assembled here. And I don't know. You think it's going to happen?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope not. I think it is going to be very destructive to the spirit of America.</s>FLOCK: Do you think the game can come back if there is another strike?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it'll be very difficult. Because I think it took them a long time to recoup from the last strike. And the people that are going to suffer are the fans and the young kids.</s>FLOCK: Right. We were talking earlier, it costs a lot of money to come out to the ball game, doesn't it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it cost a real lot, yes.</s>FLOCK: You were sharing how much it cost you. I mean you guys paid, 40, 50 bucks for your ticket and just to get here and kind of hard on fixed income.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is hard. But all pro sports are pricing themselves out of business.</s>FLOCK: And you were saying with the dollars involved, you got owners who are millionaires. You got ball players that are millionaires, tough to muster up sympathy for either side.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely. I would put the blame at 70/30 probably, 70 percent for the players, 30 for owners simply because the salary structure's just out of whack. I mean they don't want a salary cap, fine. What is wrong with revenue sharing? How much do the Yankees pull in, in local broadcasting, $200 something million.</s>FLOCK: In Milwaukee, you're feeling like it's hard for you guys to compete with teams like the Yankees because they have a lot of money coming in for their TV deal.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They need to share with other teams that don't have the money. But the thing that really annoyed me is that the minimum salaries, $300,000 a year, for these guys. The average person can't even relate to that nowadays. And back in the 50s, you wouldn't even have made the team if you had less than 220.</s>FLOCK: Indeed sir, times have changed. We appreciate your comments. Thanks for taking some time out from the ball game and sharing your thoughts. Judy, that is some sense of what is on the minds of people in America as we said, hard for some of these fans to muster up sympathy on either the players or the owners side. Back to you.</s>WOODRUFF: And you really hear them not able to identify with the players salary. All right, Jeff. Thanks a lot. And now, let's bring in one of our own resident baseball fans. He is our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield. All right, Jeff, you've been thinking about all this.</s>GREENFIELD: Indeed Judy and I have a proposal. I'm stepping out of my journalistic virginity mode with some advice because actually eight summers and one baseball strike ago, President Clinton was wrapping up a chat with a trio of journalists, present company included. As I prepared to go I said to him, somewhat tongue in cheek, have you thought about invoking the Taft-Hartley law to stop the baseball strike. Now I don't know if Clinton realized that I was sort of half kidding. But he looked at me as if I had gone completely off the deep end. But you know, the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to suggest to President Bush now that he take my advice for real.</s>GREENFIELD (voice-over): First some history. The Taft Hartley law named after Senator Robert Taft and Congressman Frank Hartley was passed by a Republican Congress in 1947 over the strong veto of Harry Truman. It gives the president the power to impose an 80-day cooling off period on any strike that would imperil the national health and safety. A nationwide strike is immediately called and 560,000 steel workers join the picket lines. Labor unions hated the law. They called it slave labor. But it's been stored in the political attic for years. It hasn't been used since 1978 when Jimmy Carter used it to stop a coal strike. And guys like Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Bernie Williams, making between 10 and $25 million a year may not strike you as the classic image of the hard-calloused sons of toil. But think about it for the president's point of view. As Bush thinks about what happened to President Clinton and the Democrats eight years and one baseball strike ago.</s>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: It appears that both parties are determined to let the strike proceed.</s>GREENFIELD: Democrats were swept out of the House and Senate in mid term elections. swept out in a tidal wave of angry voters. Whatever they were angry about back then, surely the absence of the baseball play-offs and the World Series could not have helped their mood any. And today, every poll shows that the voters are in a bad mood. They think the country is off on the wrong track. Maybe it's the markets or Enron and company or Martha Stewart or the church scandals or the terror fears. Here is one thing everybody from Karl Rove on down knows. If voters go to the polls in a lousy mood, it is very bad news for the party in power.</s>GREENFIELD: Now, with Taft-Hartley you get an 80-day cooling off period. That gets baseball all the way through the World Series. That means a happier emotional state for voters. Male voters in particular, the key to any Republican victory. And even if Bush can't argue politics, there is no reason why the president could not argue than an emotionally happy public is a matter of national mental health. So I would suggest to Mr. President, think about it. The last president ignored my advice. He got six years of an opposition Congress and an impeachment to boot. So you will pardon the mixed metaphor Judy, but I think this next idea is a slam dunk.</s>WOODRUFF: So Jeff, you are serious about this, right?</s>GREENFIELD: Semi-serious. If this baseball strike goes another week it will go from semi tongue in cheek to absolute matter of national security.</s>WOODRUFF: So if the president's lawyers are watching, they better have been taking notes.</s>GREENFIELD: I just can point out to you what the last one, he didn't listen and look what happened to Bill Clinton.</s>WOODRUFF: Look what happened to him. All right, Jeff, thanks. A final bit of political spin on baseball. Our most recent polling found Republicans and Democrats are fans of the national pastime in almost even numbers. But the threat of a strike drives home partisan differences. More than half of Republican baseball fans say they favor the owners in this labor dispute to only 20 percent side with the players. While Democratic baseball fans are divided in their allegiances, with more than a third favoring the owners and about the same percentage, a third, supporting the players. There's politics in everything. Well we'll talk to a major player in the competition for control of the House, when INSIDE POLITICS returns. I'll ask minority leader Dick Gephardt if he is prepared to claim victory before election day. A Republican governor uses some choice words to take issue with the Bush White House and its political strategy. And later, a peek inside capital cribs. Can you match the decor with the member of Congress who calls this office a home away from home?