Bush and Kerry Trade Jabs; Electronic Voting Put to Test in Florida
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight: President Bush and Senator Kerry say unkind things about one another.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My opponent clearly has strong beliefs. They just don't last very long.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is radical. It is not conservative to run up deficits as far as the eye can see.</s>DOBBS: We'll have the latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup opinion poll on the presidential campaign. A critical test for electronic voting in Florida's primary tomorrow. Congressman Robert Wexler has sued in federal court to force the installation of printers on e-voting machines. Florida secretary of state, Glenda Hood, is our guest. Protecting American jobs from overseas outsourcing. Senator Christopher Dodd joins me. And I'll be talking with two advocates of offshoring of American jobs, Bruce Josten of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ed Yingling of the American Bankers Association. And bodies for sale, the widening scandal over the sale of body parts from one of this country's top medical schools to large research companies.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, March 8. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.</s>DOBBS: Good evening. A new week for politics headlined by a new week of political polling. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds Senator John Kerry leading President Bush. However, it also finds Americans sharply divided over candidates and just about every other issue in this campaign. CNN political correspondent Bill Schneider has the report from Washington.</s>BUSH: Gentlemen, start your engines.</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): And they're off. The early lead among likely voters goes to John Kerry by eight points. Let's see what happens if you throw Ralph Nader into the mix, even though he may not get on the ballot in every state. Nader gets 2 percent, at Kerry's expense. The race gets even closer. Nader actually gets 5 percent among all registered voters. But most of them are unlikely to vote. Want to see a picture of polarization? Here it is. Republicans are voting 95-3 for George W. Bush. Democrats are voting 95-3 for John Kerry. Wow. Coming out of the primaries, Democrats are just as united as Republicans.</s>KERRY: I believe that in 2004, one united Democratic Party, we can and we will win this election.</s>SCHNEIDER: The outcome is in the hands of swing voters, Independents who make up a quarter of the electorate. And they favor Kerry right now. He who controls the agenda controls the outcome. The public rates Kerry as better than Bush for handling health care, the deficit, Social Security, and the economy. Domestic issues: the public rates Bush as better than Kerry for handling terrorism, Iraq, and world affairs. International issues -- here's a surprise. The two candidates are rated the same on taxes, despite President Bush's big tax cuts. Here's another surprise. Bush has only a slight advantage on gay marriage, within the margin of error. There's no broad consensus behind the president's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages. President Bush has been criticized for using images of 9/11 in his campaign ads. His response?</s>BUSH: Well, I will continue to speak about the effects of 9/11 on our country and my presidency.</s>SCHNEIDER: The people's response? Most say it's not appropriate for President Bush to use those images. President Bush criticizing Kerry for flip-flopping on the issues.</s>BUSH: My opponent clearly has strong beliefs. They just don't last very long.</s>SCHNEIDER: The people's response? The public sees Kerry as more likely than Bush to change positions on issues for political reasons.</s>SCHNEIDER: And, Lou, the extraordinary thing about this poll in this election is how intense the feelings are about the election, which I think is a sign of how intense the feelings are out there about President Bush. This poll shows that 83 percent of the voters say their minds are made up. They know exactly how they're going to vote eight months from now. Only 13 percent -- that's one voter in eight -- says they could even change their mind, a very small group of target voters, swing voters; 83 percent say they're not going to change their mind. I think what they are saying is, my mind is made up for now.</s>DOBBS: Well, Bill, that is the smallest undecided group I've ever seen in a poll this early in a campaign. How about you?</s>SCHNEIDER: That is about the smallest we've ever seen in this kind of campaign. They are a target group. And believe me, Lou, they are going to be targeted, bombarded with messages from both sides to try to get them to switch. But lots of things can happen in the campaign. Events tend to drive the campaign as much as candidates and campaign strategies do.</s>DOBBS: And we're a long ways off, as they say. Bill Schneider, thank you very much.</s>SCHNEIDER: Sure.</s>DOBBS: Tonight's poll question goes to the issue of that undecided vote in the upcoming presidential election. As Bill and I just discussed, some of us find it hard to believe that that many voters have already made up their minds this early in the election and that there are that few a number of voters who are undecided. We'd like to hear if your mind is made up in tonight's poll here. The question: Have you made up your mind about who you will vote for in the presidential election this fall, yes or no? And we, of course, will be sharing the results of that as you cast your vote at CNN.com/Lou. Well, President Bush today called Senator Kerry irresponsible on national security. President Bush took aim at Senator Kerry's 1995 proposal to cut intelligence spending. That proposal came just two years after the first attack on the World Trade Center. White House correspondent Dana Bash is traveling with the president in Houston and joins us now with a report -- Dana.</s>DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, the stepped-up attacks that we first heard from the president last week got a lot more pointed and a lot more specific today. The president seized on remarks by Senator Kerry that perhaps the fight against terrorism shouldn't be called a war because he thinks it's more of a law enforcement operation. The president said because of that kind of mentality, flawed mentality, he suggested, Senator Kerry proposed cutting funding for intelligence operations at a time when the United States should have been increasing funding for intelligence, because it was just two years after the bombing of the first World Trade Center in 1993.</s>BUSH: His bill was so deeply irresponsible that he didn't have a single co-sponsor in the United States Senate. Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war.</s>BASH: Now, this intensified criticism of Senator Kerry, not just on his voting record, but also, as Bill was talking about, on his character, are all part of a strategy from the Bush campaign to try to knock him down as soon as possible, because they don't think that he got bloodied up enough during the Democratic primary process. Now, the president made that speech at a Dallas fund-raiser. Between that one and one he will have here in Houston tonight, he will pull in about $3 million to his campaign for reelection. And of course, the state of Texas is not some place the president is very worried about as far as having it in his column come November. Nevertheless, he also attended just a short while ago a very important event to this date. It is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. He went there, had a little bit of a photo-op, made a little bit of a quip that he thought that he had seen a lot of bull in Washington, but he certainly was seeing a lot more there. And, Lou, this particular event was billed as a policy event. That means that it is paid for by taxpayers, as opposed to the fund-raisers, which are paid for by the campaign -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Dana, thank you very much. Senator Kerry today campaigned in Florida, ahead of its Democratic primary tomorrow. Senator Kerry told supporters he's talked with foreign leaders who Kerry says want him to beat President Bush. A Bush spokesman said Kerry's foreign friends might prefer him as president, but the American people will decide the election. Senator Kerry today also criticized President Bush for failing to spend more time with the commission reviewing the September 11 attacks.</s>KERRY: If the president of the United States can find the time to go to a rodeo, he can find the time to do more than one hour in front of a commission that is investigating what happened to America's intelligence.</s>DOBBS: Senator Kerry today also addressed the rising concerns about electronic voting. The senator said all votes should be able to be traced and recounted if necessary. Meanwhile, Florida's Congressman Robert Wexler today sued in federal court to force the installation of printers on touch-screen voting machines. Congressman Wexler said it's unconstitutional for counties with touch-screen voting machines to have a paperless system that makes it impossible to hold recounts.</s>REP. ROBERT WEXLER (D), FLORIDA: Why doesn't Governor Bush simply say, let's improve our Florida election system even more than we've done so, provide for certainty and provide for security, and in case something goes wrong, have a backup, and all Floridians, Republicans, Democrats, independents alike, can have confidence in our system?</s>DOBBS: And my guest tonight responsible for making certain every vote is counted in Florida's primary tomorrow and in the upcoming general election, of course. Glenda Hood is the secretary of the state of Florida, joining us tonight from Tallahassee. Good to have you with us.</s>GLENDA HOOD, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: Thank you, Lou. Good to be with you. Thank you.</s>DOBBS: More than nine million voters are expected tomorrow. You've heard Congressman Wexler's concerns, a broadening concern in this country about not only in your state, but e-voting across the country. How confident are you in the system that's in place in Florida tomorrow?</s>HOOD: Well, I have a high confidence level. And it's based on the fact that, since 2002, when we put new equipment in place in the state of Florida, that we have had no problem whatsoever, according to our 67 supervisors of elections. So I have to go with my confidence based on what the supervisors have told me, based on the facts that they have reached out. They've informed their voters. They've educated their voters. They've trained their poll workers. They are ready for tomorrow. And we feel that we're going to continue to have that strong track record. And, quite honestly, I believe that Congressman Wexler is doing a great disservice to those voters who have that strong confidence in the system and know that their vote counts and know that our track record has been strong since 2002. And we have been a leader in election form, thanks to our legislature.</s>DOBBS: Secretary Hood, let me ask you this. Is there uniformity now across all of the counties in Florida in this system?</s>HOOD: We use two different kinds of voting machines. We use in 15 counties touch-screen machines and the rest of our counties use optiscan machines. One of the things that, thanks to the election reform that our legislature has put in place, is we have uniformity as far as the way many things are done in our counties. And that has tremendously helped us. And that's why the voter confidence level has been high since 2002.</s>DOBBS: And the issue of paper trails for these machines, the optical scanning, all e-voting in your state and across the country, the ability to carry out a recount here, if we were to see a very narrow victory or loss for one of these candidates, are you prepared for a recount? What does the state do?</s>HOOD: Well, you know, the advantage of our touch-screen machines is that the voter intent is very clear. You can't overvote. Any undervotes are clearly the decision of the voter. That was their intent. And that was the intent of the legislature when they decided to ask that we go through the certification process and put touch- screen machines in place. They do have the capability to print out audit receipts. And, quite honestly, technology continues to change. So we have no idea two and five and 10 years from now what kinds of technologies are going to be made available. But the fact of the matter is that today, there's no vendor that's presented any type of manufactured piece of equipment, a companion printer to go with those touch-screen machines for certification in the state of Florida. The standards at the national level haven't even been developed. So, again, it's a great disservice to the voting public to say something when certainly something's not available to us at this time.</s>DOBBS: It does raise the question, Secretary Hood, as to why it would not be available in the event of a recount. And I'm not referring simply to your state, but across the country. And, obviously, this is one of the great concerns, that and the concern...</s>HOOD: I think we're going to see technology continue to evolve. And we, again, don't know what technology is going to be like in the future. But, right now, based on a positive track record, based on a high level of voter confidence since 2002, when our new equipment was put in place across the state of Florida, we are prepared, our 67 supervisors of elections are prepared, and we expect to have a very successful election tomorrow.</s>DOBBS: Well, Secretary of State Glenda Hood of the state of Florida, as you know, we will all be watching carefully and closely. You're going to have all the scrutiny that anyone could possibly want in your job. And, of course, we wish you and the people of Florida great luck and success with the system. Thank you for being here.</s>HOOD: Thank you, Lou. We look forward to continuing to talk with you.</s>DOBBS: The president of Mexico says the United States should treat visitors from Mexico and Canada the same. Tonight, we'll have a special report on why there are some good reasons for the United States to perhaps treat Mexicans and Canadians very differently. And Senator Christopher Dodd joins us. He'll be here to talk about his plan to protect American jobs from outsourcing to cheap overseas labor markets. And I'll be talking with two leading advocates of overseas outsourcing of American jobs. And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he threatens to cut off oil to this country. All of that and more still ahead. Please stay with us.