E-mail a friendArianna Huffington
airdate November 1, 2004
Named one of Washington's most influential commentators by Newsweek, Arianna Huffington started her political life as the darling of the right. She now describes herself as a progressive populist. She does political commentary and has written numerous books, including the new release, The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. She's also co-founder and editor in chief of the news and opinion Website, The Huffington Post, and co-host of Left, Right & Center, a public radio political roundtable program.
Arianna Huffington
Tavis: Well, it's Election Eve, and in Florida the butterfly ballots are hung by the chimney with care. I'm not sure whether we're ready for this again but here we go. The polls open in just a matter of hours, and tonight we preview Election Day with an esteemed panel.
First a programming note: Tomorrow night, this same group will be here again, and get this: I suspect they'll be wearing the same clothes as we look back at the campaign of 2004. But tonight we look ahead, of course, for those of us here in California, if we don't get our barbs in now, it won't matter come tomorrow, since we're 3 hours behind everybody else. But tonight we're ahead of everybody.
So Antonio Gonzalez is with us. He's president of the Southwest Voter Education Project. Kimberle Williams Crenshaw is back again. She's a law professor at both UCLA and Columbia. Dennis Prager said he wanted to come back, so I invited him again. He has his own syndicated radio talk show, based here in L.A., and he's a best-selling author, as is Arianna Huffington, also a syndicated columnist. Her latest book, 'Fanatics and Fools.' Glad to have you assembled here again. As I mentioned, we're on the West Coast. We better get ours in quick because tomorrow nobody will care what happens in California when the polls close back East.
Let's start with this bin Laden tape. I don't know how we can start with anything else. Dennis, what did you make of the tape when you saw it?
Dennis Prager: Well, I am very curious to hear the other panelists because we don't tend to share politics. So I'm very curious if anybody heard it as anything other than his desire that Bush be defeated, because that was so clear. That was the gist of the message. 'If you Americans re-elect George Bush, then I attack you more.' And I think--and I know obviously I come from a certain political standpoint. I truly believe that objectively the Washington Post, which is pro-Kerry, editorialized this was essentially a pro-Bush message, from an American standpoint. He is afraid of the re-election of George Bush, and I think that answers utterly effectively the notion that going into Iraq was not a powerful answer to terror. It was.
Tavis: You didn't get the sense when you heard tape, Dennis, that he was saying no matter who you elect, Bush or Kerry, you're not safe?
Prager: No, not at all.
Tavis: And if you attack us, we will attack you.
Prager: No, and, in fact, in the extended parts that are translated in think tanks around the world, he actually said the states that vote for--I don't know if he used blue and red, but the states that vote Democrat will be spared, and states that don't will be hurt. I mean, this guy was very specific. 'Bush is our enemy. It's in your hands, American people. Whether or not you get hurt again.' And that's the point.
Tavis: All right, Arianna, what did you make of it?
Arianna Huffington: Well, first of all, I read the extended transcript. I didn't see anything about states that vote for Kerry.
Prager: It's on memory. The Middle East, uh...
Huffington: Well, I read multiple transcripts, and I frankly cannot believe that. I believe that there's no question that from the point of view of a barbarian like Osama bin Laden, George Bush has been the best recruitment tool. It's been much easier for him to actually recruit terrorists than it would have been under John Kerry. But beyond that, for me the most important thing about the reappearance of Osama bin Laden was a reminder that the man who actually masterminded September 11th is still around. And not only is he still around, but he's not even on the run. I mean, there he was looking rested, tanned, and ready, and with the ability to actually communicate to the entire world on television. This is a massive colossal failure on behalf of the administration.
Tavis: All right, Kimberle, assuming that you agree with that--and I'm not assuming you do, but let's assume that you do, for the moment--why then haven't I seen the polls jump for John Kerry over the last 2 or 3 days since that tape surfaced. And the message would simply be, 'You see, I told you guys that President Bush outsourced the job of finding bin Laden in Afghanistan, and he left too soon and went to Iraq--the wrong place--before he found bin Laden. Now this guy, here he is on the eve of our election, thumbing his nose at us. That's why you need to elect me so I can get the job done. Bush needs to be retired to Texas.' Why hasn't he used that, if you agree with Arianna, and why haven't his numbers jumped over the last 2 or 3 days?
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw: You know, I think that the tape didn't tell Americans something they didn't already know. Everybody knows that Osama bin Laden has not been caught. Everybody knows that President Bush hasn't been effective at catching him. People have already factored these concerns into their decisions. I don't think that either side was going to move because both sides are pretty much--have made up their mind about the significance of bin Laden.
As far as whether bin Laden was intending to tip the election to Kerry or not, I don't think it takes a rocket scientist for bin Laden to assume that all he has to do is give the impression of supporting Kerry. Enough people are going to react to that, that it could easily swing to the direction of George Bush, so I don't think A--that you can say that that is what his intent was, and B--I don't think that there's any reason to expect for there to have been any blip whatsoever.
Tavis: Hold on one second, Dennis. Let me get Antonio in here, and then we'll come back to you. Antonio, what did you make of the tape?
Antonio Gonzalez: I don't know what the intent of Osama bin Laden was, but I'm pretty certain that the result is beneficial to President Bush. Americans don't like--
Tavis: Beneficial to Bush?
Gonzalez: That's right. Americans don't like to have their elections messed with. They don't like to be told what to do. If someone was wavering, but the issue they were wavering on was around terrorism, you'd tend to want to rally around the president, and it backfires. Osama bin Laden, if his intent was to help Kerry, it's a backfire. And I think that people that were in the weak, sort of soft Republican category got solidified as a result of that message. And I saw at least the first poll that came out on CNN was a 2-to-1 benefit for the president.
Tavis: What about that notion, Dennis, that if we rally around the president as we did on September 11th, when this guy thumbs his nose just before our Election Day, we'd rally around our president again and that would accrue to the benefit of one George W. Bush, the guy you support.
Prager: Well, I do believe it accrued to his benefit because of the content. As I understand it, and I think again--that's why I quoted the Washington Post, which is a pro-Kerry paper. This was a statement, as I said earlier, about, 'If you give us Bush, we give you terror.'
But, there's a bigger point here. Yes, Osama is alive. That is correct, and that can accrue to the benefit of the Kerry campaign as you both pointed out. On the other hand, again as the Washington Post points out, and William Safire of The New York Times and others--So I'm not the only one pointing this out--is that he sues for peace. This big bravado guy who's, 'We're going to conquer the world for Allah' is now saying, 'Hey, you don't mess with us--' And that's the word he used, by the way, 'mess.' That was the translation anyway. 'You don't mess with us, we won't mess with you.' That's suing for peace.
This guy may look tanned and happy and healthy, but he's stuck in a cave somewhere, and he knows that he's gonna be dead by the next American election. So this, I think, was another statement: The war is effective. The war in Iraq, which I do believe, in my heart, is effective against terror. I don't believe it has upped the recruiting. The recruiting was highest after 9/11. People go to winners, not to losers.
Tavis: Let's talk--
Huffington: I don't see a winner in Iraq that has anything to do with George Bush and the Americans. And if you believe in your heart, as you said, that Iraq was the right way to go, you can't possibly believe it in your brain, because the evidence is so overwhelmingly against Iraq being the right move. It is so overwhelmingly in favor of Iraq being a massive destruction in the pursuit of the war on terror. We went after an enemy that did not have weapons of mass destruction, that was not any imminent threat. I mean, you're a moral man, Dennis, and you know that any wars of choice are immoral wars. This was not a war of necessity, it was a war of choice.
Tavis: Let me jump in. I want to move this. What's fascinating for me, though, is, whether you agree with Dennis or Arianna on this point, the American people are divided right down the middle on this with regard to who they're going to support tomorrow at the polls.
Let me move then, having said that, the conversation a little further, one of the groups that everybody's watching tomorrow, Kimberle, is young people. We've seen a huge increase in the registration of young people. There's a reason to believe, left or right, the young people are going to be--are going to turn out in big numbers at the polls tomorrow. And I read a poll that I found fascinating that suggested that young people are the surest of how they intend to vote. I was fascinated by that: that young people are the surest of how they intend to vote, whatever that is tomorrow.
Prager: The certainty of youth.
Tavis: Exactly. it's oxymoronic. It's a bit oxymoronic. But, Kimberle, you're a law professor, you talk to these young folk every day. Tell me what you're hearing on college campuses and whether or not you believe in what I just suggested this poll said to me.
Crenshaw: Well, I totally believe the youth vote is going to be the sleeper vote in this. This is going to be the coming of age of the youth vote. I mean, let's think about it. They're the ones that will inherit the huge cost of the war. They're the ones that if it is, in fact, a case that the deployment is going to require some kind of back-door draft or actual draft, it will come out of their ranks. And frankly they're the ones who are coming into the political process for the first time having recognized that it is true that every vote counts. I think it really mattered that the last election was decided on the basis of less than 500 votes. So they're coming in at a time when every vote counts, and they're coming in at a time where the issues around them are important, and they're coming in based on the invitation of people who are icons in the community, Sean 'Puffy' Combs, Eminem. These are the people who've really gone to the mat to really register masses of young people, and I think it's going to make a huge difference.
Prager: If Eminem is an icon in the community, we're in trouble.
Crenshaw: He is, and it's a fact, and it's gonna have to be dealt with.
Prager: Maybe so. Well, we're in trouble.
Tavis: The youth vote is significant, I think, tomorrow, Antonio; but, I'm also fascinated personally by the huge numbers of folk who participated in early voting. I read somewhere today that in Nevada over half--over half--of the registered voters who are going to vote--the likely voters--over half of them in Nevada have already voted. That's a huge number that over half the folk in the state have already cast their votes, and we've seen long lines everywhere else. What's your sense of how early voting this time around's gonna impact the outcome tomorrow?
Gonzalez: Well, you have to make a caveat: there's only 2 people that live in Nevada, so...
Tavis:
Gonzalez: That's right. That's right. Small, fast... Very small state. That being said, that's one of the changes in this electoral cycle, is that early-vote and vote-by-mail, absentee vote, has really gone off the chart. That vote is usually high-propensity voters who are usually more in the upper end of the socioeconomic scale, homeowners, and stuff like that.
Tavis: Republicans?
Gonzalez: Usually breaks Republican. But the preliminary and incomplete exit surveys of early voters and voters by mail has it breaking for Kerry. And that's a very ominous sign. It may mean that the Republican turnout machine is faltering in battleground states or it may just not be a trend that is sustainable. But the reports yesterday and the day before were breaking for Kerry in places like Florida, and that is unusual, and I would-- Again it's a good sign for Kerry, bad sign for the president.
Huffington: But I was in Nevada on Saturday for--
Tavis: Did you win or lose?
Huffington:
Tavis: Yeah?
Huffington: I was there for a get-out-the-vote rally. What I found amazing, I arrived at the airport at 7:00 in the morning, and I met 30 people I knew who are, like, going through security. And there was this conversation. Where are you going? 'I'm going to New Mexico.' I'm going to Ohio.' 'I'm going to Pennsylvania.' And that was what was absolutely unprecedented. I mean, the numbers of people who are leaving safe states like California and going to battleground states. People with families, with careers, are giving it all up, and they don't necessarily have a speaking role. They're going to go door-to-door.
Tavis: Right.
Huffington: That is something that shows the level of passion and commitment that I have not seen before.
Tavis: I want to get more to this in our conversation tomorrow night when we return for part two of this discussion. But let me just get you to break me off a little somethin'-somethin' here now, Dennis, with regard to this notion of why tomorrow our citizenry is so polarized, so divided.
I want to move just beyond the notion of the war. That's the simple answer. I suspect that's part of it. Part of the correct answer but it's prima facie for me. Talk to me about why you think it is that our electorate is so polarized.
Prager: That's is the $64,000 question. You know, it's funny. My father's 86. Lives in New Jersey, as it happens, which may or may not be a battleground state. We'll find out. But in any event, he said to me, 'Dennis,' and he's a lifelong Democrat, 'I have never seen the hatred that I have seen for George Bush against any president. Not Roosevelt, not Nixon, I mean, from either side.
Tavis: Not even Clinton?
Prager: No.
Tavis: Come on, Dennis. Your dad said--I mean, I love your dad, he's your dad. But come on, they hated this guy, Bill Clinton.
Prager: No, there's no comparison. I really don't think there's a comparison.
Tavis: Wow! OK, Go ahead.
Prager: In any event, certainly, I didn't, to speak for one and no one that I knew. But, of course, I knew there was some hatred. I'm not going to deny that. But in any event, it's ultimately cultural. It's a values question. And I would narrow it down, even though it's unspoken, because nobody wanted to touch the third rail of the Supreme Court nominations, but I do believe that it breaks down in what your definition of America is.
Each side believes they are fighting for America as they understand it, and I'll describe the side that I identify with. Let others describe the other, or I'll describe and see if they think it's unfair. Essentially, even if you have to break that down further: Is America exceptional, or is it not? Is America a Judeo-Christian society, or is it to be a secular European society? And is equality going to trump freedom, liberty?
When I talk to kids, and adults, for that matter, I say if you want to understand the United States, take out a coin. From many, one. E Pluribus Unum. Liberty. And In God We Trust. No country has that trinity, as it were. Do you want America to be more like Sweden and France, and I don't say this pejoratively. Or do you want America to be exceptional as it has been. That's the battle. It's a profound battle for the soul of this country, and that's why we're all this animated as we are.
Tavis: Whether you agree, Kimberle, or disagree, Professor Crenshaw, with Mr. Prager's assessment here, tell me how it is that we effectively, successfully, fight a war on terror--and I don't believe you can win a war on terrorism. That 'ism' is a very difficult issue. But how do you effectively and successfully fight a war on terror globally if domestically, internally, we are more divided as a people than we've ever been? How do we unite and fight a war on terror globally? Unless you're telling me that the only way we can do that is to be hit again by bin Laden or somebody from the outside, and I don't like those numbers.
Crenshaw: Right. And let me be even more specific: How do you fight a war against terrorism and hold up democracy as the shining example of what we're trying to create around the world when democracy is threatened here? To the extent that there is a huge conflict here, it's between a long history in this country in which democracy has been an aspiration but hasn't, frankly, been a reality.
We've had a period of time where most people can vote that's shorter than the period of time where everybody could vote. That's the reality. And for a lot of people this election is all about that history of suppressing certain kinds of votes...the votes of minorities, votes of poor people, votes of naturalized citizens--through some of the same arguments: We're trying to suppress fraud. We're trying to create the integrity of the vote.
So one side sees this as about maintaining the integrity through exclusion of people who are not qualified. And the other side sees integrity as making whole, making real, making complete the notion of democracy. So if we have a hard time making sure our elections run smoothly and everyone who can vote should be able to vote here, how do we present ourselves to the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy? That's the question.
Tavis: I'm glad you raised that issue. Thanks for the segue because I wanted to get this, and I've asked them to put this up on the screen right quick, Jonathan X.
Antonio, comment on this for me. I'll read a few of these. I don't know who's behind this. I don't know who paid who to do it. I don't know how many of these things are passed out. I'm told thousands of them. But this is an example I want you to read that was being passed out--has been passed out in the city of Milwaukee, where I was just the other day. It's called The Milwaukee Black Voters League, so it appears to have come from the Black Voters League in Milwaukee. And it says,
'Some Warnings for Election Time. If you've already voted in any election this year, you can't vote in the presidential election. If you've ever been found guilty of anything, even a traffic violation, you can't vote in the presidential election. If anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything, you can't vote in the presidential election. The time to register for voting has expired. If you haven't registered, you can't anymore.'
They're right about that one.
'If you violate any of these laws, you can get 10 years in prison and your children will get taken away from you.'
Now, the last one is a bit laughable. It's obviously laughable and a bit ludicrous. But, Antonio, this is an example of the kind of stuff that's being passed out by somebody to suppress somebody's vote. And you might laugh at what happened in Milwaukee. But in Michigan what happened was real. Republican officials said that if we're gonna win--if the GOP's gonna win this state--we got to suppress the black vote in Detroit. What do you make tomorrow of whether we should be really concerned or scared, as it were, about voter intimidation, voter suppression?
Gonzalez: Well, I think it's a real issue. There are very high stakes in this campaign, and unfortunately, some folks on the Republican side have decided to use voter suppression as a tool to gain electoral victory, not just in the black community, but we're also seeing intention to stop people based on challenging their citizenship, which affects immigrant-based, you know, Hispanic, Asian-Pacific Islanders.
I sent a letter together with the president of Mexican American Legal Defense, League of United Latin American Citizens, and several other Hispanic groups, an open letter to the president, asking him to direct the Justice Department to intervene by sending federal officials to protect the rights of voters in voting rights laws, to protect states and other constituencies where we thought this might happen.
We've seen it happen before. The most famous incident in California is the 1988 Republican Party posting of paid rent-a-cops in Hispanic precincts to challenge people's voting based on citizenship. Later on, we sued--Hispanic leaders sued--and later on they had to settle. They admitted in court that they were afraid of the surge in Hispanic voting in those precincts. So this voter intimidation, chilling atmosphere, and this is something that is going to be created in some places. And people are organizing to defend the vote with hotlines and poll--election observers.
Prager: Didn't the Civil Rights Commission under President Clinton examine all these claims in Florida and found, essentially, that these were not valid charges against the Republicans?
Crenshaw: No, not at all.
Tavis: That's not what Mary Frances Berry's saying.
Prager: What she said--I know her politics. What did the Commission actually find? Its report did not report that this took place.
Crenshaw: Dennis, there, right now, is a consent decree between the Republican National Committee and the DNC in which the Republican National Committee has agreed not to engage in these kinds of behaviors. Now, for them to sign a consent decree means that they were vulnerable to a finding that they were engaging in vote suppression or at least--
Prager: But it was examined.
Crenshaw: And let's be specific. What these efforts are, are targeting large minority communities for specific kinds of reviewing registration, making sure that people are, in fact, citizens. They're not doing it to all precincts. They're doing it to those that are heavily minority. It gives the impression, whether people mean it or not, that certain votes are suspect. It leads to this new phenomenon--
Tavis: OK. Let me ask this. Arianna-- One second. Arianna, go ahead.
Huffington: Let me say one quick thing because it ties in with what Dennis said earlier about equality versus freedom. One of the things that we're fighting for is to level the playing field. Again and again, there's been major regression in every area during the Bush administration when it comes to equality--not just the multimillion-dollar tax cuts, but education, healthcare, the millions of additional people living beneath the poverty line. I mean, that's why there's this huge division, because those of us who care about equality are equally appalled at the voter suppression as we are at the record of this administration.
Prager: Let me just say for the record I don't think that there is voter suppression on any level worth having the attention paid. I think the opposite. I think it's a cynical ploy by Democrats to get blacks scared of Republicans and stay on the Democratic farm. That's what I believe.
Crenshaw: So who's doing this, Dennis?
Prager: I don't know. That's one piece of mimeographed nonsense. I have no idea.
Crenshaw: It's nonsense, but there are many other examples of--
Tavis: Let me jump in. I don't-- Hold on, Dennis. Hold on. I don't know the answer to that question, who's behind it.
What I do know is we get a chance to do this again tomorrow night. So we'll continue, as a matter of fact, how about picking up right where we left off here on our program tonight? So be sure to come back tomorrow night for part two of this conversation with this roundtable of experts.
That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here tomorrow night on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching, good night from Los Angeles, and as always, keep the faith.
Back to November 1, 2004