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| SHIELDS AND BROOKS | |
 January 16, 2004  |
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Jim Lehrer speaks with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks about the Iowa caucuses, Paul O'Neill's take on the White House and President Bush's appointment of Charles Pickering to a federal appeals court.
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JIM LEHRER: And to how Iowa and other stories look tonight to Shields and Brooks: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Let's cut to the chase. Who is going to win Monday night?
JIM LEHRER: Seems like a fair direct question to me, Mark. MARK SHIELDS: It is a fair question to ask and a stupid for me to answer. JIM LEHRER: What is your reading? MARK SHIELDS: In answer to your question -- I don't know who is going to win. JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with the conventional wisdom tonight that it is a dead heat between these four, Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards? |
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| The unprecedented turnout in Iowa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 MARK
SHIELDS: I think it certainly could toss a blanket over the four of them
right now. But, you know, Jim, I don't know if people fully grasp what
a caucus is, and the commitment that's required, which is on a cold January
night, to get up from your dinner table and to walk or drive to the local
precinct, which could be in a firehouse or an elementary school, or a
library, and there to spend a couple hours with your neighbors and friends,
saying look, I'm for Dick Gephardt and I know you're for Howard Dean or
John Kerry or Howard Dean or whatever.
It's a remarkable process. The turnout really is affected by people's willingness, unlike in a secret closed ballot to go in and just 15 seconds behind a curtain, express your support or opposition. This really requires a level of commitment that most Americans don't have to demonstrate in their politics. JIM LEHRER: In other words, you're saying it is hard to measure that ahead of time. MARK SHIELDS: It's hard to measure that. I mean, I can remember Jimmy Carter, when he did well out here in 1976, there were 39,000 people who participated. Carter got 27 percent. He ran behind uncommitted. But, it was the victory that projected him into New Hampshire and on to the covers of the magazines and ultimately to the nomination. Four years later, when Ted Kennedy opposed him, 100,000 people participated. So four years ago there were only 61,000.
MARK SHIELDS: Well, I mean the estimate is on the high side, that it will be over 100,000 people. JIM LEHRER: I see. MARK SHIELDS: Given the coverage, the campaign, the candidates themselves, their activity, their organizational effort here which has really been, in my experience, unprecedented. JIM LEHRER: David, are you going to weasel, too, or do you have -- DAVID BROOKS: I think Carol Moseley Braun is going take it. No question about it. JIM LEHRER: Fearless Brooks.
JIM LEHRER: You go out tomorrow you, right? DAVID BROOKS: Right, tomorrow, 7 a.m. -- and when you see the candidates, they're usually in the back room of a restaurant. You walk through the front room of the restaurants where there are hundreds of people are sitting. None of them will walk 15 feet to see a candidate. They're strangely detached from what's going on for about 6 percent of their fellow citizens. |
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| Is Dean no longer the front-runner? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| JIM LEHRER: Well, speaking
of what's going on, one thing you both can talk about is Dean supposedly
was number one and it was supposed to be a two-man race: Dean and Gephardt.
It is no longer a two-man. What is your reading, David, as to why it is
no longer a two-man race?
First of all, all the people passionate about Dean have been with him for months. They've been attracted to the guy. They were coming out saying I'm for Dean. But there's a whole group of people not really turned on by Dean, not really turned on by Gephardt and they have been hanging around in the undecided column or just somehow unaffiliated. And in the last few weeks they've begun to pay attention and are flocking to Kerry and Edwards. These are people who are suspect are a little more politically moderate, a little more downscale on the income scale, and they're finally tuning in. And they're flocking to these two other guys. JIM LEHRER: Is it more as a result of negative thoughts about Dean, or positive thoughts say about Kerry and/or Edwards? DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think it's the more establishment Democratic voters flocking primarily to those other two guys. There also has been slippage from Dean. We've seen that in New Hampshire as well. That's a question of, A, he is being attacked for the first time, B, he hasn't responded very well. JIM LEHRER: For the first time? He has been attacked from the beginning, hasn't he? DAVID BROOKS: He's been attacked. He started the Gore endorsement, I think you began to see the other candidates really go after him starting with Lieberman but increasingly in the last couple of days, Gephardt running a strong television commercial against him in Iowa. So he has really had a sustained assault from the other candidates -- he's responded badly. JIM LEHRER: What is your reading of what has happened? What has caused the bunching at the top, if that is in fact is what is going on, Mark?
Just as an aside, I think this is a wonderful system. I have nothing but admiration, almost uncritical admiration for this system -- David's point about the numbers participating. We are going to have real people voting Monday for the first time and these are people who take it quite seriously and are enormously thoughtful about it. This is a state with the highest literacy rate and the lowest divorce rate in the country. It's a pretty interesting and intriguing and rather encouraging and optimistic place to spend time to start the selection of a president. I think what has happened is this: that Democrats are united by their disaffection for George W. Bush. That is the universal common denominator among Democrats who will be participating here, Democrats who will be participating in New Hampshire. And for the first time, I think electability has taken precedence as a factor in people's votes, in other words, which one of these people can really beat George W. Bush? One of the arguments that John Edwards has made and John Edwards alone has run this sort of upbeat positive campaign and I think the endorsement of him by the Des Moines Register, the only state-wide newspaper in the country that's read literally across the state, validated people who had a predisposition or maybe an interest in him that this was the real deal. But he makes the case, look, no Democrat has ever been elected to the White House who didn't carry at least five southern states. I'll beat George Bush in the Midwest, I'll beat him in the East, I'll beat him in the West, and I'll beat him in the South. As far as Dean is concerned, I think Dean does have a ceiling of support thus far but I think he has also got a floor. I don't see him dropping through that floor. As a consequence of the electability, it has helped both Kerry and Edwards that they are seen by voters, David is right, undecided or on the fence, as being perhaps more electable. |
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| Weighing a candidate's eligibility | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| JIM LEHRER: Do you
agree with that, David, electability and beating George Bush is focusing
people more than anything else at this stage, Democrats?
Northeastern liberals have tended to do less well for Democrats, Southern centrists have tended to do better. I think there is a flocking to that. And, Edwards has refocused his campaign. Usually the candidates are giving pretty the same set of themes throughout the campaign. Edwards' problem was always -- people thought he was a pretty boy. And he tried to counter that in the beginning by having a set of speeches which were all about his plan, his detailed wonkingness, but now he's really playing, come emotionally undone, or not undone ... but sort of let himself loose. JIM LEHRER: We saw it in that clip just now. DAVID BROOKS: That is a different John Edwards than I was seeing on the trail a few months ago. He is playing, the southern underdog who nobody took seriously. He is just fighting it out and he connects with people very well on a personal basis. JIM LEHRER: Finally David, before we move on from Iowa, whatever anybody thinks about the number of people in all the situation involved here, because of the attention, because of what has happened, this result on Monday night, where would you put it in terms of its importance? DAVID BROOKS: It won't affect Wesley Clark who skipped it and went to New Hampshire. You now can skip it and do fine. But I think what attests -- and I agree with Mark this is a great system -- in part because the camera crews that Terry described before they came to the scene, you were watching candidates with eight people, with ten people, with 15 people. And it really is a validation of a certain set of skills and it's an educational experience for all the candidates. JIM LEHRER: Okay. New subject Mark.
And then the New Hampshire race then becomes, instead of a Clark stopping Howard Dean story, it becomes John Kerry and Howard Dean fighting it out in his own backyard and here comes John Edwards, the guy who, the David who took on these goliaths. It really does hurt Wesley Clark. Remember, John McCain in 2000 was helped by the fact that George W. Bush won easily here. And in second place was Steve Forbes who didn't show great legs. And in third place was Alan Keyes who was not going to be a threat to Bush. That gave McCain his opening in New Hampshire. Wesley Clark might be deprived of his opening. |
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| O'Neill's critical comments on the White House | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 JIM
LEHRER: Speaking of legs, David, the book of the week, the book about
Paul O'Neill and his tenure as Treasury secretary came out. What do you
think of the reaction to it? He had some critical things to say about
the disengagement of the president, among other things. Why has it become
such a big deal?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, there were two main charges: The first is that the president came to office wanting to invade Iraq. I think that charge is ludicrous and there is a bunch of evidence that suggests it was ludicrous -- that this was something that was debated months and months later -- that O'Neill evidence was a weak little document that continued a Clinton planning process just in case Saddam falls.
But whether there is a serious exchange of views across the whole range of administration, I think that's a fair argument. I think there are exchanges of views, but within four people at the top of the White House ladder among the domestic cabinet secretaries, I don't think they're involved in serious policy-making. That's bound to be frustrating. JIM LEHRER: What is your reading of the book and the reaction to it, Mark?
In fact, the most significant factor in that whole book was Dick Cheney's statement, the vice president of the United States, that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. As we look at $500 billion next year in deficits and the potential limits posed upon our economy and what we can do as a people, I think that is really a fascinating observation. JIM LEHRER: We'll pick up on that next week when we talk about the State of the Union. Quickly, today's news, David: The president gave an interim recess appointment to Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court. Was that a good thing for him to do from your perspective? DAVID BROOKS: Pickering is supported by African Americans in his state, by the Democrats in his state. What was done to him I thought was a travesty. He was smeared. It was a smart thing to do. He deserves that judgeship. JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Mark? MARK SHIELDS: A base sweetener, what's known politically -- if last week he was reaching out across the line on his immigration initiative, this was a way of reassuring his political base, it is certainly not a way to establish or reestablish comity in the Congress or the Senate, so I think it can be seen for what it was and that is a bold political move. JIM LEHRER: I want to establish comity with both of you by saying thank you very much. It was a pleasure being with you tonight. MARK SHIELDS: Thank you, Jim. |
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MARK
SHIELDS: Jim, it would be an act of lunatic arrogance or arrogant lunacy
to predict the winner let alone the order of finish out here. 
JIM
LEHRER: What's the expectation, what is the prediction for this Monday
night? 
DAVID
BROOKS: Just to follow on what Mark said, 100,000, 125,000 show up,
I think that's, what, 6 percent of Iowans? We go out there and there
is a scrum of us people following the candidates. 
DAVID
BROOKS: God likes close elections. (Laughs.) No, I think two things
are happening. 
MARK
SHIELDS: Well, Jim, first of all, Howard Dean is not cratering, he's
not collapsing by any means. He remains in the Wall Street Journal/NBC
News poll -- two-thirds of Democrats say they would be comfortable with
him as their nominee. It's not like there's a major disaffection. 
DAVID
BROOKS: I agree with just about everything Mark just said. There are
a lot of people who wanted to register their outrage at the war and
who sort of signed on to Dean as a statement, as John Kerry said in
that clip a few minutes ago, but they've taken a look and they've said
who really can carry this thing in the fall? It's not brain surgery.
MARK
SHIELDS: Just one thing. Wesley Clark is very much a victim of what
happens here. If on next Monday night John Kerry wins Iowa, and John
Edwards is second, which is not a remote possibility, then Wesley Clark
becomes an extra in this show because we in the press are very limited
in our ability to cover more than two candidates at once. 
The
second more serious charge, and it's more serious because it dovetails
the charges that a guy named John DiJullio who left the administration
made, that he'd been a fan of Bush, and David Frum made when he left
the administration, that suggests there is not a lot of serious policy
talk going on in the administration. I think that is something that
is not totally true. I think the politics has always been in every White
House. 
MARK
SHIELDS: Jim, I think first of all this is one more piece of evidence
added to the welter of evidence that's already been brought forth, the
critics of the war say that this was a war that the president was spoiling
for, looking for reasons for, that he had made up his mind. Whether
in fact you are talking about Jeffrey Records report at the Army War
College on the bad planning that went into it, the post-war, whether
you're talking about the Carnegie Institute's question of playing games
with the intelligence and exaggerating the threat of Saddam Hussein.
This is one more. But I think the most intriguing reaction is to watch
Don Rumsfeld and President Bush invoke the name of Bill Clinton, that
they were just continuing Bill Clinton's policy which has to be so personally
and politically painful for them to do as their defense against Paul
O'Neill's charges. 
