CAMPAIGN 'TIMES'

	February 2, 2004
	The seven Democratic presidential candidates also prepared for the primaries and caucuses which will be held in six other states tomorrow. Jim Lehrer discusses the campaign with New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney.

JIM LEHRER: Now, a Campaign Times look at the six other states that are having a primary or a caucus tomorrow. It comes again from chief "New York Times" political correspondent Adam Nagourney. Adam, welcome. ADAM NAGOURNEY: Thank you very much. JIM LEHRER: Adam, is there an overview for the other six states, is there one phrase that you can sum up what the issues or where things stand in these six other states? ADAM NAGOURNEY: I think what we want to watch for tomorrow night is to see how Senator John Kerry does. At this point the state that appears to be most in contention is the state you just reported on, South Carolina. The only other state where right now there seems to be a decent chance that Kerry might lose would be Oklahoma. But if we have a situation where Senator Kerry tomorrow night wins all six states, with the exception of South Carolina, that's going to really I think advance his prospects to a great degree, in terms of the presidential race. JIM LEHRER: The Oklahoma is -- his possible-- his problem, let's put it that way, in Oklahoma is General Clark, correct? ADAM NAGOURNEY: That's correct. You know, polls, and again I'll stress to you -as I have in previous appearances-- these polls especially in states like this are not that reliable because people aren't used to having primaries so pollsters aren't sure who to question. But polls show general Clark has been doing well in Oklahoma. Now I would also point out that polls for a long time showed that General Clark was doing well in New Hampshire, he came in third, and at one points polled showed him ahead here in South Carolina, and the last one I saw suggested she has 12 points. So we'll see what happens. But right now I think General Clark is spending most of his time now in Arizona and New Mexico and he's looking to that part of the country and particularly Oklahoma as a place to do his campaign alive, the same way Edwards is trying to keep his campaign alive here. JIM LEHRER: Do you mean that literally, that Edwards has said it openly that if he doesn't win South Carolina he may not continue. Is that also the case with General Clark? ADAM NAGOURNEY: Yeah, you know, I do mean that. I don't think reporters obviously should ever be saying what candidates have to do. And in the case of Senator Edwards he's set his own standard here which is fair. I think it's less Clark than people around him, but also the Democratic Party. If Clark doesn't win, let me add to that, Clark, Lieberman, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Edwards don't win anything tomorrow night what you want to watch on Wednesday is what do the party leaders do, what does Terry McAuliffe the national chairman do, what does Bill Clinton do, I think what you'll probably see is them going and saying we've gone through three weeks now, you haven't won a primary, it's time to step aside. I think they'll have a pretty compelling case by that point, General Clark has not reached and even General Clark's own aides say that - if he has not by that point won a primary. JIM LEHRER: What does your reporting show that, where this will lead Howard Dean, who kind of backed out of all seven of these, did he not? And is now concentrating on Michigan and Wisconsin, and ones later -- what's your reporting on that? ADAM NAGOURNEY: It's funny as I was talking to you I was thinking how I had not mentioned Howard Dean's name, and if you and I were having this conversation two weeks ago that would have been a pretty preposterous oversight. Howard Dean is not spending any money in these seven states, I don't think he has any money to spend. There's early voting in Mexico and Arizona, the early difficulties this campaign had I think began after voters were allowed to start voting. It's the kind of area that is receptive to his appeal so you can see him win some delegates there. He has to break the 15 percent threshold to win some delegates. But beyond that - so he's making some stops in those states - but beyond that I would be surprised if he did particularly well in any of those seven states. I don't think he is necessarily campaigning in Michigan last we heard, he's looking towards campaigning in Wisconsin. I think that today really dramatizes the extent to which, tomorrow excuse me, the extent to which Howard Dean's fortunes have changed. I think it was not inconceivable that in another scenario you and I the night before the caucuses would be saying tomorrow is the day where Howard Dean is going to get the nomination, that is clearly what they were hoping for, tomorrow was supposed to be the day -- as it turns out he's not prepared in any of these seven sates and is sort of transforming his candidacy to one similar to Jerry Brown had in 1992 where he sort of hung back and waited for Bill Clinton to collapse, which he didn't. JIM LEHRER: Just to go through the field here, you're saying that Lieberman is not expected to do anything of any of these seven states tomorrow, correct? ADAM NAGOURNEY: I mean, he has his, with all respect to Senator Lieberman, he has his hopes set I think on Delaware. I think it's fair to say that most democrats think his prospects are pretty long, and that there's a pretty decent chance he might be not in the race at the end of the week, let's leave it at that. JIM LEHRER: Okay, but as far as Missouri, New Mexico, Arizona and North Dakota are concerned Kerry is leading there and there seems to be no question about that, right? ADAM NAGOURNEY: New Mexico might an little competitive, but generally seems to be leading in all those states, yes. Missouri is the one state, I'm sorry? I say Missouri is one state where he is really, really, really strong. Where everyone thinks he's going to win. North Dakota there's some competition between him and Clark. But mostly he's doing very well. He's enjoying, -- there's a reason why candidates try to establish momentum, they try to win states like Iowa and New Hampshire, because in these kind of incredibly fast paced weeks which are based on free media like what we're doing right now and television advertisements, that's the way to drive an election, that's what they're trying to do here. JIM LEHRER: Just for the record, neither Al Sharpton or Dennis Kucinich is expected to do much, but how about Sharpton in South Carolina? ADAM NAGOURNEY: Yeah, let's talk about Sharpton. Reverend Sharpton has from the beginning of this campaign said the one state where he expects to do well, and he himself has said he thought possibly to win is in South Carolina. Obviously that could change if he was in New York because he's from New York, but he's looking to South Carolina. I was with Reverend Sharpton this northern near Charleston. From what I could tell for a lot of interesting complicated reasons I don't think he's going to win here. I'm not sure he's going to do particularly well. His hope was that at this point the only African-American in the race, in a state where we expect there to be about 50 percent of the Democratic turnout to be African-American, that that would benefit him. But I think that the whole dynamic we've been talking about this whole year, Democratic voters looking for a candidate who can beat President Bush, seems to be trumping that here, and people look at Rev. Sharpton might think he's not the best candidate to put up against President Bush. JIM LEHRER: Okay. Adam Nagourney, thank you very much. ADAM NAGOURNEY: Thank you.