[Shields:] Welcome back. As soon as the convention ended, President Bush and Senator Kerry hit the campaign trail, bashing each other.
[George Walker Bush, President Of The United States:] After 19 years in the United States Senate, my opponent has had thousands of votes but very few signature achievements. During eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, he voted to cut the intelligence budget, and he had no record of reforming America's intelligence- gathering capability.
[Kerry:] We're both so tired, as you are, of politicians who run around and they throw this pablum at you, and you get these 30-second negative advertisements, one-minute negative advertisements. Everybody's busy trying to destroy each other, when what we're really trying to do is build up the United States of America and take this country somewhere better.
[Shields:] Kate O'Beirne, can we expect anything but a negative slugfest ahead?
[O'beirne:] Nope.
[Hunt:] Amen.
[O'beirne:] Now, look, Mark, there both candidates are going to be laying out an agenda. The president's beginning to lay out his agenda for a second term this month. John Kerry did some of that at the convention. He wants to raise taxes. He was pretty clear about one of the central things he'd want to do if he was elected. But the candidates are going to go after and criticize each other's records. The difference, it seems to me, we've seen in Boston and since is that President Bush is not running away from his, he's running on his record, and John Kerry is sure as heck running away from his Senate record. But he has to continue going after Bush. Only 40 percent of, according to the polls, John Kerry's supporters are actually pro- Kerry. The majority are anti-Bush, as opposed to over 80 percent of the president's supporters being pro-Bush. So he knows it's the anti- Bush stuff that got him there. He's going to keep up the anti-Bush stuff. He's just going to pretend he's being positive while he slams Bush.
[Shields:] Margaret Carlson, I mean, Bush-bashing was really very much under control in Boston. Do you think Kerry-bashing...
[Carlson:] Totally. It's like pent-up emotion...
[Shields:] Yes, do you think Kerry-bashing will be excluded from New York?
[Carlson:] I wonder! But you know, I think Bush should run away from his record because it's it's not very good. And as long as the 911 report is out there and as long as troops are continuing to die in Iraq, I don't think Kerry has to do that much Bush-bashing because the record speaks for itself. As far as, you know, Kerry exciting people, yesterday he had 20,000 people in my home town in central Pennsylvania. You do not get out 20,000 people there...
[Shields:] In July.
[Carlson:] ... in the heat of July, Mark. I'll tell you!
[Shields:] My God!
[Novak:] What town is that?
[Carlson:] It's Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Bush has been 30 times. He's been to Pennsylvania, trying to win it. But the unemployment there also again speaks for itself. And I think that that and the fact that a lot of troops come from Pennsylvania, there are a lot of bases there, makes Pennsylvania Kerry country.
[Shields:] Kerry country! Bob Novak?
[Novak:] I think Pennsylvania's going to be really hard for President Bush to win. He's fairly far behind there now. Mark, the president's speeches in the last two days have been going back on the Senate record of Kerry, which is very liberal, and the team the Republican team that was in Boston kept saying, When are you going to talk about his record? I don't think that works very well, going over his record. They're right, it's a very liberal record. He voted against defense, voted against intelligence. I don't think that goes over all that well. I think the real problem that Kerry may have made for himself is the fact this emphasis on his Vietnam service. I think he opened a door there. I think there are people who think who question his Vietnam service. Some of the people some veterans are there. There's already a veterans' Web site out, questioning the caliber of that service, some of his some of his decorations. That's a dangerous path that the Bush strategists don't want to take, but I think it's going to come out anyway. And because I think it is an extraordinary I've never seen it in politics, to have that emphasis on something, on a short span of time that happened so long ago and just wipe away everything that's happened since.
[Shields:] Al, I think it would be a fool's errand to go after John Kerry's military service, especially after Bill Clinton's line in Boston, which was, Privileged people have figured out ways not to go to Vietnam, including the vice president, the president and me. And John Kerry said, Send me. Now, that boy, oh, boy, I thought that was a...
[Carlson:] That was a great...
[Shields:] ... one of the one of the major...
[Carlson:] ... a great line.
[Shields:] ... lines of the whole week.
[Hunt:] That's a briar patch that John Kerry would love to be thrown into. I want to tell you something, Bob. I think Karl Rove's hand is involved in this. I don't think there's a split between the people who are trying to raise the issue and the White House on this. And I think it's going to backfire tremendously.
[Novak:] You know that?
[Hunt:] I talked to Bob Kerrey, Senator Bob Kerrey, Medal of Honor winner, who said, Just let them try. I can't wait to get out there and take them on on this. And he was really angry when he said that. So I think it'd be a huge mistake on their part. I think the fundamentals of this race clearly are with John Kerry. Most people in America want change. They don't think that this is a very good record. And I don't think Bush is running on his record. We saw from that clip earlier, he's running that the other guy's a bum. That is his only hope. A state like Pennsylvania I agree with Bob and Margaret. You look at one test, Mark. Look at Gore's vote in 2000. I can't think of a single block in Pennsylvania where Kerry's going to do worse than Al Gore did... ... in 2000, exactly. And I would say the one worry I would have, if it ends up a close election, I think it is the Kerry campaign team's pretty good, but they got to fill in some gaps there to take on this Bush team. They are very, very good.
[Shields:] One thing that surprised me this week, Bob, was that the in Florida, the whole electronic voting fiasco and debate raged, and Governor Bush said, Oh, it's OK. Don't you worry about it, even though there's no record, while the Republicans in Dade County are saying, Vote absentee, which suggests that maybe Florida's not flawless.
[Novak:] I think there are plans under way by the Democrats to try to steal this election... ... in Florida. No, I think they are, and I have some some factual material which will come out in...
[Carlson:] Oh, sure.
[Novak:] ... in due in due course because the plans are being laid, have been laid for four years. But I do believe this, that the Kate said it, that there is a there is a tremendous amount of spending that's being laid out in this program, and no way to spend it. You can you can tax Al Hunt and the rich people all you want, there's not enough blood in that turnip to finance it.
[Hunt:] You don't think Republicans would want to steal this election, do you, Bob?
[Carlson:] Mark...
[Novak:] I haven't seen it yet.
[Hunt:] Yes, just just the Democrats who want to steal it. I just want to get that on the record.
[Carlson:] And by the way, if Republicans do attack Kerry's record of service, I think you'll see Senator John McCain won't be hugging Bush much longer.
[O'beirne:] Look, John McCain is not going to defend him smearing everybody who served in Vietnam by accusing them of war crimes!
[Hunt:] John McCain has already said and I want to quote to you, Kate...
[O'beirne:] He did not
[Hunt:] ... "John Kerry earned the right to dissent on the war"...
[Shields:] Yes, he did! Yes, he did!
[Hunt:] That's exactly what Wes Clark said, too General Wesley Clark.
[O'beirne:] He slandered...
[Shields:] General Wesley Clark...
[Hunt:] ... what they said.
[Shields:] ... Admiral Al Hunt, Gunnery Sergeant Shields... Next on CAPITAL GANG, winners and losers at the Fleet Center.