Dean Secures Powerful Union Backing; New Poll Numbers Out on Iraq, Economy
ANNOUNCER: Looking for the union label.</s>HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am meeting with the SEIU today...</s>ANNOUNCER: And they're one of the nation's most powerful unions. Is their backing a major milestone for Howard Dean?</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is worth our effort. It is worth our sacrifice because we know the stakes.</s>ANNOUNCER: Do you agree with the president when it comes to Iraq? We'll reveal new poll numbers. Are Americans optimistic about the economy? We'll gauge the view from Main Street.</s>ANNOUNCER: Now, live from Washington,</s>JUDY WOODRUFF'S  INSIDE POLITICS. JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST: Thank you for joining us. Well, Howard Dean has surged to the front of the Democratic presidential field by appealing to traditional party activists in nontraditional ways. There has been live speculation that he would win the endorsement of the service -- powerful Service Employees International Union. That endorsement now in doubt a little bit, because other union leaders have asked the Service Employees Union to hold off for a week. Joining me now, our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley with me. Candy, all this breaking, literally, just as you and I are sitting down here. We're learning that the SEIU, as it's called, is going to hold off this announcement if there is going to be an endorsement, until next week, November 12. What's going on behind the scenes here?</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's going to take a couple phone calls to figure this out. But this would have been entirely an expected endorsement. So that they are not now going to have the announcement, after having called other candidates and said tomorrow we're going to endorse Howard Dean, one would have to think that something has gone wrong here. It would have been, and still may be next week, a very powerful endorsement for Howard Dean. And it would certainly change the flavor of how we look at him as a candidate.</s>CROWLEY (voice-over): ... a candidate who snags the endorsement of the biggest union within the AFL-CIO, a candidate with a giant lead in New Hampshire, a promising tie in Iowa. A candidate with so much money he may refuse federal campaign dollars so he doesn't have to limit what he spends. You call him a confident frontrunner.</s>DEAN: I don't think any Democrat can compete with George Bush if he has $200 million from all those corporate interests and we have $45 million in public financing.</s>CROWLEY: Mr. Outside is looking strangely like Mr. Inside, a well-funded candidate with a cadre of Washington pros behind him and mainstream endorsements in his pocket. Camp Dean is beginning to look like a juggernaut. Still...</s>SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Were you wrong, Howard? Were you wrong to say that?</s>DEAN: No I wasn't, John Edwards.</s>CROWLEY: What do you call a candidate who can't foresee nor gracefully extricate himself form the uproar over the symbolism of the Confederate flag?</s>AL SHARPTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You are not a bigot, but you appear to be too arrogant to say "I'm wrong" and go on.</s>CROWLEY: What do you call a candidate who once likened members of Congress to cockroaches and who over time has changed his position on Social Security and Medicare?</s>CROWLEY: You call it a candidate who trails President Bush in national polls by a larger margin than any other major Democrat in the race. You call him a confident front-runner with vulnerabilities and things yet to prove -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: Candy, obviously, we don't know yet now what's going to happen, whether Dean is going to get this endorsement. But if he did, who would be hurt the most by it?</s>CROWLEY: I would go with John Kerry for this reason: SEIU has the biggest number of union members of any union in New Hampshire. So this is hard coming off a poll, as you saw today, where Dean is 14 points ahead of Kerry. So it's certainly in the ground war. What you want is those unions. They have the feet, the people to knock on the doors. And they have the organization to deploy them. So it certainly hurts Kerry. It hurts Gephardt in this way, that he still retains the most union support of any of those who have chosen. Nonetheless, this is a big union to go another way.</s>WOODRUFF: As we pointed out, it is up in the air now. And we won't know for some days.</s>CROWLEY: Interesting. We'll make some calls.</s>WOODRUFF: We will. Candy will. Thank you. On another front, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus has accepted Howard Dean's apology for his comments about southerners who display the Confederate flag. Representative Elijah Cummings said that Dean did the right thing by expressing regret. And now he said it's the time to move on. Dean was blasted by his Democratic rivals at Tuesday's "Rock the Vote" forum, as you just heard, for saying that the party, to win the White House next year, it must go after the guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. Well appearing on CNN earlier today, Dean said that, while he was wrong, his supporters, black and white, understood the point he was trying to make.</s>DEAN: I think that, first of all, I've spent a lot of time on the phone with a lot of my African-American supporters. They were with me. They understand that this is an issue of race and we have to get southern white voters and African-American voters to vote together if we're ever going to have a chance at winning back the South.</s>WOODRUFF: Dean first made the comment on the Confederate flag at a Democratic National Committee meeting back in February. At the White House, President Bush today signed the $87 billion aid package for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Bush called the money a critical expense in the war on terrorism. And he compared the U.S. financial commitment to the post World War II Marshall Plan. Earlier, in a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, Mr. Bush said that Iraq can become a symbol of freedom in the Middle East.</s>BUSH: It is worth our effort. It is worth our sacrifice because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world. It would increase dangers to the American people and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed, and that success will send forth the news from Damascus to Tehran that freedom can be the future of every nation.</s>WOODRUFF: U.S. policy in Iraq and the recent reports of a strong economic growth here at home are among the topics covered in the latest CNN-"USA Today" Gallup poll. Our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, is with me now. Bill, first of all, what about the news about Iraq and the economy? How is all this affecting the president's stand in the polls?</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Judy, it looks like not at all. Ten days ago, before the news about strong economic growth and losses in Iraq, the public's view of President Bush was 53 percent approval, 42 percent disapproval. And now, approval is up one point and disapproval is up one point. No big change.</s>WOODRUFF: Are you seeing any smaller changes?</s>SCHNEIDER: Ah, yes, in opposite directions. More and more Americans believe the economy is getting better. Forty percent felt that way in early September. Now, a majority do, 53 percent. The news from Iraq has not been good. So look at what's happened to the number who say things are going well for the U.S. in Iraq. Down -- 47 percent in September, 42 percent in October, 38 percent now. The result? President Bush's job rating on the economy has gone up and his job rating on Iraq has slipped. Notice that last month, Iraq was the stronger issue for the president. Now, the economy is.</s>WOODRUFF: So are you saying, Bill, that the public has turned against the war in Iraq?</s>SCHNEIDER: You know, Judy, Democrats talk as if they have, but the answer is actually no, they haven't. Sixty percent of Americans say Iraq was not a mistake. And a majority believes Iraq was worth going to war over. And here is something surprising. The percentage of Americans who want the U.S. to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq has actually gone down from 57 percent at the end of October to 48 percent now. Now, that doesn't mean people want to send more troops, just 17 percent say that. But they do not want the U.S. to cut and run -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: Which is what the president says he's not going to do.</s>SCHNEIDER: Right.</s>WOODRUFF: All right. Bill, thank you very much. A Republican congressman, though, has some strong opinions about U.S. policy in Iraq. Up next, Representative Jim Leach talks about why he has gone public with his criticisms. Howard Dean, outside insurgent or mainstream front runner? Bay Buchanan and Donna Brazile consider Dean's status in the Democratic race for the White House. And later, are Michigan voters ready for the Motor City madman? Rocker Ted Nugent makes noise about a potential run for office. This is INSIDE POLITICS, the place for campaign news.