Author Discusses Whether the U.S. is Very Polarized
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: News magazines are reporting Iran may have helped facilitate in the 9/11 attacks by providing safe passage to some al Qaeda members. "Time" and "Newsweek" magazines cite the upcoming report from the 9/11 Commission. The magazines say it will include evidence that Iran did not stamp the passports of terrorists from Saudi Arabia as they traveled from training camps in Afghanistan and eventually into the U.S. There was a close call for Iraq's minister of justice. A car bomb blast hit his convoy, killing four people. The minister was not hurt. The explosion happened near his home in central Baghdad. A group linked to Abu Musab Al Zawqari claimed responsibility. Fifty percent contained. Firefighters in Carson City, Nevada say they've managed to get a line around half of 7600-acre wildfire there. At least 14 homes have been destroyed. Officials say if strong winds do not feed flames this weekend, the fire could be fully contained by early next week. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN center in Atlanta. More news at the bottom of the hour. "In the Money" begins right now.</s>SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN ANCHOR, IN THE MONEY: The quote for me this week, "I will be back!" It was sort of reminiscent of Douglas McArthur. A defiant Martha Stewart saying she is not afraid of going to prison and going to prison she is.</s>ANDREW SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes, the statement typical Martha Stewart-style, somewhat controversial. I thought she went a little overboard. She hasn't apologized yet and that's because she's going to continue this appeal and the appeal thing just kind of blows my mind, Allen, because it's going to take months and months and months, and would you just get over it? Everyone's talking about her come back, she was just talking about it, but you can't do that until you do the time.</s>ALLEN WASTLER, MONEY.COM: That's right and speaking as an investor in the company, I would just appreciate it, go do your five months. Come back and start doing the Martha thing again and get the ball rolling, get the company back.</s>LISOVICZ: Didn't you like that she had the pitch for the company in that statement?</s>WASTLER: I thought it was a little bit kind of raw there.</s>SERWER: I thought it was totally inappropriate and stupid but that's just my take. I mean I could be wrong.</s>LISOVICZ: The stock did well rally however in the minutes -- sharply actually in the minutes after the announcement was made. Of course we'll have more on Martha Stewart later on in the program. Now left and right, red and blue, Godly and Godfrey, tree hugger and Hummer lover. The more you hear about the United States these days, the more it seems like we're living in two countries that just happen to share a single currency. Maybe we ought to let Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh go a few rounds and settle this whole thing once and for all but our first guest says America really isn't as divided as it looks. Morris Fiorina is the author of "Culture War: The Myth of Polarized America." He's also a professor of political science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a very busy guy, indeed. So are you saying, Morris, that voters in America are really just one big happy family?</s>MORRIS FIORINA, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: No, not nearly. I'm not going nearly that far. What' I'm saying is that voters in America are not nearly as polarized as much of a dysfunctional family as the political elites in Washington, as the leaders of the interest groups and as a lot of the media that's involved in the entertainment side.</s>SERWER: Morris, it's interesting, there's the line where an American is explaining our two-party system to a Brit and says, we have a Republican party which is like your Tory party and we the Democratic party which is like your Tory party. We are a country that's mostly in the middle but I've got to disagree with you a little bit because there are those trigger issues like guns, like abortion, like gay rights. Don't people differ on those?</s>FIORINA: Not nearly as much as you think. And I'd like to add that the people that regard those as important as people like you think that these are the issues that divide the party bases. These are the issues that get all of the press, but ordinary Americans don't attach a lot of importance to those. There was a Gallup poll a few months ago that gave people 15 issues and asked them how important these issues would be in their voting choices in 19 -- 2004. And of 15 issues, abortion came in 13. Gun control came in 14 and gay marriage came in 15.</s>WASTLER: Professor, you mentioned that the media and various lobbies have an interest in sort of poking and keeping the controversy going and that's not going to go away. Is there any sort of middle ground? Could a centrist ever get to the White House, let's say in this kind of environment?</s>FIORINA: The problem is getting through the primary processes and getting the nomination in the first place. And as you know, it's the more extreme elements of both parties that are participating in the primaries. I've advocated things like runoff primaries, blanket (ph) primaries to try to let moderates overturn the party bases in the primaries. But it's tough. I mean in this kind of politics it's tough when you have the party bases which are so polarized but they're just a tiny fraction of the population compared to the great mass of voters.</s>LISOVICZ: Let's face it, gun control, abortion, those kind of issues, they get a lot of headlines and I think it's your assertion that it's the pollsters and the media who are the proponents or at least the ones who are always talking about a culture war. For Democrats, Republicans, men, women, young, old, it's really health care, education, jobs.</s>FIORINA: Iraq, Iraq, terrorism, yes. It's the kind of issues that middle-class people who are holding down jobs and trying to make comfortable lives care about their everyday lives and it's not these kind of hot-button issues that animate the party masses, party bases.</s>SERWER: But Morris, aren't those polarizes issues, too? You talk about Iraq. I mean goodness gracious, a lot of people disagree vehemently there and with the economy too. I mean that's a bipartisan thing and isn't populism when you get say the Democrats talking about two Americas like John Edwards, isn't that a blue-red thing? Why isn't that divisive?</s>FIORINA: OK, let's make a distinction between the positions people take and the choices and evaluations they make. What I'm saying and what I have shown in the book with my associates is that the positions people take have not really, are not polarized and have not really become anymore polarized over the last two decades. Now their choices have. The reason the choices have is they are being faced increasingly with polarizing alternatives, that yes, if you launch a preemptive war on Iraq, that's a polarizing alternative. Here's the interesting thought experiment. Would people's voting choices this year be as split as they are if the two candidates were Joe Lieberman and John McCain as opposed to Bush and Kerry? When people are given centrist alternatives, people opt for them.</s>WASTLER: So, professor, if you're President Bush at this point or Senator Kerry, then should they move to the middle and avoid the polarizing issues? Is that the way to win the White House?</s>FIORINA: For Bush it's too late. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative and then did not govern in that way at all. Now, for Kerry, the question for the Kerry-Edwards' ticket is to avoid being captured by the Michael Moore crowd in the Democratic party and credibly presenting themselves as relatively centrist alternatives to the great masses of people. If they succeed in doing that, I think they have a real shot.</s>LISOVICZ: When you talk about, you know issues that relate American voters, you mentioned Iraq. And you talk about, professor that in our history that there really have been culture wars and the last one I think that you cite is in the 1960s when there was a very unpopular war going on. Why do we not have that polarization just yet?</s>FIORINA: Well, I think -- you know, I mean, it's always dangerous to compare a generation apart and sometimes I've wondered if we go back through American history if the received wisdom from this story is actually borne out if we have the kind of public opinion data we have today about those periods, but I think the divisiveness in the '60s was much worse. In part, you had a war. First of all, remember you had conscription. People in my generation were not being asked to volunteer for Iraq; they were being taken to Vietnam and it affected a far greater proportion of the country. We also had cities burning with riots every summer. The times of troubles in the '60s dwarfed the kind of divisiveness we're seeing today.</s>LISOVICZ: We've leave it on that positive note that we have not seen that kind of divisiveness here in this generation. Morris Fiorina, the author of "Culture War?" that's a question mark there, "The Myth of Polarized America." Thanks for joining us.</s>FIORINA: Thank you.</s>LISOVICZ: We're going it talk a couple minutes now to check the oil and run a squeegee over the windshield. But when we come back -- take that! A change in cholesterol standards means more pills for more people. We'll look at whether the latest numbers are on the money. Plus, all the young dudes. It sounds like an old song.</s>SERWER: Matt the Hoople.</s>LISOVICZ: Yes, exactly, good for you Andy. In countries like China, the ratio of men to women is rising. See why that could shake up life here in the good old US of A. And putting the play back into playing ball. Find out how a couple of major league veterans are taking the pressure out of baseball for kids.