J$P Instant Transcript! Pat Caddell and Dan Lungren

From Fox News Live, September 10, 2004:

JANE SKINNER: Joining us to take a look at these latest polls and what they could mean, Dan Lungren, who is former Attorney General of California, and Pat Caddell, who is a Democratic strategist and former Presidential pollster. Welcome to both of you. Pat, how big or how long is this window of opportunity for John Kerry to get some traction, I guess you could say?

PAT CADDELL [DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Well, he better hurry, I'll tell you what, he better hurry quick. Because, first of all, I've been through all the--you've got a bunch of polls, out all together. The Fox numbers are the lowest. The others are averaging 8 to 9 points, 9 points this morning. I was comparing the Gallup last night and the Washington Post poll which follows successively, one from the 3rd to the 5th, and then the 5th to the 8th.

SKINNER: And we should add, 9 points in President Bush's favor.

CADDELL: President Bush's favor. Plus what's going on in the states. But more importantly than the overall numbers, it's what the internal numbers are showing. The hemorrhaging that John Kerry was having in August has not stopped. It's amazing. I've done a half-dozen Presidential campaigns and four major nominees, and I've never seen this kind of problem. And his negatives are going up, at a point, he's got the highest negatives by a consensus of these polls, that any challenger in the history of American Presidential politics. And this thing that they're doing with this going after Bush on this National Guard is insane. The last thing in the world they need is to have VietNam on the table, and that is exactly what they're doing with this. I have no idea what they're doing with this.

SKINNER: We're going to get to that VietNam issue in just a second, Pat.

CADDELL: No, I'm just saying this is a wrong issue for them; they've got to get back to something more serious, another agenda.

SKINNER: And as we're speaking to you, both of you, we're looking at two other gentlemen on the screen. On the left hand portion of your screen live pictures from John Kerry in St Louis, and on the right the President speaking in West Virginia. Dan, if the Kerry campaign, it's become this image now that it is in disarray, Pat used the phrase hemorrhaging voters, if it is indeed so bad, and some of these polls show a large differentiation, ours is much closer, why isn't the gap enormous between these two guys in terms of polls?

DAN LUNGREN [FORMER CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL]: Well you have to look at what the registration is and what the attitude of the people are. We're coming out of an era in which we had basically 50/50 in this country in the last race, and we've seen that in elections since that time. It's an amazing thing that we've seen this change, this momentum shift, in the last six weeks. I couldn't agree more with Pat Caddell. This is exactly what the Bush campaign would love to see; it's exactly what the Kerry campaign did not want to see. Although, let me hasten to add, I've been involved in campaigns myself where we've seen a 12-point swing in the last two weeks of the campaign.

SKINNER: You better believe it.

LUNGREN: So it's not impossible. But let me tell you, if I were John Kerry I would much rather be in George Bush's position. The other thing that Pat talked about is absolutely true. The Kerry campaign made a strategic error when they decided on his VietNam career. As honorable as it is, that is 30-some years ago. And it has taken the whole eye off the ball of what we're talking about in terms of what the people are interested in. And he's allowed the President to capture that.

SKINNER: Pat, we just have about 30 seconds left for you to respond.

CADDELL: No, I just want to say that when I was talking about hemorrhaging I'm talking about it's across the board in the numbers, and it's still going on. The motion is happening day to day, and it's taking up areas, and by the way by larger margins than the vote numbers, vote movement takes place last. And what I'm saying is yes, this thing can swing back and events can do it, but they have got to get to another message soon, or this thing could close out in a few weeks.

SKINNER: And Dan, just the last 10 seconds to you. This issue of the CBS, the memos, the Air National Guard service, any impact if indeed in turns out, and we don't know at this point if indeed it turns out that these are fake memos? Any impact on the race?

LUNGREN: It would just be piling on on John Kerry because--

CADDELL: It would be the end of the race.

LUNGREN: Fair or not, people would look at it, people would look at it as another evidence.

CADDELL: It would be the end of the race. It would be the end of the race. They're so involved in this, they have gotten themselves so involved in this issue, the last 24 hours, that somebody's going to, if they're not authentic, they're going to be blamed for it. It's incredible to me that they've gotten in this.

LUNGREN: I've never had the opportunity to agree with Pat so much.

SKINNER: We don't know what's going on!

CADDELL: Well I'm trying to save my party, you know, by telling the truth.

SKINNER: Thanks to both of you.