Marking the unofficial beginning of the U.S. political season
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
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Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean.
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- With Labor Day, the political season in the United States is clearly in full swing. It's hard to believe that we're only a few months away from the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential contests. At stake there and then in South Carolina and beyond, is the Democratic presidential nominee.
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean may be the front-runner in Iowa and New Hampshire right now but there's still plenty of time for things to change. Just ask John Kerry or Joe Lieberman or Dick Gephardt or the other Democratic hopefuls.
In the coming days, we also may see former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark throw his hat into the ring. That would make an even ten Democratic candidates.
These coming months will zip by for those of us who are political news junkies, though the most recent CBS News poll shows that huge numbers of Americans, including people who say they are Democrats, can't even name one of the nine official Democratic candidates right now. As the elections approach, that will change.
In five weeks, we will also have the California recall election. That's scheduled for October 7. The polls there seem to be all over the place. Gov. Gray Davis remains unpopular but apparently is making some headway in convincing voters to reject the recall. Despite his overall unpopularity, there of course remains the possibility that he will survive. He is a formidable political fighter who has lots of money at his disposal. I wouldn't write him out yet.
But if he does go down, it's still very much unclear who will succeed him. A recent L.A. Times poll shows Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante ahead of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger by 35 to 22 percent -- with other Republicans -- State Sen. Tom McClintock and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth in third and fourth place. This contest, by almost all accounts, remains wide open. The upcoming debates could be pivotal even if Schwarzenegger is willing to participate in only one of them.
What happens in California, of course, could have a huge impact on the 2004 presidential election. If one of the Republicans emerges as the next governor, that could be a significant boost for President Bush and his re-election campaign. If Gray Davis survives or if Cruz Bustamante succeeds him, that would presumably bode well for one of the Democratic presidential hopefuls. We shall see.
Today, on "Wolf Blitzer Reports," we'll bring you the latest developments in all the day's top stories. President Bush celebrates Labor Day with union members in Ohio. We'll tell you what he said. Then, with almost two trillion in tax cuts and 3 million jobs lost, two experts will square off on the current state of the U.S. economy.
Then, U.S. intelligence officials are checking the authenticity of an audiotape broadcast Monday on Arabic television purporting to be the voice of Saddam Hussein. We'll have live reports from Baghdad and Najaf. Plus, retired Gen. Dan Christman joins Wolf to discuss U.S. strategy in Iraq
Plus, In Erie, Pennsylvania, police are playing down the possibility of a link between two mysterious deaths. We'll have a witness account from a local television reporter who was at the scene when the bomb strapped to a robbery suspect exploded.
And we're also tracking two dangerous storms moving near Hawaii and the Caribbean.
Please join us today and every weekday at 5 p.m. ET as well as at noon ET for all the day's top stories.
