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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Audience appeal
By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
 |  President Bush will speak to the U.N. General Assembly today, while Kerry sits down with Regis and Kelly. |
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 VIDEO |
 CNN's Kelly Wallace, in her "Promises, Promises" series: Iraq.
 CNN's Candy Crowley on John Kerry's tougher talking approach.
 CNN's Tom Foreman on the importance of debates in the election.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush faces a tough crowd this morning at the U.N. General Assembly, where he'll talk about Iraq's stability at a time when the country looks anything but stable. The applause will be polite, at best, but Bush isn't there for the audio. "It's all visual," one GOP sage told the Grind. And while this may be an international body, "Bush's visit is all about domestic politics." (More on this below.)
John Kerry, finishing up his New York visit, addresses a far kinder lot on "Live with Regis and Kelly." The TV gig, his second in 12 hours, should appeal to suburban women. But while he's in the tri-state area, Kerry might want to spend some quality time in suburban Jersey, where a new poll out today shows he and Bush are locked in a dead heat. Once again, if Bush wins Jersey, we're all asleep before midnight on November 2 -- except for Bush-Cheney, who will be celebrating til dawn.
As for us, we're still fixated on the rules outlined in the 32-page debate deal signed yesterday, some of which might surprise you.
There won't be any cutaway shots of Bush or Kerry while their rival is answering questions, so Kerry, unlike Al Gore, can sigh all he wants at Bush's answers and not worry it will cost him the election. After they shake hands, Bush and Kerry cannot approach each other, which should discourage any Rick Lazio moments.
Other rules outlined in the deal: They can't use risers to make them look taller (a defeat for the vertically challenged president) and, perhaps fearing that even makeup artists can be partisan, each candidate can bring their own. (To find a race that turned on the issue of makeup, we had to go back to 1960, when Richard Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow cost him a few votes.)
CNN's Dana Bash reports that senior Bush and Kerry sources say one of the final sticking points was how the candidates would receive their time cues. A Kerry senior aide described the Bush campaign as having an "unusual fixation with lights" and willing to walk away over the issue.
Kerry, who will prepare for the debate next week in Wisconsin, worked the debate negotiations into his schtick last night on "The Late Show with David Letterman." Joking about the seating arrangements, Kerry said, "Well, now what's going to happen is, well, we compromised and now George Bush is going to sit on Dick Cheney's lap."
Kerry also read the "Top Ten List" (complete with Kerry copying Letteman's trademark card flip). On the "Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals," our favorites were (7) The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair, (6) Attorney General Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution and (4) Eliminate all income taxes, just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn thing.
Not laughing last night was Ralph Nader, who won court victores in Maryland and Pennsylvania but lost cases in Arkansas and, more importantly, New Mexico, a swing state with a history of backing third-party candidates. A judge in New Mexico ruled that Nader doesn't qualify as an Independent because he's a candidate for some parties in other states. Aides say he'll appeal.
In New York this morning, Bush's annual pilgrimmage to the U.N. is expected to go as well as it always does, which is not well at all. The U.N. has become a daily punching bag for Republicans and the feeling is mutual.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan gave us a glimpse of what Bush will confront last week when he described the war in Iraq as "illegal" and implied that Iraqi elections, now scheduled for January, might lack credibility.
Of course, Bush isn't running for Annan's job, so appealing to U.N. delegates is not today's priority. Bush is running for re-election, and so the U.N. visit/visual has much more to do with domestic politics than with foreign affairs. He'll use the U.N. backdrop as a way to highlight his commitment to several noncontroversial issues, including AIDS funding, hunger, illiteracy, tuberculosis and malaria.
The CBS story continues
Meanwhile, the apology heard 'round the world yesterday from CBS News will continue to reverberate in today's echo chamber. After all, as Jonah Goldberg said yesterday on CNN, "This is not a story anymore about George Bush's service in the National Guard. It's a story about CBS."
By late yesterday, the White House was making sure that remained the case. Well aware that any day we're talking about CBS, we're not talking about Bush's military "service," the White House was claiming that there was a direct link between the Kerry campaign and the CBS report.
Camp Kerry strongly denied those charges, but new adviser Joe Lockhart confirmed to CNN last night that he had spoken with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, the man who CBS said provided them disputed documents, days before the "60 Minutes" piece aired. But Lockhart strongly denied any connection with the story. Asked if anyone in the campaign had been involved in pushing the story, Lockhart said,"No."
"We had nothing to do with these documents or forgeries or whatever they are", Lockhart told CNN's Candy Crowley. "I did not talk to Burkett about any documents or even the National Guard story."
Lockhart said he talked with Burkett the Sunday or Monday before the CBS News report aired Wednesday, September 8. He said he was called by CBS News producer Mary Mapes that Saturday night,and told Burkett had been "helpful" on the story and wanted to talk to the campaign. He said Mapes told him CBS had some kind of documents that releated to Bush's Guard service, but did not say they what they were or if they came from Burkett.
He says he spoke with Burkett for three to four minutes. Lockhart said Burkett wanted to give advice on the Swift Boat attacks, and said the Kerry campaign had not done enough to respond. Lockhart said Burkett encouraged them to "be tougher" and give a major speech on Vietnam. Lockhart said he responded to the effect of "We get that from a lot of veterans."
Lockhart said that was the extent of the conversation, and added "I have not talked to him since." He also said he had not spoken to Mapes since. He said he was aware CBS was working on the Guard story because: "You know how it works in Washington. Everybody talks to everybody." Lockhart said he had made the Kerry campaign aware of the contact and was not told of any problem with it.
But in a statement tonight released by Bush-Cheney, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett seemed to have some problems with it.
"The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Senator Kerry's campaign is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation that raises serious questions," he said. "It's time for the Kerry campaign to come clean about their involvement in this growing scandal and for Senator Kerry to immediately hold accountable anyone in his campaign that was involved."
Lockhart got the last word in late Monday. "Bartlett is wrong," he told the AP.
