DNC Chair Says Democrats United Behind Clinton

Aired March 13, 1996 2:20 pm

JUDY WOODRUFF, Anchor: Now that Bob Dole is on the brink of the GOP nomination, he is more focused than ever on President Clinton, probably a wise move, since Mr. Clinton not only has a presidential platform to campaign on; he has already locked up his re-nomination. After yesterday's contests, the president now has 2,154 delegates, eight more than he needed. Three Democratic delegates are uncommitted.

Well, joining us now to talk about the president's campaign and the other guys is the Democratic National Committee's general chairman, Senator Christopher Dodd. Senator, thanks for joining us.

Sen. CHRISTOPHER DODD, (D-CT), Democratic National Committee General Chairman: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: And I guess congratulations would be the first thing in order.

DODD: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: You have your nominee. You have your nominee early. That's the good news. The bad news is that the other party has its nominee, evidently, locked up early, too. Is it a disadvantage for you that Steve Forbes is getting out, and it's now down to Bob Dole, with Pat Buchanan over in a corner, making noises for the next few months?

DODD: Well, we've always felt that this election will be won not by necessarily the other side just making a mess of it, but rather because of what we're doing positively. This is a very united Democratic Party, more united than at any point in the last 60 years, will remain so through this election. A party that every faction of it is determined to be a part of an effort to re-elect the president, retake the House, the Senate, the governors, the state legislative bodies. Now Bob Dole appears to be winning the nomination, but not with the kind of numbers that I'd like to be coming out of this contest with. A good 40 to 50 percent of the people even who voted yesterday had a preference for somebody other than the likely nominee, so this is a party very much divided. We just heard Pat Buchanan talk about what he intends to do, going all the way to San Diego. He was viable in '92, and if you loved that convention, you're really going to love the convention in San Diego in '96. The party platform on a number of issues - abortion, other questions - highly divided. They look like a bunch of Democrats ten years ago.

WOODRUFF: Are you saying that Bob Dole is not going to be a formidable opponent?

DODD: No, he'll be a formidable opponent ultimately, but they have a lot to resolve yet within that party. This is a party that does not- is still very much competing for what Bob Dole has said, the heart and soul of the Republican Party, and that has not been resolved yet.

WOODRUFF: As you know, the point is being made already that this is a campaign that's gong to be fought out in large part right here in Washington, over issues like the budget, over welfare reform, and over matters that are going to be dealt with between the White House and the Congress. Would you agree with that?

DODD: I welcome that. Listen, this is the first time in 40 years the Republicans have held both houses of Congress. What have they done with that opportunity given to them in 1994? We've seen 50 hearings over 270 days on Whitewater, Waco, Ruby Ridge. Not a single hearing on Medicare, hardly any on education, on health. Even on the budget problems and jobs. So over these next 34 weeks, it would be refreshing to finally have a debate here about what people care about - that is, about the economy, about jobs, about crime, about how we improve the educational system.

WOODRUFF: Well speaking of the economy, as you know, Senator Dole and the people around him talk about there being a Clinton crunch in the economy, that things are not as good as you and others in your party would have people believe, and in fact, when the public, when the American public is asked about the economy, many of them say they don't understand that the economy is growing, they don't understand that it's in good shape. How do you go about changing people's perceptions about that?

---

---

DODD: Well, I think we keep talking about it, and remind people where we've come. Eight and a half million new jobs created in the last 37 months, 700,000 in the month of February alone this year. During the Bush administration, you had zero growth in the private sector in the jobs. The deficit is coming down, the size of government is being reduced. These are things that people said they wanted done. We've cut the deficit in half under the Clinton administration, in the last 37 months. Eliminated 270,000 jobs in the federal bureaucracy, cut 16,000 pages out of the federal regulations in this country. Those are not talking points, those are facts.

WOODRUFF: Well, at the same time, Senator Dole is saying almost every day Bill Clinton is the biggest tax raiser in the history of this country?

DODD: Well, I'm sure he's going to keep trying to say that, but I think people know differently. People wanted this deficit handled. We watched this president arrive 37 months ago. Bob Dole has been here 37 years. Bill Clinton arrived 37 months ago. They handed him a $4 trillion debt, $3 trillion of it accumulated in the last 12 years, when Bob Dole was either minority leader or majority leader of the United States Senate. He's going to have a tough time convincing people that a guy arrived here a few months ago is accountable for a mess that was created going back decades.

WOODRUFF: You mentioned Whitewater, Senator. There's a new book out by Jim Stewart which discloses new information with regard to the president and particularly, the first lady, on Whitewater. You are a member of the Senate Banking Committee. Is this going to mean that the Whitewater investigation is going to be extended?

DODD: Well, we've said, the Democrats have said, `Look, five more weeks of hearings, $185,000 more to do it.' What Senator D'Amato and others want is an open- ended process, $600,000 more spent. This investigation is the longest investigation in the history of Congress, three months longer than Watergate, spent $30 million on this investigation, and nothing to show for it, so we think it ought to come to an end.

WOODRUFF: Well, Jim Stewart is not a Republican, he's a journalist, and in an interview this week and in the book, he indicates that there may have been criminal law violat- there may have been criminal laws that were violated with regard to false information Mrs. Clinton gave about the value of the Whitewater property and with regard to her role in the travelgate matter.

DODD: Well, there is an independent counsel, Mr. Starr, who is spending $1 million a month of taxpayer money. That will go forward. What we're saying here is these investigations or hearings in Congress ought to come to an end, that frankly, here we are, spending all this time in this committee on these issues, and as I pointed out earlier, no time being spent on what people's problems are. Frankly, most people are fed up with this. It's a classic example of Washington preoccupied with itself, not worried about what's happening to real people in this country, and their real concerns.

WOODRUFF: Senator, back to the campaign. No one has been named yet to run the Clinton re-election campaign. Is this a campaign that's gong to be run from the White House?

DODD: No, not necessarily at all. And there will people named that will run the campaign to re-elect-

WOODRUFF: Do you know who?

DODD: No, not yet, I really don't. And again, done a good job so far. Obviously, the president has filed all the papers, he's raised the money. As you point out, the nomination is now secure. It's the first time since 1936, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson, that this party has not had an intra-party battle and fight, tearing each other apart, for its nominee. That's a party, as I said earlier, that's united and focused and prepared to see this president re-elected.

WOODRUFF: All right, well, Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Democratic Party, thank you for joining us.

DODD: Thank you, Judy.

Copyright © 1996 AllPolitics
All Rights Reserved

Terms under which this information is provided to you