Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: South Carolina Primary Under Way

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In South Carolina, the polls have been open now for more than two and a half hours. As our Jeff Greenfield put it rather colorfully last night, CNN will be covering South Carolina's GOP primary until the last dog dies -- and then we'll cover the funeral, as well.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Jeff and other CNNers will be on the job, bringing you the very latest.

Jeanne is with us now with our "Reporter's Notebook" segment. She'll be taking your calls and your e-mails.

Jeanne, good to see you. Thanks for getting up early on our behalf.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anything for you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Oh, jeez. OK, let's end the segment right now.

PHILLIPS: That's a good woman right there.

O'BRIEN: It's only going to go downhill from here.

MESERVE: Sounds good to me.

O'BRIEN: Let's go to the e-mail, shall we? this one comes from Gerry or Gerry Woods -- that's probably Gerry -- who asks the very straightforward question, "How's the turnout looking so far this morning in South Carolina?" And by the way, Jeanne, he adds that he's a John McCain supporter, which has something to do with turnout interest, doesn't it?

MESERVE: Absolutely. It looks like the turnout is going to be very heavy. there were a lot of absentee ballots filed. The Bush people will tell you that they were filed in the upstate part of South Carolina, which tends to go very Republican and is expected to go for him. The McCain people, on the other hand, will point out that there's been a fair amount of absentee ballots down on the coast, which is considered to be a stronghold for John McCain.

But overall, turnout expected to be extraordinarily high here because of the intensity of interest here and because of the importance of this contest. Last time around, four years ago, the turnout was something in the order of 265,000. I've heard projections that it could go as high as 425,000, that from a Bush official. GOP officials are tending to around 400.

As to who that helps and hurts, the conventional wisdom has been the higher the turnout the more it will help John McCain. But I'm not sure that's absolutely going to hold true. As you know, George Bush has been appealing to the Republicans, McCain has been trying to drum up support drum up support from Democrats and independents in this open primary.

But Bush has been doing something quite clever in the last few days. What he's been telling Republicans is that the Democrats are trying to hijack this primary. They're trying to undermine the process by turning out and voting for McCain, simply because they think he'll be a weaker candidate against the Democratic nominee in the fall. The strategy is to try to mobilize the Republicans, to get them revved up to retake control of this primary and turn out today and vote.

PHILLIPS: Well, Jeanne, with a question on McCain, Mark from Chicago is on the phone now.

Mark, go ahead.

CALLER: Good morning, everyone.

I just wanted to know. This could be a product of heavy campaigning and traveling, but it seems that Senator McCain consistently repeats that he's trying to bring the special interests to the people and he's trying to get the Reagan Democrats. And it seems like the same information is continually coming out of his mouth. Is he not taking the important issues and attacking them, or does it seem that he's just sticking to his core argument and evading other questions?

MESERVE: OK, first, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you that I have spent no time with John McCain. I haven't been on his bus in Iowa, in New Hampshire or here in South Carolina, so I'm a little bit reluctant to go too far in characterizing what he's been doing. Certainly campaign finance is the issue that he underlines repeatedly, but there are other aspects to what he addresses.

He has his own tax plan, significantly different than George Bush's. That is something he talks about. He talks about veterans and the need for a strong military. He does talk about abortion and that issue. So I wouldn't say he's a one-note candidate at all, but I really am reluctant to go too much further than that.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's go back to the e-mail, shall we? this one comes from Joe McDonald, one of our most faithful e-mail correspondents. He's up there in Burlington, Vermont, and he has a little postscript saying, "We have tons of snow up here. Help!" But that's not why he sends us the message.

He says, "G.W. Bush has apparently had to spend a lot of money on his South Carolina campaign. Is he in danger of running low on funds if John McCain wins or finishes a close second today?" MESERVE: Let me tell you, first of all, what the Bush campaign says it spent here. I spoke to a campaign official last night who estimated they have spent in this state something of the order of $3.1 million. John McCain, they estimate, has spent about $2.8, so they're more or less in the same ballpark.

The more important numbers are the overall figure. George Bush has collected something like $70 million, and he has already spent a big chunk of that, $50 million. What the Bush campaign will tell you is that they haven't just spent it in Iowa, New Hampshire, Delaware and here in South Carolina, that they have done advanced buying in some of the other big states that are coming up -- California, for example, New York, some of those big states that come up on March 7th.

And I should also say this. He has $20 million on hand. That may be much less that he initially had, but he still has a heck of a lot more than John McCain, who's estimated to have about half of what Bush has ready to spend.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jeanne, changing gears away from the candidates we're going to talk about the wives. We've got a caller on the line from California. Gregory has a question for you.

Go ahead.

GREG: Hi, yes, good morning.

Voters like nice package, and Senator McCain has packaged his wife as part of his campaign. But G.W. hasn't done much of this yet. And this is rather interesting. I'm just curious. In the long run do you think that this could hurt his campaign?

MESERVE: Actually, Laura Bush has been out on the campaign trail with him quite a bit. I know I was at rallies yesterday, she was at his side. He uses her as a foil when he speaks and says, oh, she's going to be glad when this South Carolina race is over because she's not going to listen to this speech one more time. She's had enough of this.

She has done some campaigning independently and some speech- making, but Bush has said that when he married her one of the conditions of their marriage was that she wouldn't have to do a lot of speechifying if she was married to a politician. So her profile has not been tremendously high.

There have been profiles of her. I believe she's been available for media profiles and interviews. I think he has been using her to some degree. In fact, from my perspective -- and maybe this is just because I've been traveling with the Bush campaign -- I'd actually say that she may have taken a higher profile in the Bush campaign than Mrs. McCain has in her husband's campaign.

O'BRIEN: All right, one more e-mail, Jeanne. This one comes from Jay Mundy at webtv.net. "With the majority of Republicans against John McCain" -- I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, but let's accept the premise for a moment -- "how does he propose to enact the various changes in legislation that he wants if elected president?"

MESERVE: This is -- the question was that John McCain had the majority of Republican support?

O'BRIEN: Yes, in other words, the Republican stalwarts are not supporting him. How can he -- how could he possibly govern ultimately?

MESERVE: George Bush has been governor, of course, of the state of Texas, and what he says is he has been able to very successfully push through reforms there. There was a recent article about some of the claims he's made to be a reformer with results, and they point to the fact that he did quite skillfully manage some of the political players in Texas in order to enact some of what he wanted. He also was good at bargaining to at least in a bad situation get a sliver of what he wanted. What this article seemed to be maintaining is that he has been able to work the political system quite successfully.

And he certainly makes that argument. He claims that he knows how to work with the Congress, he would be able to accomplish things. What he does id point to John McCain's reputation in the Senate, which is not -- even as Mr. McCain concedes -- one of Mr. Congeniality. Bush maintains that he'd be able to do more in Washington than he thinks someone with McCain's personality and record would be able to do.

O'BRIEN: Jeanne Meserve, who is covering the campaign today, on the hustings. They've let her loose from the office. We appreciate you joining us on our CNN SATURDAY MORNING "Reporter's Notebook" segment.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Jeanne.

MESERVE: Happy to be with you.

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