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Sunday Morning News

Republican Presidential Candidates Try to Rally Their Troops Before Iowa Caucuses

Aired January 23, 2000 - 8:30 a.m. ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: On the eve of the crucial Iowa caucuses, Democrat Bill Bradley gets a key endorsement. My good friend Leon Harris joins us now from Des Moines again with the latest on the run-up to the kickoff voting and campaign 2000. Hi, Leon.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Kyra, hi once again. Good morning, folks.

Here with me in Des Moines this morning is Bob Novak of the "Chicago Sun-Times." You also know Bob as CNN political analyst and one of the hosts of "EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS." He's joining me bright and early this morning. We thank you for coming in this morning well before you have to today.

ROBERT NOVAK, "CHICAGO SUN-TIMES": My pleasure.

HARRIS: Now, you were at a rally last night with some of the Republican rivals. What's the headline from what you saw and heard last night?

NOVAK: Well, the headline was, this was at the big Assembly of God Church, was that Steve Forbes was very well received there, made a kind of tremendous ovation. Not a great speaker, but he got a tremendous ovation. And George Bush wasn't there. And the reason is that the, one of the requirements to be there is that you had to be against the don't ask, don't tell policy and go back to a straight ban on homosexuals in the military.

And the headline is that Steve Forbes is hoping to surprise everybody with a maybe as high as 30 percent in the polls and he's doing that by trying to get around George Bush on the right side, on the conservative side.

HARRIS: Now, Bush has been trying to make himself appear more conservative. Is he more conservative?

NOVAK: I think he is more conservative.

HARRIS: Is he?

NOVAK: He's a lot more conservative than his father. There's just no place for a moderate or a liberal in these Republican primaries or caucuses. About the closest you can come is John McCain, and he's not campaigning in Iowa.

But we interviewed Governor Bush on "EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS" yesterday and he was just straight down the line conservative, particularly attacking Senator McCain, who he considers his biggest rival, on the tax issue and on budget. And let's take a look at what he told us on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I don't trust the people in Washington, Al. That's the difference between me and some of my candidates. I believe that there's unspent money lying around. It is going to be appropriated and generally appropriated on bigger government and more programs. That's just the nature of the process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Now, that's pretty conservative. But his big rival, Governor Bush's big rival here in Iowa is Steve Forbes and Forbes has been running a kind of a stealth, under the radar campaign against Bush on radio, a lot of radio ads that don't get much publicity and also been attacking Bush as not sufficiently anti-abortion.

So it was very interesting when I asked him on the program would he support unchanged, without a single change, the very strong anti- abortion plank in the Republican platform that's been in there for 20 years he said yes. And he had hedged on that program just on the Wolf Blitzer "LATE EDITION" show a week earlier. But now he has taken a very strong anti-abortion position and I think the Forbes people are a little surprised by that.

HARRIS: Now you've seen him up close and personal quite a bit. Is, was that move just for Iowans' consumption or is he really a true rock ribbed conservative?

NOVAK: I think he is a conservative. He's not as conservative, perhaps, as Alan Keyes or Gary Bauer, but he's very much more conservative than Bob Dole was, the last nominee, or than his father is. So -- and he's a very good campaigner. I was, I was watching both Bush and Forbes campaigning this week and Bush is a natural campaigner. He loves to schmooze with people, loves to talk with people while, whereas Forbes is still a little bit stiff. He's improved tremendously but he's not the natural campaigner that Bush is.

HARRIS: And that compete interview runs today on EVANS NOVAK HUNT AND SHIELDS at 5:30 Eastern.

NOVAK: No, that was 5:30 yesterday, but this morning it's at 11 o'clock Eastern on the rerun.

HARRIS: Eleven o'clock Eastern.

NOVAK: Yes.

HARRIS: All right, good deal. You gave yourself a chance to promote yourself this morning.

NOVAK: Thank you.

HARRIS: Bob Novak, thanks much for coming in this morning.

That's all we have right now from here in Des Moines. We'll be back later on. But for now let's go back to CNN Center in Atlanta and Kyra Phillips.

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