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Sunday Morning News

Political Editor For NPR Discusses Campaign 2000

Aired April 30, 2000 - 8:15 a.m. ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to election 2000 and we begin with the lucky number 21, lucky for card sharks and now one Oval Office wannabe. This past week, the Republican National Committee stuffed 21 million George Washingtons into its war chest during one, count it, one fund-raising dinner. That's some gold plated rubber chicken. Most of the money will, no doubt, be earmarked for the George W. Bush campaign.

For more on campaigns, cold cash and hard chicken, we turn to Ron Elving, political editor for National Public Radio. Ron, good to have you back with us.

RON ELVING, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: My pleasure, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, we're talking about some real money here. It takes a lot of dead presidents to become a president these days. When's it all going to end?

ELVING: Well, it's not going to end. It's probably just going to get bigger. The Democrats have vowed to break that record if they possibly can in raising money for their own national committee that would then be used to help the campaign of Al Gore.

O'BRIEN: Wow, all right, just curious, what does this have to do with John McCain and all the talk about campaign finance? Is that just a back burner issue now that he's out of the race?

ELVING: Well, in the long run I think John McCain's viewpoint is going to have an impact and I think we will talk more seriously about restraining some of this spending. But right now, we are living with the ruins, really, of the campaign finance laws that were passed back in the Watergate era. They've been dismantled largely by the Supreme Court and by the escalating costs of high dollar television so that now the campaigns -- well, George Bush raised $80 million for his own campaign. Now he's added $21 million through the Republican National Committee and I think we'll see record spending in the fall, as well. And in every succeeding election until we do get some kind of change in the system's rules, we'll see record spending.

O'BRIEN: And meanwhile, John McCain still making news, a trip to Vietnam and a lot of talk in the Bush camp of trying to win him over, perhaps get him on the ticket. What do you make of all that?

ELVING: Well, there's a meeting scheduled at least tentatively for May 9th in Pittsburgh between the two principals, McCain and Bush. But their staffs have been talking. Their people are talking and the big question is whether or not George W. will pressure John McCain in some way to take that number two spot.

McCain has made it as clear as anyone has ever made it he's not interested in taking that job. I don't think that the two men really want to have that particular kind of teammate relationship and I don't think they're going in that direction. The question is the agenda for the meeting. The question is what does John McCain get in exchange for a formal enthusiastic endorsement and a strong speech at the convention in Philadelphia that would really push George W. and really push McCain's supporters to come back into the Republican fold?

O'BRIEN: So something short of, perhaps, joining the ticket might be what's on the table here?

ELVING: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's, Vice President Gore is launching an attack on George W. Bush and specifically going after foreign policy. I suspect this is apt to be an area where the vice president will come back to time and again because he might see this as a point of weakness. Is the vice president apt to get some traction in this area?

ELVING: Well, the good news for Al Gore in recent days has been that the top issues that seem to matter most to Americans are things like health care, environment, saving Social Security, education and those are all issues that normally a Democrat exploits well. But the bad news for Al Gore has been that the person who's been connecting on those issues and doing himself some good lately has been George W. Bush. So Al Gore wants to change the subject to issues that he thinks Gore might, or that Bush, rather, might be a little weak on or at least where he might not be quite so able to connect with the American people successfully.

So Gore wants to change the subject to internationalism and specifically he wants to tie George W. Bush to some elements of the Republican Party that Gore and Clinton have portrayed as being anti- internationalist, specifically, Jesse Helms, the senator from North Carolina who's the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has made it clear he doesn't want to consider any more foreign policy initiatives on the part of this administration because he's hoping for a new Republican president in George W. Bush.

So that's the opportunity for the Democrats to link Bush to Helms and try to hurt Bush thereby.

O'BRIEN: And lastly, before we get away, a quick word on the New York Senate race, Rudy Giuliani announcing some health difficulties. That clearly is going to change the tone of that campaign. How do you factor in the illness into that campaign?

ELVING: Well, Rudy Giuliani has a very large decision to make and he doesn't have much time in which to do it. He's been diagnosed with prostate cancer. It's very early detection, eminently treatable form of cancer but it does take some attention to treatment and he's got to decide on his course of treatment here in the next several weeks and he has really until May 30th, which is when the Republicans have their statewide convention in New York, to decide whether or not he can still be the mayor of New York, concentrate on that treatment for cancer and also beat Hillary Clinton in November.

If he decides he can't do all three, he's going to have to get out of the race before the end of this month and probably even sooner.

O'BRIEN: Wow, that would be quite stunning, wouldn't it?

ELVING: It would, indeed.

O'BRIEN: All right, Ron Elving looks at politics for National Public Radio and is a frequent visitor here. Thanks once again for being with us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

ELVING: Glad to do it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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