Ms. Bumiller: Do you think Senator Kerry lied about his war record?
THE PRESIDENT: I think Senator Kerry should be proud of his record.
Ms. Bumiller: But do you think he lied?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't think he lied, and I think that he ought to be proud of his record. Let me talk about a larger issue, and that is 527s. I spoke to John McCain today, and I think these ought to be outlawed. I thought they ought to be outlawed a year ago, when I — whenever I signed the bill. I think they're bad for the system. And when you've got people — you know, billionaires writing checks, large checks to try to influence the outcome of the election. And so I —
Ms. Bumiller: But Mr. President, if you don't think he lied, why can't you talk about this one ad, why can't you denounce it —
THE PRESIDENT: Elisabeth, 527s, 527s; the larger issue of 527s.
Ms. Bumiller: I'm talking about this smaller issue of this attack on Senator Kerry by Swift Boat Veterans —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I understand how Senator Kerry feels — I have been attacked by 527s, too. I think it's a — the issue is, let's get rid of them all. That's where we ought to be — that's where this debate ought to be, how to get rid of this money that's flowing into the system.
Ms. Bumiller: Can I just try one more time? You don't want to address that specific advertisement. Will you condemn it?
THE PRESIDENT: All those ads ought to go, Elisabeth, every one of them, including the ads that have been run on me. Millions of dollars have poured into this system in an unregulated fashion. And for 12 months there was silence. And all of a sudden now, people are taking exception to unregulated soft money. And John and I are going to work together to try to — we're going to file a lawsuit trying to end the process, not only for the money being on TV, but for the money that's involved in other parts of the process. And I hope you join us.
No out-and-out condemnation. Why not? What does Bush have to lose, except the support of disgruntled liars?
Don't be so harsh man. They vote too. There's a Nytimes article floating around post-DNC that compares 3 polls. (I believe they were Gallup, CNN, ABC.) In any case the general trend was a small hike or staying the same for Kerry, and then varying drops for Bush.
ReplyDeleteThe article though, focused on the fact there was no hike for Kerry, as opposed to the fact Bush's approval fell. Given that Nader is doing 6%, I think simple majority is out of the question.
Basically, rallying the "low lifes" makes a certain amount of sense.