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October 13, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Presidential Debate Analysis
In-Studio Guests:
· Bruce Merrill, Director, KAET/ASU Poll and political science professor, ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication;
· Phil Boas, Deputy Editorial Page Editor, "The Arizona Republic;"
· Kathleen Ingley, Editorial Writer, "The Arizona Republic."

Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," today's final debate took place just a few Hundred yards from our studio here at ASU. We'll have post-debate analysis with "Arizona Republic" editorial board members plus we'll take a look at the polling trends here in Arizona up to now. That's next on "Horizon."

Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Thanks for joining us for this special edition of "Horizon." The attention of the nation, of course, focused for a moment right here at ASU for the final debate between President Bush and Senator John Kerry. That debate is now history, but less than three weeks from Election Day, where does the race stand here in Arizona? Joining me to look at some polling trends over the summer and fall is Bruce Merrill. He is the Director of the KAET/ASU Poll and a political science professor in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. And a fine Political Science professor he is, I can testify to that.

Bruce Merrill:
Good.

Michael Grant:
Everything I needed to know about polling and a lot more, Bruce.

Bruce Merrill:
Absolutely.

Michael Grant:
You taught me -- well, it was just four or five years, undergrad.

Bruce Merrill:
Four or five years ago, Michael.

Michael Grant:
It's good to see you.

Bruce Merrill:
Good to see you.

Michael Grant:
Overall, reaction to the debate, what was your take?

Bruce Merrill:
Well, I thought it was pretty darn even. I thought they both did what they needed to do. I thought Kerry continued to look presidential. I think he appeared to be informed, had a lot of facts. I think one of the criticisms earlier has been that he said he had a plan but he really didn't fill it out much. I think he was better at laying out what he would actually do if he became president. On the other hand, I think Bush, keep in mind, Michael, this was supposed to be the president's real weakness, the economy, domestic issues. And I think considering it was supposed to be his weakest area he did awfully well, particularly making the distinction between he and Kerry in terms of taxes, notice that he used the "L" word, liberal, several times and called him a northeastern liberal. I think at one point -

Michael Grant:
Massachusetts took quite a beating tonight.

Bruce Merrill:
I think at one point he actually said that Kerry made Ted Kennedy look like a conservative in the United States Senate. So I think the president did what he needed to do in this particular debate. I rated about even.

Michael Grant:
Now, Bruce, in addition to doing our poll, you follow a ton of polls nationwide every day. Give us an overall look nationally at where we seem to be as well as in everyone forgets this is really not one national contest, this is 50 state contests. Where are we?

Bruce Merrill:
Well, Michael, you're right, I monitor all the national polls that are available every day. I monitor the projections for the electoral vote. If the vote had been held today, the national polls say it was 47-47, dead even. The electoral vote, Bush would have won today by probably 12 votes. Which means that one state changing between now and Election Day could change that. It is maybe not only possible but almost likely that we might have a situation like we had three years ago, four years ago, where you have one candidate winning the electoral vote and one candidate winning the popular vote. If that happens two terms -- two elections in a row, I think you will have outrage in America and I think you'll have instant demands to get rid of the Electoral College.

Michael Grant:
Interestingly enough, I noticed in tonight's debate Senator Kerry went out of his way on a couple of questions to talk about in particular Ohio and Wisconsin, which are obviously key states.

Bruce Merrill:
Yes.

Michael Grant:
Pennsylvania at this point in time I understand is fairly even in the polls and that's generally regarded as a state that Senator Kerry must take.

Bruce Merrill:
Absolutely. It's -- Pennsylvania is 47-46. That's within margin of error. So about all we can say there is that it is dead even and I think this is going to be a very, very close election. Now, I think it's important to understand in a media society these debates have been important, they've been wonderful for ASU and the showcasing the university, the city and the state. But in a media society, you have to have new information real quick. We'll get some post election tomorrow, and then we'll have the media turning to other things, which means we kind of like have to look at the end game for the campaign, and I think with it this close it's likely to get awfully nasty for the next couple of weeks.

Michael Grant:
Bruce, one of the things that our polls consistently indicated over the past four to five months is much of John Kerry's support was coming not so much from people drawn to John Kerry but --

Bruce Merrill:
As against Bush.

Michael Grant:
Instead voting against George Bush. In fact, those were some of the starkest numbers I've ever seen in that category. In this series of debates, and particularly tonight, did John Kerry give an undecided voter a reason to vote for John Kerry as opposed to just voting against George Bush?

Bruce Merrill:
Absolutely, Michael. I think if you look at the three debates, I think you made a good point, you can't really take the debates in ice isolation. You have to kind of look -- the debates are now over. I can tell you that before and after just the first two debates that Bush dropped four percentage points in the national polls and lost 22 electoral votes in those -- in just -- after those two elections -- or debates. So, we're going to have to wait and see what happens but there's no question Kerry closed the gap a bit.

Michael Grant:
Let's take a little stroll back through the summer months with our polls. We've got some things we can call up. I would like to go to the Bush economy -- no, the overall job approval rating. This shows how we polled on overall job approval. Bruce, as you have noted several times, this is probably the key indicator in a presidential contest.

Bruce Merrill:
It is. Notice that these numbers simply say that it's been about 50-50 because you have margin of error here. CNN came out with a poll today that showed that Bush before the debate had dropped to a 47% overall approval rating. We're going to do our next poll next week. It will be very fascinating to see what happens. But the single strongest predictor of who wins the election when you have an incumbent president has been his overall job performance rating. It's obviously very precarious for Bush at this time.

Michael Grant:
All right. One of the other things we consistently ask a question on was the Bush -- do you approve -- do you have confidence in the way the president is handling the economy? This, of course, was a domestic issues debate, various economic issues taken up. You can see the poll results we got from June to September. Can the president really change this with the words that he says, or for that matter, can John Kerry change this with the words he says at tonight's debate?

Bruce Merrill:
Not really. And the interesting thing about this presidential election, Michael, is that normally the economy, things like healthcare, Social Security, are really very, very important. If you go back and look at his father, his father lost the presidency because the first Gulf War was over too quickly, it allowed the public to transfer their attention to these domestic issues. But in this particular campaign, we are at war, and as important as the economy and all these other issues are, I think what you saw Bush doing well tonight is saying, in essence, we're at war, you better make sure, if you're going to change the commander and chief that he's going to be able to do a good job.

Michael Grant:
So do we have those two basic fundamental political truths arguing with themselves in this election: Americans vote their pocketbook and they don't want to change horses in mid-stream in a war?

Bruce Merrill:
Absolutely. There's a long-standing concept called the rally around the flag syndrome. When you're at war, you rally around the leader. That's the biggest thing Bush has got going for him. The only positive approval rating, by that I mean over 50% of Arizonans, consistently rate Bush on his ability to conduct the war on terrorism. A minority actually support the way he's conducting the war in Iraq. So it's what he's trying to do is in essence tie everything into the war on terrorism. We're fighting terrorists in Iraq to keep them from here. We had 9/11. We've had the economy. If we didn't have all this spending, the economy would be better. So it's in his advantage.

Michael Grant:
In fact, in many -- you saw that playing many time tonight where questions that had only maybe some tangential reference to Iraq seemingly seized on by both candidates. It did seem to me that Senator Kerry was thinking, I did pretty well on debate number 1, maybe this is some territory I should revisit, too. Good strategy on his part?

Bruce Merrill:
Well, yeah, I think so. I noticed a couple of points where the senator almost -- remember in the two first debates when he talked about faith-based issues, he talked about his faith getting him through his experiences in Vietnam. You didn't hear him say that tonight. I mean, he has to walk a real tightrope. I think this was one the real early strategic errors he made by interjecting the war. The war in Vietnam was a war that most people would have a high probability of voting don't find very favorable memories about. They would rather forget it.

Michael Grant:
That's right. As you mentioned we're going to be polling for a final time next week, but let's throw up our final graphic in this area, and that has been our poll results over the past four months. Tell us what you see there, other than the obvious our last poll had the president with an 11-point spread.

Bruce Merrill:
Well, basically I think what we found is that overall I think Bush is probably led in Arizona over the summer by four or five percentage points. Now, however, that's outside of statistical error. So we could not until the last poll say that he was clearly ahead. But I do think that it's important to point out that Fred Stollup at the Northern Arizona Research Lab, and he does very good work, came out with a poll today that showed the race tightening in Arizona and Bush only four percentage points ahead which would be back in margin of error. Now, what's important about that, Michael, is that Kerry decided to do pull his ads out of Arizona after our poll and the Republic poll showed Bush with about a 10-point lead. I kind of wonder now to see if those ads start reappearing, particularly if our poll next week shows it a much closer race.

Michael Grant:
Last question... I find it difficult to believe that anybody could be undecided at this point, but you and I are obviously not typical --

Bruce Merrill:
We're political nuts anyway.

Michael Grant:
That's right. Assuming there are undecided out there, have they now received enough information -- do they make up their minds based upon tonight's debate and the vice-presidential and two presidentials before.

Bruce Merrill:
Well, Michael, when you talk about the undecided vote, it's probably down to 6 or 7% and, frankly, most of that isn't what most people think of as an undecided voter that is going to vote and is still trying to say, Which one should I vote for? Many of the people that tell pollsters they're undecided this late in the campaign are so out of politics, they're not going to vote, and it's easier to tell a pollster, Well, I haven't made up my mind. The people that can be influenced by this kind of debate are kind of the people leaning towards one candidate or another but don't have strong ties to either Bush or Kerry and they can be persuaded. That's what we have seen in the polls. I think Kerry has clearly benefited by maybe three our four percentage points since these debates started.

Michael Grant:
Bruce Merrill director of the KAET/ASU Poll, thank you very much for the input. It's a fascinating debate season.

Bruce Merrill:
We'll have a fun poll next week.

Michael Grant:
As you know and as we have discussed, tonight's focus, of course, on domestic issues, a key debating point that came up on immigration and this is what the candidates said on that.

George W. Bush:
We're increasing the border security of the United States. We've got a thousand more border patrol agents on the southern border. We're using new equipment. We're using unmanned vehicles to spot people coming across. And we'll continue to do so over the next four years. It's a subject I'm very familiar, after all, I was a border governor for a while. Many people are coming to this country for economic reasons. They're coming here to work. If you can make 50 cents in the heart of Mexico, for example, or make $5 here in America, $5.15, you're going to come here if you're worth your salt, if you want to put food on the table for your families. And that's what's happening. So in order to take pressure off the border, in order to make the borders more secure, I believe there ought to be a temporary worker card that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up so long as there's not a -- an American willing to do the job, to join up in order to be able to fulfill the employer's needs.

John Kerry:
4,000 people a day coming across the border. The fact is that we now have people from the Middle East, allegedly, coming across the border, and we're not doing what we ought to do in terms of the technology. We have iris identification technology. We have thumb print, finger print technology today. We can know who the people are that they're really the people they say they are when they cross the border. We could speed it up. There are huge delays. The fact is our borders are not as secure as they ought to be and I'll make them secure.

Michael Grant:
Joining me now for local debate insight, two prominent Arizona big thinkers, as we call them in the business, Phil Boas, Deputy Editorial Page Editor for "The Arizona Republic," and Kathleen Ingley, also an editorial writer for "The Arizona Republic." Thanks for being here. You will acknowledge the "big think" thing, will you not?

Phil Boas:
Oh, it's generous.

Michael Grant:
Well -- I don't know how they do this, but they have some instant poll results already available that indicates at least those polled in this particular instant poll ranked it a dead heat, maybe John Kerry a point or two. Bruce Merrill you just heard seemed to think the president held his own, a draw. What do you think?

Phil Boas:
I don't know. Do you want me to treat you like the candidates treated Bob Schieffer and not answer your question?

Michael Grant:
There was a whole lot of answer movement --

Phil Boas:
I thought Kerry was the winner again. I thought he won the first debate decisively, and I think he won this third debate, but it didn't mean as much because I think that kind of thing has been factored in already. Kerry is a superb debater and he is much more comfortable dealing with facts and numbers and dishing them out than Bush is. It's very difficult for Bush. If you're a Bush supporter, when you watch that debate, you're watching the clock, waiting for it to get over. He does -- this is an area where he struggles. It's not his strong point.

Michael Grant:
In fact, Kathleen, I wonder if they could go back and renegotiate the debate rules if President Bush' troops wouldn't be better served to have had three town halls because he's -- he's clearly more comfortable in that format than he is in this kind of format, as Phil's indicated.

Kathleen Ingley:
Absolutely. Although I think we so that he maybe -- it helped having that town hall debate, he definitely loosened up. You didn't have the feeling as you did in the first debate that he was looking at the clock thinking, oh, I've got to fit up a little bit more. So I disagree with Phil in the respect that I think that the bar has been set quite low for the president, and if he -- you know, if he does okay, then I'm sure that there will be many people say this was -- he had the edge.

Phil Boas:
I was listening to Janet Napolitano, though, and she was setting the bar very high for Bush. She was talking about the fact that he was a governor before this debate started and he knows these issues like the band of his hand. He should know them. So she was getting him ready to take him down.

Michael Grant:
Speaking of an issue that he should know like the back of his hand and he pointed this out, having been the governor of a border state, first, Phil, I thought it was kind of interesting that the immigration issue came up tonight. There was some debate, if you'll pardon the expression, whether about whether or not Bob Schieffer would get there because it's sort of perceived as regional as opposed to a national issue, but he made the comment he received more e-mails on that particular subject than any other. How do you think the candidates handled the immigration issue?

Phil Boas:
Well, first of all, I think immigration is really the third rail of this election because these candidates don't want to touch that, and it was fascinating to watch their answers because they both answered the same way. They were both -- they were both Rusty Childress, they were both beating their chests and talking about sealing the border, and that's not their signature policies immigration. I mean, Bush on immigration wants this guest workers program. And Kerry wants to provide a kind of amnesty for those that earn it. It's much more a softer policy than the kind that they were describing. That's problematic for them because they know there's real anxiety out there in the country over immigration right now.

Michael Grant:
And I think, at least the administration believes the third rail is the amnesty issue and, of course, President Bush, Kathleen, closed his answer by saying, Senator Kerry supports an amnesty program. I think he was trying to shove him on that portion of the railroad track.

Kathleen Ingley:
Exactly. Amnesty does raise a lot of anxiety for people. They remember how the amnesty before didn't work the way we thought it was going to, but not because of the problem being so much with the amnesty but the fact that there was no will to have sanctions on employers and, in fact, Kerry did say, we have to have sanctions on employers. What I think is interesting is that this is -- I don't think this is just a border issue. I was in New York getting a ride in a taxi talking to the -- and the driver was saying, I used to be in construction work. I was pushed out by illegal immigrants who took the job for a lower price. We know that there are small towns where there's manufacturing, places where you didn't see someone from another state and now they have a lot of immigrants from Mexico, a lot of anxiety.

Michael Grant:
Speaking of which, do you think Senator Kerry played stronger on the overall jobs point? What triggered the thought was your comment about the loss of the job and he was -- he was stressing outsourcing, he was stressing that the movement of jobs overseas. What do you think?

Kathleen Ingley:
I think so, and not just -- not jobs but also the quality of jobs, the pay he did mention, he pulled a figure out about what's happened in Arizona and the jobs that have come here and -- if I'm recalling correctly, but they don't pay as well as the jobs we lost. So it's the anxiety also of what type of job do you have. The anxiety about your paycheck, other expenses are eating it up. So the whole middle-class worries about do I keep my job and is that job really going to keep paying.

Michael Grant:
The president counters, though, and this was a theme that came up over and over again, it clearly had been thought about quite a about it, but stressing education, when a job is lost, how do you help that worker? Well, I help him with retraining. With a better education system. Those kind of things. It clearly was a theme that I think the president touched on a number of times.

Phil Boas:
Yeah, and I think that's his answer to the Democrat attack on outsourcing, for instance, and I thought that was really interesting tonight, particularly with Kerry, because I think we saw a skin back tonight with Kerry on outsourcing. Kerry has talked very tough on outsourcing, but he made it clear tonight you can't stop all outsourcing because to do so --

Michael Grant:
He said to that labor unions.

Phil Boas:
Right. Because what happens is the comeback on that is that you remove yourself from the global economy, and so I thought there was a little bit of a drawback on Kerry on that issue tonight.

Michael Grant:
So we do not get too far removed from the debate itself, let's go to a clip on taxes. To set this up just a little bit, Senator Kerry's votes on taxes in the Senate are being discussed, and let's take a look at that segment of the debate.

John Kerry:
If anybody can play with these votes, everybody knows that, I have supported or voted for tax cuts over 600 times. I broke with my party in order to balance the budget. And Ronald Reagan signed into law the tax cut I voted for. I voted for IRA tax cuts. I voted for small biscuits. You know why Pell grants have gone up, because more people qualify for them, but they're not getting the $5100 the president promised them. There are more people that qualify --

George W. Bush:
Senator, no one is playing on your votes. You voted to increase taxes 98 times. When they voted -- when they proposed reducing taxes you voted against it 126 times. You voted to violate the budget caps 277 times. There's a mainstream in American politics and you sit right on the far left bank. As a matter of fact, your record is such that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from Massachusetts.

Michael Grant:
Kathleen, that's the clip Bruce was talking about a little earlier. I counted at least half a dozen liberals I think 3 references to Massachusetts, and maybe three or so to Ted Kennedy. Again, it was a thematic approach.

Kathleen Ingley:
Absolutely. Absolutely. One of Bush's tactics, of course is to paint Kerry as -- use the "L" word and he was very much a point with that. It's interesting to see Kerry -- flipping around and saying -- citing JFK and FDR and Ronald Reagan, aligning himself with them, mentioning John McCain and things he's doing with John McCain twice, prompting the president to have to rush in and say, wait a minute, John McCain endorsed me. So there was a little, I thought, interesting jujitsu there because, of course, he knew that "L" word was coming.

Phil Boas:
I think the biggest hit that Bush scored tonight was on a vote that Kerry took and that was on the Gulf War, and I think he nailed him on that, in '91 when he voted against the Gulf War, back when we had a coalition that was celebrated around the Globe, and he raised the point, what kind of test do you have to have that can pass John Kerry's muster? You know, that was his best moment of the debate tonight, I thought.

Michael Grant:
I thought one of the other good exchanges between the two -- perhaps the best in terms of comparison and contrast was on the healthcare subject and we've also got the candidates' positions on that from the debate. So let's run that tape now, if we can.

John Kerry:
The fact is that my healthcare plan, America, is very simple... it gives you the choice. I don't force you to do anything. It's not a government plan. The government doesn't require you to do anything. You choose your doctor. You choose your plan. If you don't want to take the offer of the plan that I want to put forward, you don't have to. You can keep what you have today.

Michael Grant:
Obviously the president talking about Senator Kerry's healthcare plan. I almost found myself flashing back about nine or ten years or so with the Clinton administration's foray into national healthcare plan that didn't go over so well, and I thought to a certain extent John Kerry on the defensive on that stressing the point I'm not trying to give you that kind of plan, I'm trying to give you options.

Phil Boas:
We talk about Kerry and why he's such a fine debater and I think one of the big reasons is he exploits the advantages of not being the incumbent and those advantages are, one, that your record is untested and so it's just shining and gleaming and it's unbroken and unblemished. And the other aspect of any president's record is a big target, and this is where he scores his best points on healthcare, I think, tonight and that was on how the administration was unwilling to get behind the bulk buying of medication, bring down the price of drugs and, instead, created a windfall for the drug companies. Bush never effectively answered that.

Michael Grant:
That's one that I think seems very strange to most Americans that you can't import safe drugs from Canada and, gosh, if the Veterans Administration can negotiate with the drug companies, why can't we? We're almost out of time, Kathleen, but we talked a couple times in the green room about I did think both Senator Kerry and President Bush played very well to their bases tonight trying to say the things to them that they wanted to hear on issues like abortion, gay marriage came up, those kinds of things.

Kathleen Ingley:
Absolutely. Yes, the -- one of the keys, because we know that actually positions are pretty much solidified now, so the key is going to be get people out, so you really want to be out there waving the flag, reminding the folks, get out there because if you care about choice, to mention the issue you were talking about, then John Kerry is reminding you that he is going to be out there to defend choice. President Bush is going to remind you that he's going to be out there fighting abortion. And those are real bedrock issues that people feel very strongly about and certain people it will get them to the polls.

Michael Grant:
And particularly when an election appears to be this close you got to mobilize the base.

Kathleen Ingley:
Absolutely.

Michael Grant:
Kathleen Ingley, thank you very much for joining us, Phil Boas, we appreciate the input. We will have transcripts of tonight's program online. To get those, please visit our website. That address is www.azpbs.org. Click on "Horizon." You can also contact us and find out about upcoming topics.

Reporter:
It's the debate after the debate as supporters of both presidential candidates rush to spin alley and try to spin their candidate as the winner. You'll hear what these spin doctors have to say. Also we'll tell you what regular people gathered to watch the debate at Wells Fargo Arena have to say about it. That's Thursday at 7:00 on "Horizon."

Michael Grant:
And, of course, Friday the journalists will join us to discuss the week's news events. I predict the debate may come up. Thank you very much for joining us for this special edition of "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

 

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