Will President Bush's support of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman help or hurt him in Novemeber? How will the AFL-CIO's endorsement bolster the Kerry campaign? Does the strong primary battle for the Democratic nominee bolster the Bush-Cheney reelection effort?
washingtonpost.com Chief Political Correspondent Terry Neal took his Talking Points column live to discuss the latest political news and any interesting political stories you've seen this week.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Terry Neal: Hello everyone. Sorry I'm running a bit late. It's a busy day. So let's get right to it.
Terry
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Washington, D.C.:
Did you see the West Wing last night? I think there was a hallmark line that says alot about the current 24/7 media age we live in. When the reporter told the fictional press secretary CJ Craig 'Drudge has better sources than you" What's your reaction? Is that true in real life? How addicted to Drudge are the politicos in the West Wing and Capital Hill? I believe Drudge is the Robinhood of the information age, so I am pleased that not everyone dismisses him solely as a cog in the GOP echo machine.
Terry Neal: I did not see West Wing last night, but that's an intriguing quote. The answer to that question is that no, Mr. Drudge does not have better sources than most reporters. Nor does he have the same obligation to get it right that most of us have either. That is not to say that he never breaks stories or that we're always right. What it does say is, he has a lower standard of accountability. For instance, Drudge is often credited with breaking the Monica Lewinsky story. That's not exactly true. What he broke was that Newsweek had been working on the story. Big difference. In the latest example, Drudge "broke" the news that reporters were chasing a story about John Kerry. In both of those cases, Drudge can argue "truth" as a defense. Reporters were or may very well have been investigating those stories. But those reporters could not break those stories until they had them nailed.
Quite often Drudges sources on these stories are journalists themselves, so it's sort of hard to argue that he's got better sources.
Now on the other hand, Drudge does have good sources in the White House and some political circles. People know they can feed him information and that he'll run it without asking a lot of questions. Now that's one of the best ways known to mankind to cultivate sources.
The bottom line is, Drudge is entertaining as heck. His site is one-stop shopping for all sorts of information. I check the site at least once a day. I like to be entertained.
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Somewhere:
Come November, are the Republicans going to get the kind of mileage they're hoping for out of the gay-marriage issue?
Terry Neal: It is difficult to say. In fact, I'm writing about this subject for my column tomorrow.
President Bush needs both to fire up his base and to win among moderate and independent voters. I think the White House sees this as a way to fire up the base without necessarily turning off a folks in the middle. I think the political calculation is that a strong majority of Americans support a ban on gay marriage and those who opposes it aren't the folks who are going to vote for Bush in November anyway.
But I think there is some risk for the president. I think there is a danger of appearing intolerant, particularly if the issue starts to dominate the news this year. The White House realizes this is a potential problem, and that's why social and religious conservatives had to exert great pressure to get the president to jump into the fray in an election year.
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Boston, Mass.:
Lot of speculaton that President Bush's support of the Ammendment was a panic move due to the current poll numbers. Any truth behine that?
washingtonpost.com: Another Bush Culture War (Post, Feb. 26)
A Move to Satisfy Conservative Base (Post, Feb. 25)
Terry Neal: I think it was less a panic about poll numbers than it was with the fact that there's growing discontent among the party's base of social and religious conservatives, who believe the president has been too reluctant to take on the tough culture war issues of the day, abortion, gay marriage, etc. For instance, there were a lot of social conservatives who were upset that the president didn't take the opportunity to pound the entertainment industry in the wake of the Super Bowl Breastgate affair.
This discontent is not necessarily showing up in the polls. I mean, these people aren't saying they'll vote for John Kerry this fall!
The concern for the White House is that it needs these people energized for November. They're not going to vote for a Democrat, but they could stay
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Ithaca, N.Y.:
I think that Senator John Edwards has been running for the Vice President position all along. He does not attack, criticize, or even dare to utter a bad word againist Senator Kerry. His campaign for the Presidency seems a farce.
What do you think?
Terry Neal: I think you're wrong. I think he's running for president. As he put it recently, "I need to be president." Now that doesn't mean he wouldn't accept VP if offered, but I think he strongly believes he can be and should be the president.
I think "farce" is a strong word that might be more aptly applied to some of the other folks who jumped in the race this year, but Edwards has demonstrated that while he's probably not going to win, he is appealing to a lot of voters.
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Falls Church, Va.:
I'm a big fan of The Daily Show. A couple nights ago, Jon Stewart had the author of Bush Country as a guest. I have never seen a more hostile crowd. Despite Stewart's best efforts at dismissing the far right and left, and trying to pull out the legitimate discussion points from the book, the crowd booed every defense of our president's actions. It was a little unnerving, and Stewart appologized, noting that he had no idea the audience was so filled with hippies. Is there that much bottled hostility against Bush out there, or was this just a liberal show showing its colors?
Terry Neal: Yes, there is a lot of hostility toward Bush out there among the left. It equals and perhaps exceeds the way the right felt about Bill Clinton. I don't have a clue who was in Jon Stewart's audience that day. But there is no question that this is a love him or hate him president. There are many people out there who feel just as strongly that George W. Bush is the best thing since sliced bread. Or at least since Ronald Reagan.
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Boston, Mass.:
Do you agree with Charles Lewis from the Center for Public Integrity, that Howard Dean was "mugged in Iowa." Were the media balanced and fair in their reporting? In the wake of finding out who the 527 PAC, Americans for Jobs, Health care and Progressive Values were, I think he was indeed mugged and the media colluded in his downfall.
Terry Neal: Yes, I do believe Howard Dean was rhetorically "mugged" by his opponents in Iowa. He was also hurt by an independent group, whose supporters included people close to Richard Gephardt, that ran very negative ads in Iowa and NH against Dean late last year.
I attended a Gephardt speech on the Wednesday before the Iowa caucus in Nevada, Iowa. Of the five pages of text in the written version of the speech, two pages were devoted solely to ripping Dean. Gephardt said not a word about anyone other Democratic opponent. In doing so, Gephardt helped ruin both Dean and himself.
Similarly, the week before the vote in Iowa, Lieberman, who wasn't even campaigning in Iowa, insisted on being allowed in one of the debates in Des Moines, apparently for the sole purpose of attacking Dean.
I think the attacks on Dean were half the problem. The other half had to do with his own mistakes.
Was his downfall big bad media's fault? Nope. Sorry. Don't buy it. Front-runners wear a target on their backs. Some survive, others don't.
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Terry Neal: Well folks, sorry to cut it a bit short today. I'm on deadline for my column tomorrow. I look forward to chatting with you all next week!
Take care,
Terry
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