J$P Instant Transcript! Pat Caddell on Dayside with Linda Vester.

From Dayside with Linda Vester, November 4 2004:

LINDA VESTER [FOX NEWS]: We keep hearing that after the Kerry defeat, heads are going to roll in the Democratic Party. But which heads are we talking about? Pat Caddell is a Democratic strategist who has worked on many Presidential campaigns. He’s been there, done that, and he’s been talking a lot during this whole campaign. Pat, it’s nice to see you.

PAT CADDELL [DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST]: Nice to see you, Linda.

VESTER: First head to go is Terry McAuliffe?

CADDELL: Well, we might as well start with, yes, Terry McAuliffe, who yesterday actually aped a friend of mine, Bruce Feirstein, a writer at the New York Observer did this, a satirist, a wonderful piece about the election, describing what would happen election night, that I would advise anyone to go back and read online. But he said of Terry McAuliffe, he would say, after the Democratic defeat, he would say the Democratic Party has never been in better shape. And Terry McAuliffe literally said that word for word yesterday. I mean, this guy, this person who is basically as I call him a bag man--

VESTER: What do you mean, bag man?

CADDELL: Well, this is a guy, let tell you, let me explain that to you. He’s a bag man. Basically it’s about money from big corporations that he does, and that’s what he serves. And he’s been running around doing his, making frankly I think a fool of himself oftentimes with his attacks and stuff on the President so personal. But look, the issue the Democrats is an issue that could have blown this election wide open. And let me say, your audience is there, 8 billion dollars, 8 trillion dollars of the people’s money disappeared in the scandal over the bubble, the 401K scandal.

VESTER: Uh-huh.

CADDELL: The Democrats never spoke on it. During the campaign you had the whole scandal, mutual funds, in which people who have mutual funds are being robbed, pennies every hour every day. You didn’t hear a word about that. The reason you didn’t hear, and I have a whole stack of papers that goes, every day there’s another corporate scandal in which American people are being robbed and ripped off. And you didn’t hear a word from the Democratic Party. And you know why?

VESTER: Why?

CADDELL: Because the Democratic Party is so indebted to those money sources, that they can’t say, John Kerry was not only the leading recipient of lobbyist’s money, he was the leading recipient of Wall Street money. So when you have the organization of money that you saw two weeks ago, in the Senate they had a vote, we had a 2 million dollar problem to solve with the WTO in subsidies. So what did this Congress pass as 170 billion dollar tax giveaway to corporations, and it passes 69-17. If I’ve--

VESTER: Let me get you off on some other subjects. One suggestion today is--

CADDELL: Yeah, but what I’m saying is, who does this party serve? Let me say also--

VESTER: And it’s the special interests is what you’re saying, they have just, they’re completely in their pocket?

CADDELL: Yes, look, when you have both parties serving the same people, one owned and one rented, the American people get no representation then. They’re the ones getting robbed.

VESTER: Right.

CADDELL: The Democratic Party, let me just say this, three times the same people--

VESTER: Wait wait, Pat, I can’t get a word in edgewise, so I gotta--

CADDELL: I’m sorry Linda, I’m sorry.

VESTER: I know you’re all jazzed; we could probably go on like this for an hour.

CADDELL: I’m pretty worked up about it, I’ve held my tongue for months, I’m pretty worked up about it.

VESTER: OK, now it’s finally all coming out. There’s one suggestion today that Terry McAuliffe may be out as the head of the DNC, but Howard Dean might be in?

CADDELL: Let me just say, let me first of all say that he’s got to go. For three elections, three elections in a row, the Democratic Party has been taken down to defeat, elections they should have won, 2000, 2002, 2004, by the same group of basically inside Washington people: consultants, insiders, money people, and so forth. And they’ve all made a lot of money on this, and they’ve held their power, that’s what they want, and they have dragged the party down.

VESTER: OK.

CADDELL: Now you say Howard Dean. One think Howard Dean had was at least he was an outsider, at least he involved people and not simply to take their money, which is what these Democrats want to do basically. They had more money in the world this time, they took it from everybody. And you know what, they didn’t stand for anything. I said this on your show before. That convention, when they sat there and they told everyone in the party we’re not to have any issues, we’re not to stand for anything. I’m telling you I said it was a prescription for disaster and defeat then, and it is now, and that’s why we’re here. You’ve got to stand for something, otherwise you will certainly lose. And I’ll tell you, this moral values question you were just raising with Garrett, I’ve been screaming for months. The core of the Democratic constituency are the people who are most concerned and very concerned: African-Americans, Hispanics which we took a big loss with, older voters, are concerned about these moral issues and particularly gay marriage. And it’s like--

VESTER: Next time, next time Pat you and I need to set aside a whole hour and just talk about it.

CADDELL: I’m sorry.

VESTER: No no, I’m just teasing you. We got a lot to talk about and thank you very much, we appreciate it. Good to see you as always.