J$P Instant Transcript! Ann Coulter and Pat Caddell on the latest poll numbers and RatherGate.

From Hannity & Colmes, September 23 2004:

ALAN COLMES [FOX NEWS]: Joining us now, former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell, and the author of the best selling book Treason, about nobody I know, Ann Coulter. Good to have you both with us. Pat, what accounts for the tightening here, Pat?

PAT CADDELL [DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Well, there’s been a little bit of tightening, part of it’s because finally Bush’s bounce, which really came in kind of two parts from the convention. He got an immediate bounce after the convention and he got a sort of a follow-through which happened after the Chechnian thing, with women particularly which I thought was interesting. It’s come back down a little bit. Structurally the race, though, you go through the internals and it is still a very, very difficult contest here. The problem is that the challenger has got such high negatives right now.

COLMES: Yeah.

CADDELL: And we’ve talked about this right now and it’s my concern. What we’ve got is a race that’s kind of come back a little bit, but structurally Bush has the first real lead in the campaign, and the question is how to challenge that lead.

COLMES: It is narrowing. Ann, I want to show you what’s happening in swing states here. And here are Bush’s approval ratings: nationally 50%, Iowa 51, Ohio 49, Pennsylvania 47, and Michigan 46%. That’s not good for a President to have under 50% in some of those important states, only 50% nationally. So that’s not great for a wartime incumbent President, is it?

ANN COULTER [AUTHOR: TREASON]: OK, these polls are better for you now. Poor Democrats.

COLMES: No no, I’m just, honestly, his approval ratings have never been much above 50% anyway.

COULTER: I’m not a poll analyzer; I will defer to Pat Caddell on that. But this is with a margin of error of 3%, 8%, and basically all of the polls show Bush ahead of Kerry. And he may only be ahead by four points or six points this week, versus 12 points last week, but it’s not good.

COLMES: It’s a trend, and you have to go by trends. Pat it’s not good for a President to have about 50% or under 50% approval ratings in key states.

CADDELL: It’s not good. Look, the President has been in trouble for this entire campaign, Alan. That’s an obvious point. The point hasn’t been that his numbers are in great shape. I said a week or so ago, 10 days ago when he was at his highest point, that it was structurally, underneath, a very volatile situation for him. The problem I keep pointing to is that the problem is Bush’s numbers haven’t changed all that much; they’ve gotten a little better. It is the challenger’s numbers have gotten worse over the last month, and that has not changed. That’s my concern as a Democrat, frankly.

SEAN HANNITY [FOX NEWS]: Let me go to Ann. I think the defining number was in the NBC poll: 68% of all respondents say Bush and Cheney have a message, and know what they will do if elected. Only 36% think that they have any clue what John Kerry’s going to do, now that John Kerry is the puppet on a string for James Carville.

COULTER: Right, right. And in the Fox Dynamics poll, when asked who would handle terrorism better, the numbers were pretty stark: 51% for Bush, 36% for Kerry.

HANNITY: Does that answer the gender gap issue, the security mom issue that you and I were discussing before?

COULTER: Oh yes, yes. I’m so pleased with my gender; we’re not that bright. [laughter] And generally even landslide victories--

HANNITY: Now if I said that, I want you to know--I’m glad you said that. [laughter]

CADDELL: I’m glad I didn’t say that. I’m glad I didn’t say that.

HANNITY: I don’t believe that, by the way. [laughter]

COULTER: No, Pat will back me up on that.

CADDELL: No, no, no! [laughter]

COULTER: In landslide victories for Republicans split the women’s vote.

CADDELL: Yeah.

COULTER: When Reagan won a landslide he was splitting the women’s vote, and then just overwhelmingly won among the men.

HANNITY: With men.

COULTER: Now what’s stunning about the numbers, and this is true of a lot of the polls now, is Bush’s winning among my gender. So apparently women, though we’re not as bright, don’t want to die any more than men. [laughter]

HANNITY: Oh, stop, “the women”! All right, you’re going to get us all in trouble. Look, Pat, let me throw up some numbers on the screen, quick numbers, quick states, I think key states in the race here. If you look at Florida for example, the Quinnipiac Poll, 48-43, when you add Nader it’s 49-41. So it’s an even bigger margin--

CADDELL: And he is on the ballot; Nader’s on the ballot there.

HANNITY: --and Nader will be on the ballot. Wisconsin it’s 52-38 as you can see there on the screen, Nevada 52-43, that’s another big change. And West Virginia, which only a day or so ago seemed to be leaning Kerry, it’s 51-45. I mean, if this holds up, obviously John Kerry--

CADDELL: Look--

HANNITY: --and Kerry’s pulled out of advertising in some states that he was going to try and contest.

CADDELL: Look, I don’t understand, I’ve never understood the idea of spinning polls. It seems to me they say what they say, we ought to be honest about it. I watched the campaign sometimes, I’m just, I don’t get it. The fact of the matter is, look, as I said, structurally Bush has established the first real lead in the campaign. That’s something we should look at. It is not getting any higher right now; if anything it’s coming down a little bit. The question now is that raises the challenge of what is Kerry going to do? The point of the matter is two things have happened, and Ann actually referred to them. And Ann, you’re not a pollster and you’re not supposed to make these points.

COULTER: [laughter]

CADDELL: But anyway, one of them is that we have the gender gap is closed, which is remarkable. Now Kerry’s pollster said yesterday, Alan, an amazing statement. He said he thought that the gender gap closing was not a problem but an opportunity. And I thought, thinking like that will take you, thinking like that will get you very far.

COLMES: I got to get to Ann in the next segment about how she says her gender is not that bright.

CADDELL: I didn’t say that.

COLMES: I know Ann Coulter, ladies and gentlemen, said that, Ann Coulter. We continue after the break...

[commercial break]

HANNITY: ...Continuing now, Pat Caddell and Ann Coulter. Pat, one of the things that’s bothering me is Kerry now has gotten message from, I think, the old smearing Clintonites that have joined his campaign to smear.

CADDELL: Yeah.

HANNITY: Every hour of every minute of every day, he’s now calling the President a liar, the President hasn’t told the truth. The next step is he uses the word Jim Crowe and talks about this phantom effort to suppress the black vote. And now he’s gone in the last 40 days to now scare old people, about this mysterious plan to steal their social security.

CADDELL: You know, that’s all right, we--

HANNITY: Is that going to win for your party?

CADDELL: Well, no. I mean, social security is an old standby for us, just like on the other side they always accuse us of being, Democrats of being weak on national defense. I don’t care about that stuff. I do care about the fact, though, that one of the problems here--you’re right. I mean, the people who have been brought in, and Alan and I have had this conversation on the air before, I’m very concerned because their basic attitude is we’ll just go in and one line thing: we will scream and yell everything we can, until--by the way, with the CBS thing hanging over this, which is very nerve-wracking for me as a Democrat. But I got to say this, I’ll tell you, the problem is you can only go so far with these kinds of attacks when they’re at that volume.

HANNITY: Yeah.

CADDELL: Now the Republicans have been saying outrageous things about Kerry as well, but they’re not using words like--

HANNITY: Nothing on the level, nothing on the level.

CADDELL: --excuse me, but they’re not using words like liar and things like that, which you don’t--people are trying to reach to the middle. The problem is that’s the sort of language that turns them off.

HANNITY: All right, let me ask Ann--

COULTER: Interestingly, if I could say on that point, all of this Bush lied, kids died apparently hasn’t worked. Because in this poll they ask which of the two, Bush and Kerry, would you trust to keep his word more? And Bush overwhelmingly beats Kerry, something like 49% to 37%. And this is after four years of screaming Bush lied, kids died.

HANNITY: All right, let me move on to another point here, and pat touched on this and we haven’t brought it up yet tonight. I really--and William Safire had a good piece--a crime was committed.

CADDELL: Yeah.

COULTER: Right.

HANNITY: Documents were forged, 50 days out of an election. If it weren’t for brave people, I keep mentioning them, Ben Barnes’s daughter, Col Killian’s son, Col Killian’s wife--

COULTER: Right.

HANNITY: --it may very well have impacted the outcome of this election.

COULTER: No that’s right and I’ll give you some more--

CADDELL: Let me say something, Sean--

HANNITY: Hang on, Pat. I want to know who forged the documents.

COULTER: Right.

CADDELL: Yeah, Sean--

HANNITY: I want to know more about Lockhart’s involvement, McAuliffe’s involvement--

COULTER: Right.

HANNITY: --and the Democratic party.

COULTER: And I’ll give you two more frightening scenarios. What if they’d been better forgeries? What if this were like the drunk driving charge, 72 hours before the election rather than 50 days before the election? You bet this could have affected the election; it’s unbelievable what CBS News has done.

CADDELL: Let me say, let me say--

COLMES: Pat, go ahead, Pat?

CADDELL: Let me say something. Look, I was on the other end of Watergate. I have no tolerance for this. I remember 1972 when nobody, when the Washington Post and Walter Cronkite, when it was a different CBS, were raising the question about Watergate. Nobody would speak up. Nobody would do anything about it. And I knew it was an effort to undermine the campaign I was in. From that day on I’ve sworn against this kind of thing. What went on in Texas, the issue is who did it? This is not the immaculate conception here.

COULTER: [laughter]

CADDELL: I said on this show, ten days ago, the first thing, and it was all over the internet apparently, it even ran on my old network. But they said things like, and I said, if it comes back and it’s a Democrat, we’re dead. And I hope it’s not. I’m very concerned though about this problem, and I want to know who did it. And once you know who did it, I’m not interested in CBS.

COLMES: The allegations, Ann, the allegations that the DNC was behind it or the Kerry campaign make no sense. First of all, Joe Lockhart had a conversation with Bill Burkett after the alleged forgeries took place.

CADDELL: Alan, you don’t really believe what Joe Lockhart said, do you? When he said this guy called, this guy who believed he had the instruments to destroy George Bush, and they didn’t talk about it? I wasn’t born yesterday.

COULTER: Right.

COLMES: I have no reason to disbelieve Joe Lockhart. But the point is this--

COULTER: That all he said was, you’ve got to fight against those swift boat guys.

COLMES: --here’s the point I’m trying to make, listen, hear me out here, hear me out. The documents were already out and already allegedly forged at the time that conversation took place.

CADDELL: That’s right.

COLMES: It makes no sense to blame Lockhart, or automatically for your own political--

CADDELL: I’m not blaming Lockhart, I’m not, I’m not saying that!

COLMES: --this is to Ann; hold on--no, I’m talking to Ann, I’m talking to Ann--

HANNITY: Hang on, Pat.

COLMES: It makes no sense--

COULTER: Well I prefer him attacking you than me. [laughter]

COLMES: That’s nice of you, thank you so much. It doesn’t make any sense to blame the Democrats for that. The documents are out there already at the time that conversation took place.

COULTER: I think the point is the swift boat veterans have really hurt Kerry, brought his numbers down. And all at once you have the Texans for Truth, you have the 60 Minutes report, and you have the Fortunate Son campaign by the DNC.

COLMES: They bother you but the swift boats didn’t bother you.

COULTER: I mean, this was a coordinated campaign.

COLMES: Why didn’t the swift boats bother you as much as all these other 527s?

COULTER: Because one was based on forged documents. You are a Democrat! [laughter]

COLMES: The documents were not about, we don’t know that the Democrats were behind that. You have no information about that.

COULTER: But we know they were forged documents.

CADDELL: Alan, Alan--

COLMES: But you don’t know that the DNC or the Kerry campaign had anything to do with it.

COULTER: You just asked me what’s the difference between the forged documents and the swift boat veterans. There are about 264 VietNam veterans on one side.

COLMES: The forged documents have nothing to do with the veracity of the issues. They’re not analogous.

COULTER: It’s a coordinated campaign.

COLMES: You can’t prove it.

CADDELL: That argument is the wrong argument. That argument is a dangerous argument, the argument that you can lie, cheat, and invent things, if somehow there’s some semblance of truth to it, has gotten a lot of people killed in this century.

HANNITY: All right we’ve got to run; thanks Pat, thank you Ann.