Elections Today
- Pennsylvania
Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
ABC News' The Note: First Source for Political News
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 21, 2004—<br> -- NOTED NOW
TODAY'S SCHEDULE (all times ET)
FUTURES CALENDAR
Morning Show Wrap
Evening Newscasts Wrap
42 days until Election Day9 days until the first presidential debate14 days until the vice presidential debate17 days until the second presidential debate22 days until the third presidential debate
NEWS SUMMARY
Stuff that matters: the president's U.N. speech; John Kerry on "Regis"; the fallout over the CBS flap; Ohio's gay marriage ballot measure; Kerry's heartbeat on the Iraq issue; shifting resources in battleground states (and former battleground states!!); and health care for every American child.
But the capacity of John Kerry to tighten the presidential race all the way back up depends on his performance in the presidential debates, and thus nothing matters more at this point than the terms of those events.
Although Anne Kornblut's Boston Globe framing of the conclusion of the debate about debates is typical LINK ("Despite tussles over the timing and format, the 90-minute debates will take place more or less as initially proposed; only the subjects of the first and third debates have changed."), in fact, James Baker, by accepting all four debates (3 presidential and 1 veep), seems to have gotten some other key, little-Noticed changes in return.
What the Bush campaign got changed:
1. The first widely watched and covered debate will be on foreign policy and national security, rather than domestic policy.
2. No direct engagement between the candidates is allowed — the Commission's proposed plan had actually encouraged such dynamic-changing contact.
3. As "Miss (Nicolle) Devenish" told the Washington Times : "the agreement reached yesterday also will make 'very clear whenever the candidates attempt to filibuster or grandstand. There is a light that will flash for TV audiences when that happens — a historic first,' she said. 'Moderators have to sign on and say they agree with the rules, or we'll find new moderators.'"
4. The voters at the town-hall debate won't be undecideds, but, rather "soft" supporters of each side — and we have yet to figure out what that means or why Team Bush prefered that — but Baker got it.
5. The candidates can't address each other with "proposed pledges" (although rhetorical questions are allowed!!).
6. The town-hallers can't ask follow ups or participate after they ask their one question — avoiding any prospect of a "Richmond" moment.
The Commission itself and the moderators have not been heard from, but our guts tell us two things:
A. This deal will stick.
B. If George Walker Bush already owed James Addison Baker big time after Florida, he owes him bigger time now.
In New York, President Bush addresses the UN General Assembly at 10:30 am ET. He is expected to make the case that the U.S. is helping make a better world, broadening his argument beyond Iraq to tout the global AIDS initiative and announcing a new third world debt relief initiative. He will of course also talk Iraq and Afghanistan, giving a tip of the hat to Iraqi Prime Minster Iyad Allawi, who will be there watching.
Bush also holds individual meetings with the leaders of Iraq, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who called the Iraq war "illegal" last week.
There will be lots of network and cable coverage of all of this, allowing the President to be the President, astride the world stage in a setting that John Kerry can't match.
Sen. John Kerry does "Regis and Kelley" live at 9:00 am ET before beginning a two-day assault on Florida, the first time he has campaigned there since he toured Hurricane Charley damage on Aug. 20 (!) Kerry and Edwards appear together (in Orlando at 9:00 pm ET) for the first time since their post-convention buddy tour. Kerry also has a 2:45 pm ET town hall in Jacksonville, Edwards also has 2:45 pm ET and 6:45 pm ET events in Tampa.
Vice President Cheney has a 10:00 am ET event in Wauseon, OH and a 12:10 pm ET event in Lansing, MI.
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader discusses the state of his campaign in Washington at 12:30 pm ET, while Ohio and Wisconsin hold hearings on challenges to his candidacy in those states.
The debates are set!:
Quiz to see how closely y'all have read the agreement between Jim Baker and Vernon Jordan: although there are many mandated coin tosses, what variable will be determined by coin toss only if the campaigns can't work it out themselves? (See the end of The Note for the answer.)
Now that there's a debate deal, both campaigns will continue on their "our opponent is an incredibly effective debater whose skills should not be underestimated" paths.
But before news organizations rush off to buy their plane tickets for Miami, St. Louis, Tempe, and Cleveland, it's important to remember not only the what that's been decided, but also the why, and who benefits from the masterful negotiating skills of James A. Baker III and Vernon Jordan.
Dick Stevenson of the New York Times offers up a must-read layout of the debate rules. LINK
"Mr. Bush is the most powerful man in the world, so it is fitting that he be able to choose what kind of pen or pencil he wants to take notes with during the debates. Graciously, Senator John Kerry is granted the same discretion."
"But should either man feel the urge to stretch his legs during the first or third debates, he will be out of luck. 'At no time during these debates shall either candidate move from their designated areas behind their respective podiums,' the agreement says."
"The section on the timing lights also included a discussion of audible time cues. It came a bit after the one specifying that the podiums (or, more likely, lecterns), for the two debates in which they will be used, 'shall measure fifty (50) inches from the stage floor to the outside top of the podium facing the audience and shall measure forty-eight (48) inches from the stage floor to the top of the inside podium writing surface'-where, it should be noted, the two candidates will be free to place paper of their own choosing."
"The Bush campaign was concerned about the original proposal that candidates would take questions from undecided voters in the Oct. 8 debate, in a town hall format in St. Louis. The final deal called for the questions to come from 'soft' Bush and Kerry supporters."
"Mr. Kerry also got something he wanted: three debates, although it is not clear whether the White House ever seriously contemplated forcing the plan to be scaled back to two."
"But the agreement went well beyond the big picture. Who could argue with a demand that each candidate be free to provide his own makeup person, given the way Richard M. Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow may have darkened his prospects in 1960?"
"But why the agreement that in the vice presidential debate Mr. Cheney and Mr. Edwards will sit behind a table? Moreover, it will not be any old table. It will be constructed by the debate commission 'according to the style and specifications proposed by the commission in consultation with each campaign.' (Democrats say the reason is that the White House did not want the youthful-appearing Mr. Edwards standing alongside Mr. Cheney.)"
Johnny Apple previews the Bush-Kerry debates, calling both men "effective debaters," assessing what's in store for both campaigns and voters, and what both need to get out of the events. LINK
The Talented Mr. Thomas M. DeFrank reports on the expectations game where "in the finest tradition of Clintonian excess," Lockhart "could maintain with a straight face that President Bush has never lost a debate." And Matthew Dowd, "normally the essence of sobriety," can say: "John Kerry is the greatest debater since Cicero." Plus, a senior Kerry source says, "If you push too hard for debates, you risk looking desperate." LINK
Bush at the UN:
In his speech to the UN, Bush is expected to deal lightly with Iraq, tying it to the broader, more popular, war on terrorism. Bush is also expected to discuss AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, hunger and illiteracy, the Washington Post 's Dana Milbank reports. LINK
" … .supporters and opponents of Bush agree, the president has no hopes of a substantive breakthrough as he prepares to address the General Assembly on Tuesday morning.":
"'It's a great visual for domestic purposes,' said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan administration arms-control official who is close to many top Bush aides. 'It undercuts Kerry's argument against Bush that he doesn't get along with other countries. They won't be booing him. They'll be politely applauding because they're well-mannered folks.'"
"Adelman said Bush's appearance would also reassure Americans 'that a second term is going to be less venturesome and traumatic than a first term," which brought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 'The body language and the real message is the two wars in the first term aren't going to be followed by two wars in a second term.'"
"By his own calculus, Bush should regard the United Nations as a lost cause. Before the Security Council failed to authorize force in Iraq in 2003, Bush said that 'unless the United Nations shows some backbone and courage, it could render the Security Council irrelevant.'"
"Bush does not call the organization irrelevant, but at a fundraiser here Monday night he implicitly scolded the United Nations, saying, 'When an international body speaks, they must mean what they say.'"
Kerry on Iraq; Bush counters back:
USA Today 's Jill Lawrence calls Kerry's Monday speech a "broad, scathing critique." LINK
Lawrence encapsulates it this way: "John Kerry tried Monday to cut through all the Iraq votes and verbiage in his past and create a new bottom line: This is President Bush's war, and he's botched it." LINK
The Chicago Tribune's Torriero and Pearson call it Kerry's "strongest challenge" to the president's Iraq policy. LINK
"Kerry advisers said the speech was meant to establish that Mr. Kerry, had he been president two years ago, wouldn't have invaded Iraq based on the facts that are known today. Earlier statements by Mr. Kerry and his campaign staff had left open that hypothetical question," the Wall Street Journal 's Shailagh Murray reports.
"The 47-minute speech was Mr. Kerry's most stinging critique to date of what he called Mr. Bush's 'colossal failures of judgment' on Iraq. Mr. Kerry also laid out, as he has before, four broad steps that he urged Mr. Bush to take immediately: repair alliances, train Iraqi security forces, improve reconstruction and ensure elections. If all that happened, Mr. Kerry said, "we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer, and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years," the New York Times ' Wilgoren and Bumiller report. LINK
Wilgoren and Bumiller have a "gleeful" Karl Rove saying: "The guy seems to have this belief that every time he speaks it's a blank sheet, and he doesn't have to worry about contradictory things he's said in recent days, weeks and months." LINK
We wonder how they got Rove on the record . . .
In a news analysis, the Washington Post 's Robin Wright has a bunch of analysts questioning "whether any American leader will be able to mobilize greater international participation, given the current dangers in Iraq and domestic political considerations in countries that have resisted earlier U.S. requests to play a role."LINK
Dan Balz has Sen. John Edwards being asked by a Marine Corps reservist to explain why he voted for a war in which his friends are dying: "I stand by my vote on the resolution," Edwards said. "But I did not give George Bush the authority to make the mess he's made in Iraq." LINK
David Brooks writes that "finally" Kerry "staked out a clear but substantively flawed contrast with President Bush on Iraq." LINK
The New York Times ed board sees Kerry finally gaining his voice on Iraq and stating, for the first time as a candidate, that he would not have gone to war if he had been president. LINK
The Washington Post 's Finer and Allen on Bush firing back, saying Kerry prefers the "stability of a dictatorship." LINK
"Kerry/Edwards offer plans for healing Iraq" reads the Cincinnati Enquirer editorial headline. LINK
"We are not yet convinced that Kerry and Edwards are offering the best plans to achieve these goals, but no one can argue that the goals are not worthy. The failure to attract a larger coalition to our cause in Iraq has impeded the war effort and cost the United States much in money, prestige and most importantly, casualties among our brave troops."
Related Stories
ABC News Live