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Sunday Morning News

Who Will Gore Select as a Running Mate?

Aired August 6, 2000 - 8:03 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Selecting a running mate will no doubt be one of the key decisions Gore will make in his bid for the presidency and joining me now to talk about that and the presidential campaign is Celinda Lake. She's a Democratic pollster and one of the party's top strategists.

Good morning, Celinda.

CELINDA LAKE, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: You know, Miles and I were talking about this earlier on, you said you've got to ask this question. You made a very good point. As a vice president, Al Gore, will it be easier for him to select a V.P.? I mean, obviously he'll know what it takes.

LAKE: I think it's a great question and I think that's right. He'll have a real insight into it. I also think as part of probably the strongest working team that has existed in decades as president and vice president, Al Gore has not been a ceremonial vice president and I think he's going to pick a working partner and I think that'll be a real strong part of his selection, as well.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the latest numbers. You gave us some statistics that you have. Within a week now, and this, I guess, was during the RNC, taking a look at Bush and Gore and the spread, I think we have a graphic. Nope, we don't have it. All right. So I've got it written down here. Here we go, Bush and Gore, Bush at 40, it looks like 52 percent as of August 3rd and Gore 35 percent of August 3rd.

How did you develop these numbers, Celinda?

LAKE: What we did was we did nightly tracking every night of the convention and I think you see that the convention did do some good for the Republicans. But I think they're, that those numbers are at the absolute peak and I'm sure that they've actually already come down because the convention is a time when there's only a one-sided conversation. Only George Bush was in the news. Al Gore has come back strongly in the news, a strong presence. He'll dominate the next couple weeks and I think you'll see this race be very, very close by Labor Day.

PHILLIPS: Now, as a pollster, when does it become safe to say all right, you can believe in these numbers, this is it? LAKE: Probably the night of the election.

PHILLIPS: That's what I was wondering. OK. So they really aren't that dependable? I mean it's possible that Gore all of a sudden could, after the convention, come out way ahead of George Bush? Is that unusual?

LAKE: I think that, I think that's, I think that would be unlikely because right now we have a situation where the two parties are about equal. You have a situation where George Bush has really solidified his base, the Republicans. The Democrats haven't been paying that much attention. I think what you're likely to see is just a very close race throughout the fall and going down to the wire in November.

PHILLIPS: All right, well this is definitely not a close race when we look at four names -- Bush, Gore, Nader and Buchanan. We have some other stats here that we're going to bring up. Let's talk about this spread and how, you know, how you gather your numbers. Are we going to take a look at it? No. There we go. Celinda, are you still with us?

LAKE: I am.

PHILLIPS: You can hear me. OK, here we go. We've got the choice for president -- Bush, Gore, Nader, Buchanan. How did you come up with these numbers, this sampling?

LAKE: Again, the same way, randomly interviewing likely voters and this is screened for turnout and that's one of the things that the Democrats definitely have to be focused on in the fall. Our voters are less likely to turn out than Republican voters right now. But you also see some strength for Nader and that strength for Nader is coming in the west and the Midwest out of the Democratic base.

You'll notice if you attribute the Nader vote to Gore that you would have a very tight race today. So I think that it, there are a lot of things that suggested a real surge for Bush. He got a good bounce off the convention, although not as good as Ronald Reagan got off his. But again, I think you'll see it rapidly close this month.

PHILLIPS: Celinda, final question, what's Gore going to have to do to get some of these points back?

LAKE: Well, one thing he's going to have to do, I think, is just get people's attention back and during a convention it's a monologue, but a campaign is a choice. And I think he will do that. He's already doing that by very actively campaigning and sending out a message.

The second thing is that was a nice convention and it did a lot of work for Bush, introducing him, but it didn't really set an agenda. It did nothing to change the dynamics of the race. It did nothing to say to voters here's what you need to vote on. I think the Democrats need to present clear choices to the voters and in think those choices will be around health care and prescription drugs, around Social Security, around who's going to get the deficit down, education. And I think when those choices are presented to the voters, they'll see a real difference and you'll see this race close rapidly.

PHILLIPS: Celinda Lake, Democratic pollster and strategist, thanks for being with us this morning.

LAKE: Thank you for having me.

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