Complete Transcript: Edwards, Kerry on ABC’s “This Week”

[Feanorcurufinwe]

In case you are still interested in the two guys who have the best chances of becoming the Democratic nominee.

One snippet on health care:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why isn't Senator Kerry's plan do-able? He says he would allow everyone to buy into the same kind of health care coverage that members of Congress and senators have.

EDWARDS: It's -- why is it not do-able? It's a cost issue. I mean, at what point does the cost become so high that you can't get it done in today's environment? I mean, we're in a deficit environment. We're going deeper and deeper into deficit under this president. When we take the White House, and I believe I will about a year from now, we're going to inherit a huge deficit. So what is achievable in that environment? And will we do health care only at the expense of everything else that needs to be done in this country? I mean, we need to strengthen the middle class. We need to help those folks. We need to do something about our public school system. We need to do something about kids who want to go to college and don't have a chance to go.

You can't just choose one thing and say, We're going to put all our eggs in that basket.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KERRY: Well, he's wrong. He's dead wrong. And, in fact, the same people who've helped me formulate my health care plan are many of the people who helped formulate the Clinton budget in the 1990s. And we've crunched those numbers. And we've been very careful about this. We've done this because, if I won the nomination, I wanted it to withstand the scrutiny of you and others in the press. So these numbers have been carefully put together by people like Gene Sperling and Roger Altman, and Bob Reich (ph), people who were involved with the Clinton administration. And we've been careful to look at the health care plan so that it fits within the numbers that you get as you push back and roll back the Bush tax cut for wealthiest Americans.

Now, is my plan slightly more expensive than John Edwards's is? The answer is yes, it is. But what he negate -- what he doesn't look at is that that's where I get the middle-class break, again. I give $1,000 reduction in the premiums to the average person out there who, today, every time they bargain at the table for an increase in wages, those wages are being turned over to the health care companies.

I'm going to allow the average American in the middle class to put money in their pockets, finally, and do better by working harder, which is not what you can do under the Bush administration. It's what happened under Clinton. And I'll tell you, if you liked the first eight years, or the eight years of Bill Clinton, you're going to like the first four years of John Kerry.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63259-2004Feb22?language=printer

[Syrinx]

1. with all the Nader hoopla, I had completely forgotten about that

Were the two candidates face-to-face at all, or was it just separate interviews?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. It seems like from the transcript

that they weren't together...it's a little confusing the way it's continually saying
(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

I didn't see it. And I'm only partway through the transcript.

on edit: yes it's obviously seperate interviews edited together

[AP]

4. Separerate interviews. And it was edited to look like a tie.

[AP]

3. That was Kerry's strongest moment, but I still think Edwards is right

about health care. Big pharma and the HC industry is just too powerful. There's no way we're going to get through something meaningful in this climate.

It's best to create something that creates a class of young Americans who will learn the value of universal, inexpensive health care, and, in the meantime, dismantly the lobby industry, and get free TV time and public financing for political campaigns. Then, when all your ducks are in a row, have the debate over universal health care with a huge class of young Americans who know what it's worth, and have just come off of it arguing to their representatives its value.

Incidentally, one thing this transcript won't show you is Kerry's incredibly awkward smile after he said "if you liked 8 years of Clinton, you're going to love my first four years." It was incrediby unnatural. I almost felt sorry for him.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

5. That's funny, the moment you describe as awkward

someone earlier today described as his strongest moment. To each his own, I guess.

[AP]

6. No. The earlier poster said the line was strong. (I don't think the line..

...is all that strong -- it's good, but not great.)

I'm talking about the smile. I haven't heard anyone claim that smile wasn't awkward.

Did you see it?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

7. Please don't tell my story for me.

I don't know what you are talking about. What I am talking about is as I described it.

[AP]

8. Confused now. Were you refering to youself in third person two posts up?

And farther up you suggest you didn't see it -- you just read the transcript. So if I'm commenting on the smile, I'm telling a story that you don't know yet.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. I heard you describe it one way, and somone else describe it differently

That's what I said.

[AP]

10. The other poster who commented on that line (if we're talking about

the same post) was commenting on hearing it at an event in Altanta.

As far as I know, nobody has mentioned that strange smile today, excpept there was an article in some paper I read today commenting on how Kerry is awkward when he tries to seem warm and friendly.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

11. Look, you as an Edwards supporter

find Kerry awkward. I as a Kerry supporter find the mole on Edwards' lip to be distracting. Is that the level on which we should be having this debate? :eyes:

[AP]

12. If "I feel the candidate understands me and empathizes" is a significant

concern among voters, I think it is important that you feel like they're being sincere when they smile at you.

In my post above I wrote three things, (1) this exchange about health care was Kerry's strongest moment on TW, (2) I still agree with Edwards, and I explained why, and (3) that Kerry came accross as being unnatural when he tried to smile.

In replying you ignored my comments about 1 and 2, and went straight for 3. If Kerry's "natural-ness" weren't a big issue, you probably would have ignored 3, rebutted 2 and played up 1.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

14. Look, since you're pressing the issue

I find your candidate's 'naturalness' to be the insincere posing of a very good lawyer.

And it's not fooling enough of the jury for him to win.

That's why he's only won one primary.

[AP]

19. and I agree with everything Nick Lemann says about Edwards in this article

http://blog.johnedwards2004.com/comments.pl?sid=2432&op=&newsid=04/02/22/2258208&threshold=0&commentsort=1&mode=nested&cid=100444

[Feanorcurufinwe]

20. If only Nick Lemann had several million votes, instead of one

it might matter.

[AP]

21. If only Kerry were the sort of a candidate that didn't make supporters

so nervous that they felt arguments like this one were useful.

However, I do find it interesting that you admit the Lemann piece is powerful and seem to be relieved that the New Yorker doesn't have a huge subscriber base.

I agree, it is too bad that millions more don't know Edwards's story.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

22. I don't think there's any utility in these flame wars at all

As I've said before:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=312018#312093


Your wish that I were nervous, is natural, although, the reality of the campaign doesn't actually lend itself to me being nervous.

[AP]

23. Some people are trying to debate ideas.

There is an honest debate to be had over whether Kerry can connect to middle class Americans anxious about their jobs and about middle class opportunity (ie, the things Lemann writes that Edwards cares about and is a symbol of). And the rebuttal to that argument isn't that Edwards has a mole on his lip.

And Kerry might just end up the nominee because not enough people will find out about Edwards before it's too late. But that's not a good thing, and I think it's crazy to celebrate it or to be happy about.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

25. Your partisan view of Kerry's manner? That's the idea you're debating?

:eyes:


So you believe "not enough people will find out about Edwards before it's too late" ?

Why not?

What do you view as the reason for Edwards' failure to properly introduce himself to the voters? Is it a flaw in Edwards, or did he run his campaign badly, or that familiar media plot?

[AP]

26. Money and schedule and Bush luring voters into hating him so much that

they're more focused in unseating him than picking the best democrat (which translates into the sentiment that whoever is in first place today is best able to beat Bush) -- those three things will be Edwards's undoing if he doesn't get the nomination.

Notwithstanding those three things, Edwards has replicated his life story in this campaign. He has gone from 0 to 100 mph entirely due to his capacity for working hard and smart.

And Kerry's manner is totally relevant. You don't think it will be? Here's what Lemann says:

American populism operates more by a logic of culture and background than by a logic of present-day circumstances. In the 2000 campaign, in which two sons of prominent officeholders, educated at prep schools and Ivy League colleges, were pitted against each other, Bush succeeded in putting himself across as the populist and Gore as the élitist. (Though it seems counterintuitive, in recent years Republicans and conservatives have resorted more freely to populism than Democrats and liberals have.) Edwards is better off financially than either Bush or Gore, but somehow, because of a combination of background and presentation skills, against him either of them would look like the country-club guy.

http://blog.johnedwards2004.com/comments.pl?sid=2432&op=&newsid=04/02/...

[DaisyUCSB]

13. Seth Meyers from SNL has started to do that smile in his impression

it does seem put on and odd. Sometimes Kerry will find something funny and he cracks a smile that's refressing because he is a serious, intense person, at least in public. But alot of the time he just flashes it and it's like he's turning something on. His face is just built in such a way that it's more notacable maybe, plus there is that DOCUMENTED public perception that he is among the more phoney of candidates, and that adds to it

[bigtree]

15. I thought SNL portrated Kerry as mild and centered

as opposed to the carcarictures of the others.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

16. All viewpoints expressed in GD:2004 are partisan, obviously.

[DaisyUCSB]

24. It's definetly a favorable portrail, but he has started to do that smile

with the same on/off mannor in which the real Kerry does it.

[The Mighty Boot]

17. This might be fun to watch.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: You saw from that that, as far as Senator Kerry is concerned, the debate over Vietnam is not quite over. He followed up on our interview by releasing a letter to President Bush late last night, challenging the president to a one-on-one debate on the war and what it meant for both men.

Fun to watch Bush squirm but not what needs to be debated.


BTW-Why must Kerry kiss Clinton's ass? It detracts from
the substance of his arguments. Edwards is proactively
advancing the issues (Kerry too-at times) with much
less back-patting. Edwards sounds like he wants to
challenge America's problems to a fight. The time for
riding Clinton's coattails is past. All those sentences
should be replaced by an exposed Bush lie.

ABBEN
(anybody but bush except nader)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

18. It's not a matter of

kissing Clinton's ass. It's a matter of reminding voter's of Kerry's record -- a record Edwards' does not share.