Presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt appears on 'Tonight Show'

HeratldTribune.com ^ | 12/2/2003 | Gillian Flaccus

[PeteFromMontana]

Presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt appears on 'Tonight Show'

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer

BURBANK, Calif. --

U.S. Rep.and presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt appeared Tuesday on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and said he has a problem most celebrities would envy - he has a hard time getting recognized in public.

Gephardt, a Democrat from Missouri, told Leno he was recently approached in a Texas airport by a man who thought he was his insurance agent and by women in St. Louis who thought he was either a weatherman on CNN or Dan Quayle.

"Did you just quit the campaign right then?" Leno joked.

Gephardt also addressed serious topics ranging from gay marriage to the conflict in Iraq to universal health care.

Gephardt, 62, said he approved of President Bush's recent surprise visit to Iraq, but criticized the president's unilateral approach to military involvement there.

"I wish when he left Baghdad he'd gone to Paris, Berlin, and Moscow and gotten the help of European nations he should have gotten a long time ago," Gephardt said.

Gephardt said he has tried to work with Bush since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but found that "he's hard to help."

He said Bush was "not up to this job" and cited the president's policies on global warming and handling of unemployment and North Korea as examples.

Gephardt, who will join striking grocery workers on the picket lines in West Hollywood on Wednesday, said he would push for universal health care, if elected. He said his 33-year-old son, Matt, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 18 months and without good health insurance his son would have died.

"I'm bound and determined to solve this problem because I've been there. I know what it means not to have insurance and I know what it means to have insurance," he said in an interview following the show.

Polls indicate that Gephardt is in a tight race with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean for the Jan 19 Iowa caucuses. Dean holds a wide lead in the follow-up primary in New Hampshire, and is widely considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

[PeteFromMontana]

LOL, noone recognizes him. So what's the bid deal Little Dick, noone recognizes the other 8 either!

[WinOne4TheGipper]

Please tell me he follows a fowl- mouthed dog.

[finnman69]

Is he going to let his ding dong hang out again?

[weegee]

Little Dick has a hard time getting spotted in public?

Imagine that.

[PeteFromMontana]

Awwww crap, that picture just gives me the creeps. But I have to admit it is quite appropriate for this particular Little Dick post.

[Agnes Heep]

Most people don't recognize syphilis when the symptoms show.

[Paul Atreides]

At the same time, his eyebrows will be appearing on Letterman.

[exit82]

Dick Gephardt. Still a miserable failure.

[jagrmeister]

Gepheardt was always one of those Democrats that occasionally demonstrated restraint in his rhetoric. He seemed more honest than most on the left. But there's something about seeking the Presidency, and the drive to win the rabid primary voters, that makes otherwise reasonable people go off the deep end. We saw it with Bob Graham and we'll see more of it with Gepheardt.

[dano1]

I think Gephardt will do well in Iowa because he is the insider, which could really mess up Dean´s momentum. I think the Iowa system really favors insiders, doesn´t it?

[HHFi]

I hit the Mute button after little Dickie began his litany of ways in which Bush "isn't up to the job." "We've lost 3 million jobs" (yes, the economy is really dying, isn't it, Dickie? Picked up a newspaper lately?), he should've gone and begged France to protect us from terrorists, he didn't sign the Kyoto Treaty and finally DO something about the weather, etc, etc, ad nauseum. The usual well-worn DNC talking points list composed of equal parts fantasy and idiocy. God help us all if any of these nitwits ever gets within 100 yards of the levers of presidential power.

As a side note, I find it amusing that they claim Bush has done nothing to protect us from terrorist attacks, yet they seem to feel safe enough to announce a year in advance that they'll all be gathering for a big convention, all in one building, with the time and location known to the public, and they seem to have no fears that it will be blown up. There could be only two reasons for that: 1. Bush has done such a good job of stopping terrorists; or 2. The terrorists know who their friends are.