Transcript of Kerry Conference Call (Kerry thinks OBL tape works for him)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a transcript of a conference call with Greenberg, Devine, Donilon and Lockhart:

GREENBERG: Ok, I'm going to talk about the Democracy Corps polling, but I also want to talk about the public polls this week and the public polls that have come out today. Because I think it's very important that we understand where the race is, as we get into final weekend and the final days, particularly where there are serious events taking place in the world. There is a temptation, I think, to jump on individual polls, but not look at the overall - the totality of it - and have understand what's going on.

First of all, it's very clear looking at Democracy Corps polling and public polling, that we're looking at remarkably stable race - a remarkably dead heat race - that's true this week, that's true this Saturday, nothing that we've looked at up until now has changed the character of this race

Bush is stuck at somewhere between 47 and 48 percent in the polling, 47 in Democracy Corps poll, but near 48 percent, that's an average of the public polls, and for an incumbent candidate, as we know, that puts him in a very, very endangered position in terms of his re-election. Let me talk about Democracy Corps first and then the public polls. Democracy Corps had a survey that started calling on Friday night, called until Saturday noontime, it was a half sample that will be completed on Sunday. We don't normally release these polls as partial samples, but given the intense interest in what's happening in this race and possible impact of the events on Friday around the Bin Laden tape, we thought it appropriate to release this half sample.

The half sample is a very stable sample, which has Kerry at 48 percent and Bush at 47 percent, that's almost identical within a point of the full survey that we had completed and released on Friday. Like that survey, this survey is evenly divided on party identification, it's not biased toward either party or candidate and looks like a quite stable and incredible read on where the race is. All this polling was done following the news on Bin Laden.

Let me just mention that, as part of that, and we're very cautious about this - we added a question - this poll was intended to be fielded independent of the events - we added a question this morning that was only in the 250 interviews that was conducted on Saturday and I read it just to try to suggest that we ought to be a little bit cautious in interpreting what we think will be the consequence of these events.

I'm going to read you paraphrasement about Osama Bin Laden's videotape - this is a poll that was conducted by Democracy Corps, I'm going to read you a paraphrasement about the release of Bin Laden's videotape, please tell me what comes closer to your view: One, it makes me think that George W. Bush took his eye of the ball in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and diverted his resources to Iraq; Two, it underscores the importance of George Bush (news - web sites)'s approach to terrorism

By ten points, 46-36 percent, voters responding to the survey agreed with the first statement , rather than the second.

Again, we'll have full results from that question on Sunday night, this is a partial result. But it ought to, at least, should put up a flag in offering a linear interpretation on how voters are likely to react to what happened on Friday night. By the way, I don't draw any conclusion, only to suggest that this is a much more mixed and complex event with no evidence in our poll that it impacts the vote in the race or impacts the basic contours of the issues in the race.

Now, it also indicates that this poll really reflects the overall stability of the race, looking at all the public polls, looking at all of the public polls.

This past week, George Bush polled, on average, this is using the results of registered voters, as we know and I've highlighted and indicated in a memo last Saturday, that the registered, is, first of all, is common across all the polls, in comparison, without building in the likely voter assumptions - a model assumption. In addition to that, we know at least looking in the academic studies, and looking at the CNN poll, that the registered voter was a better predictor in three of the last three of four elections, which was a better predictor in 2000, as our guide.

George Bush polled 47.9 percent on average in the public polls and is only a gain of .5 points over the previous week, you know, very stable. In the same period, John Kerry (news - web sites) gained .1 percent, at 46.4 percent - essentially tied in the race.

But I do want to highlight something about the polls that we released Saturday, if one looked at the polls released on Saturday, which means, if you include some of the polling done after the Bin Laden tape, Friday night polling, the vote stands as 48 percent in one of them, 47 percent in another and 46 percent in two others. That is a weaker result for George Bush than the polls conducted on Wednesday through Friday of this past week.

So, the polls conducted that included Friday night calling released today had George Bush's number below the number that we talked about earlier, the 47.9 number. And indeed, below 47 percent than not.

Let me also just mention one thing about the undecided voters, across this week, the average undecided in the public polls was 4.4 percent, but I want to mention that the polls released for Saturday, the average undecided was 6 points. So that there is no evidence that going into this weekend, or the consequences of the events on Friday, there is no evidence that voters have moved from their undecided position to casting a preference. The race is essentially stable, there is still a significant undecided, which still has yet to express a preference.

And I should note, from the Democracy Corps polling, where we combined all of the polls at the end of last week, for the polls conducted last week, and looked at the undecided vote before they were pushed to a preference, they leaned democratic by 2-1 and when asked a question whether you want to go in a significantly different direction than President Bush (news - web sites) or continue going in his direction, they chose change by 58-29 percent, 2-1.

So, the undecided is still there, has not closed on this last weekend. They are very much change voters, who I believe will not express their preference until they go to the polls on Thursday. But the evidence of public polls and our polls is a race that is stable on this weekend.

DEVINE: This is Tad Devine, I'll just make a couple of quick points. My first point is: I believe John Kerry is much stronger today, going into the weekend before the election, than Al Gore (news - web sites) was four years ago going into the election, where Al Gore actually got more votes.

I think John Kerry's position versus an incumbent president is one way to understand this race and the strength of John Kerry's standing right now.

The President's horse race numbers, and Stan talked about it on a national basis, and I think we see this very much so in the battlegrounds - I believe in the end is really going to be his number, his ultimate vote, he's not going to push it up a lot from there. And as we look at the battlegrounds, in our individual state polling, the President is really mired in the mid-40s, and almost in all of the battlegrounds in terms of his horse race, and I think he's going to wind up near that in most of the states.

When you look at four years ago, in the national public polling, going into that last weekend, Gore trailed in almost all public polls, sometimes by a large margin, and that was reversed on Election Day. I think the advantage we have in so many of these states, on the ground in the final days, will help us gain votes in those battlegrounds as well.

The other big difference we have from four years ago is not just the standing in polls, particularly as they pertain to the battleground state, but also the huge resources advantage for bush in the year 2000 which has been extinguished this time.

It has been a remarkable change in circumstances; four years ago the resource advantage for Bush was overwhelming it forced a very difficult choice for the Gore campaign which was to take down the paid media in Ohio three weeks before the election and that money from Ohio was used principally just to try to keep up with the President's advantage in paid media in Florida. And despite shutting Ohio down the President still managed to outspend Al Gore in Florida four years ago by a significant margin and they spent 2.7 million dollars the last week of the 2000 campaign whereas the Gore campaign spent 2 million, but if you look at the spending this time this campaign, the Kerry campaign is outspending George Bushes campaign significantly in terms of paid media in the state of Florida.

On an aggregate basis campaign to campaign there was a 5,000 point, gross rating point advantage for the Kerry campaign in week one in Florida the final week. And the same is true in Ohio a huge advantage in terms of campaign spending and even when you aggregate the spending of all the other groups, the party groups, the 527 groups on either side Kerry's side still has a significant almost 5,000 total gross rating point advantage in the state of Florida and the state of Ohio. And this advantage occurs in a number of other battleground states as well, so that is a big difference to actually have a resource advantage in the paid media in the final days of the campaign, a big difference from 2000.

My second point is, I believe John Kerry is strongly positioned to win the battlegrounds, and we see this based on the enormous depth of research. Kerry I believe in the spring established a strong predicate in the battlegrounds when he introduced himself in terms of his biography with a wave of advertising throughout these states that is something Al Gore could not do in 2000 and I think that is an advantage that John Kerry will realize again next Tuesday. And our own research, we track at various times up to fifteen different states at others that we looked at the beginning of this process and as we look at these states we believe we are ahead in most of the battlegrounds today. Some of them I believe have been clearly established as victories for John Kerry states like Washington state and Oregon and Maine, we have really established our dominance in those states, but in the big battlegrounds we think we are ahead in most of them like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Florida where we believe we have a small but important advantage right now.

And Wisconsin where we had been behind weeks ago, but we have moved to a small, significant, important advantage. And some of these other states, like Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa we think the race is very close, but we see ourselves as positioned to win again the President with a problem in terms of his horse race numbers, unable to get to where he needs to be to be to win, wrong track number very high, job approval very low for the President consistently. So, we think we are positioned to win in the battlegrounds, that is what next Tuesday is all about, we've dedicated our resources towards that, and as we go into this final weekend we see a candidacy, much more strongly than the position four years ago both in the battlegrounds and in the nation.

Anybody remember those hokey conference calls Gore and Lieberman had to Daschle and Gephardt (I think that's who they called) in the post election debacle.

All I can remember is that they were so "canned" they were nauseating.

4 posted on 10/30/2004 5:40:17 PM PDT by Question Liberal Authority (How do you ask a goose to be the last goose to die for the Kerry campaign?)

All you need to read is the part where Tad Devine says "John Kerry is much stronger than Al Gore was at this point, and Al Gore won more votes."

I'm surprised he hasn't drowned in all that flopsweat.

lol..those were pathetic. It was like "Ok team, let's work to count the votes and make sure senior get the prescription drugs they so vitally need."

> I'm going to read you a paraphrasement about the release
> of Bin Laden's videotape ... voters responding to the
> survey agreed with the first statement ...

Confusing a "push poll" with a real poll is a big mistake.

But then, they had to do something in order to have some
sunshine to push up the skirts of the faithful.

10 posted on 10/30/2004 5:42:34 PM PDT by Boundless (bin Laden is running an IQ test next Tuesday. Score high on it.)

I remember those calls. Wasn't it a speaker-phone conversation? Dasshole and Gepfart stared at that phone grinning like plastic mannequins.

11 posted on 10/30/2004 5:42:48 PM PDT by silent_jonny (I voted on October 26, 2004---GO BUSH, BURR, BALLANTINE!)

Does it bother these people at all that a America-hating mass-murderer is parroting their candidates rhetoric?

Gephardt is a sad figure to me. He's been a politician for so long, his personality has just worn away into focus-grouped nonsense.

All I can remember is that they were so "canned" they were nauseating.

Now that you mention it, yeah.

Since when have transcripts of these internal democrat polling conference calls been widely available? I think this an attempt to get them to spin the story as "the vast majority of people think Bush is incompetent and dropped the ball in Afghanistan", similar to the "Kerry and Edwards won ALL FOUR DEBATES" crap.

15 posted on 10/30/2004 5:47:46 PM PDT by Question Liberal Authority (How do you ask a goose to be the last goose to die for the Kerry campaign?)

Hmmmm....

A bunch of Kerry operatives do a conference call, knowing that journalists will make a report of what they say.

Gee. I wonder if they are going to be honest?

Of course they are going to spout good news, regardless of what the truth is.

Gephardt is a sad figure to me.

Me too. I still think he's wrong on (about) everything, but he got a brutal - and public - shafting from the machine he served.

At least the unions indirectly bought him a nice place to spend his retirement.

18 posted on 10/30/2004 5:50:02 PM PDT by niteowl77 (John Kerry: over 30 years of proudly inciting hatred against American soldiers.)

Typical response from the Kerry team to a terrorist threat. Take a poll. See which way the public opinion wind is blowing. See if you can take any political advantage of the situation. How does it affect the Democrats' power? Then and only then decide if there is anything you need to do to increase your power base. Only take action against terrorism if it is politically helpful to your power base.

You can bet your last dollar that this will be the approach to terrorism that a Kerry administration would take. DON'T LET THAT HAPPEN.

20 posted on 10/30/2004 5:54:56 PM PDT by FreedomCalls (It's the "Statue of Liberty," not the "Statue of Security.")

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