American Morning

Cliff, nice to see you, and Happy New Year’s as well.

CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMM. DIR.: Good morning, Bill.

Good morning, Vic.

HEMMER: Cliff, why don’t you start us off, there has been a — well, let’s rephrase that — is there a valid argument to say the U.S. was slow to respond, or is it accepted that the U.S. was waiting to see how this tragedy unfolded day by day and sometimes hour by hour?

MAY: Yes, the U.S. is guilty the terrible sin of not perceiving a natural disaster as a public-relations opportunity. Here’s “The Washington Times” from last Tuesday. If you see, it says 22, 500 dead. That’s still a tremendous number. But of course it’s many, many times that. And of course our contribution is many times that. What we have done is we have assessed and we’ve watched the terrible numbers growing. And now we are doing more, as usual, than any country in the world. We have the biggest military effort out there since the Vietnam War, aircraft carriers, helicopters. We’re doing what only the U.S. is capable of doing.

I will say this. Now that we’re doing this, we should let the world know what we’re doing. I think it’s important to communicate that, and I hope the administration has a plan to communicate it.

HEMMER: Let me get down to Miami and Victor, same question. Is there an argument here?

KAMBER: I think the president was late getting out there to show the concern for the American public, but this isn’t about George Bush and politics. It really is about the victims there. And the fact that what Cliff says is correct. This country’s outpouring its heart, its hair, its head, its prayers, are with these victims. We’re doing enormous — I care less really right now about the public-relations effort than I do about relief. There will be a lot of credit to be given out in months to come. There will be blame also, certainly. Let’s hope we’re at that credit level because we’ve done everything we can do.

HEMMER: Excellent. Let’s move to another topic now, Iraq. We already have at least two bombings today in around Baghdad. There may have been a third earlier today. Some Iraqi leaders are saying these elections should be postponed, now slated for the 30th of January. Cliff, start us off. Should they be postponed to make sure the environment is more secure?

MAY: Bill, I don’t think so. It’s very difficult to stop people who want to strap themselves with bombs or fill a car trunk with bombs and crash them into something. If we had any reason to believe that in three or four months the situation would be under control in the sense that we would have defeated all those who think that by blowing up innocent people they’re going to get 72 virgins in heaven, that’s fine. But I don’t think that’s true.

And we know — I think we know the Iraqi people are looking forward to this, eager for this. People should go to Iraq, the model. It’s an Iraqi blog. It’s in English, and it will tell you a lot from the Iraqi perspective that people want these elections held. They want a chance to vote. They’re very excited about this.

HEMMER: Victor.

KAMBER: I’ve been consistent that the only purpose for the election on this set date is George Bush and his own election. Well, his election is over; he’s convinced the American public he has got things under control. He doesn’t. The country is not stable. If our goal is to help bring about democracy, we need greater stabilization. We’ve lost more lives in the last month, more wounded in the last months than three preceding months. The Sunnis have pulled out of the election process. There are four to five provinces not able to vote in this process.

The only purpose to have this election is for Americans to beat their chest and say we have an election. I’d rather wait and see that the country is more stable for the election, so real democracy can take place.

MAY: Let me just add this — most of the provinces are fairly stable. You do have terrorists. You have Abu Musab Zarqawi. He represents al Qaeda. You have the remnants of the Baath regime. We have to fight these people until we defeat them, but you cannot let them decide when we’re going to have elections, when the Iraqis are going to have elections. If you let them make the decision, there never will be elections in that…

HEMMER: Last word.

KAMBER: The election was an artificial date. There is no magic to this date. MAY: All of them are artificial dates. There is no magic to any date Vic, but you tell me when. And if three months from now if the violence is worse, would you say, well, let’s postpone it one more time?

KAMBER: When 9/11 happened in this country, we postponed an election in the mayoral’s office and moved on. This is the equivalent of 9/11 for Iraq.

MAY: And in 1864, a lot of states couldn’t vote, Lincoln was still elected, the system worked fine.

HEMMER: We’ve got to run. Gentleman, thanks, Victor Kamber, Clifford May in Miami and D.C. this morning. Thanks to both you gentlemen. Happy New Year all right.

MAY: Happy New Year to you guys.