American Morning

Good morning, gentlemen. Nice to see you. Let’s get right to Howard Dean this morning. You heard him just a few moments ago on our air. He says he does not care what the people inside the beltway think about his running, in his answer to his critics.

Cliff, let’s start with you. What do you think of Howard Dean running and what do you think of his chances?

CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMM. DIR.: Well, look, I think he’s got good chances. I think he’s an honorable man. I think he’s a talented politician, but I think he’s the wrong choice for the Democrats right now, because he’s out of the mainstream on the key issue of national security. I think he will present a face to the public of a kind of Democrat that is unlikely to win, certainly in presidential elections, a kind of Ben and Jerry’s Michael Moore Democrat, and I think it would be a mistake for the party.

S. O’BRIEN: Vic, what do you think? Out of mainstream? Or is that sort of his whole point?

VICTOR KAMBER, DEM. POL. CONSULTANT: I think he’d be terrific. I’m not endorsing him, by any means, but I think he’d be a terrific chair of the party. The chair of the party’s responsibility, raising money, organizing within the states, administering and modern technology. This man — and being a spokesman. This man can do all of the above. There’s probably not a single American that has ever voted for a president, a governor or a senator because of the chair of either party. And frankly, probably if we asked most people, they wouldn’t know who the chairs of past parties have been.

When Terry McAuliffe won four years ago, Democrats won the governorship of Virginia, the governorship of New Jersey and lost the mayor of New York. I don’t think anybody ever said congratulations, Terry, you did a great job, or Terry, you lost New York. The fact is the chair’s job is to raise money, is to organize in states, is to be a spokesperson. Howard dean will be terrific at all of that.

S. O’BRIEN: Let’s move to out next topic. Did you guys hear? The search for WMD is over. No one really mentioned it. It happened a couple of weeks ago.

Vic, why don’t you take a stab at this one for us. Why do you think there was so little fanfare about this?

KAMBER: Well, I think because most Americans knew it was over before it started, or knew it was over after it started immediately. We haven’t seen weapons of mass destruction from the beginning. That was clearly either a mistake or an outright lie, and the administration certainly was going to bury it quietly if they could, because they didn’t want the fanfare. Frankly, the election’s over. There’s no advantage anymore to keep touting it by Democrats. So we move on after 1,300 loss of lives and 13,000 wounded.

S. O’BRIEN: Cliff, do you think this is an admission that no WMD is ever going to be found, or do you think it’s a statement that there are more pressing issues that need to go to the front burner right now?

MAY: Well, it may be a little bit of both. What’s unfortunate is that there are key mysteries here that are still unsolved. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It appears that some time after the first Gulf War and before the second Gulf War, he got rid of them in some way. We don’t know how. We don’t know if he destroyed them, or hid them or transferred them. We don’t know what happened.

It’s important to understand, it’s not that he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction; he got rid of them secretly, and we don’t know why he did that. There are only theories about that.

We do know there are other more pressing things. We’re fighting war against Saddam Hussein’s cronies and against Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who is the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq. So it’s not easy to look in basements for traces of anthrax and sarin gas.

S. O’BRIEN: Let’s turn and talk about our last topic this morning. Cliff, I’m wondering if, are you going to the inauguration?

MAY: Actually, I probably will not. I may actually be out of the country next week.

S. O’BRIEN: I was going to ask, if you were going to go to all the parties, you know, there is going to be nine black tie balls, 20 major events overall, three candlelight dinners, several parades. The goal to raise $40 million. Cliff, as you well know, critics have said, you know, considering we’re at war, as you just pointed out, and there’s great need in Asia now in the week of tsunami, great need in Africa, as everybody knows, wasn’t this kind of over the top? Isn’t this kind of a little bit of a waste of money?

MAY: Well, one of the things is that the people who are going to these events will be going to these events and paying their own way. They’re very expensive to go to. This is private money, not government money for these various balls.

S. O’BRIEN: Isn’t the security for these events, though, private money?

MAY: There will be some. Look, we have had an inauguration — for 200 years, every four years, we’ve had an inauguration. In 1996, when Bill Clinton was inaugurated for the second time, the war was raging in Bosnia. I don’t remember anyone saying there shouldn’t be an inauguration then.

The inauguration is not really for the president or even the people who come to the balls; it’s for the American people. It’s a celebration of the fact that for 200 years, we have transferred power Democratically.

Also this inauguration is special because it is a tribute to the people who are fighting, and it is particularly framed that way, as a tribute to our soldiers.

S. O’BRIEN: Final word to Vic this morning. It is called, in fact, saluting those who serve. Any of the money going to those who serve?

KAMBER: I’m not aware of it, and I don’t know. Frankly, where I differ with Cliff, I do believe Republicans have a right to celebrate. They did elect. They won fair, it looks like this time, so they should be able to enjoy.

I would have hoped this president and his leadership would have toned it down, and made it more recognition about the war, about the crisis, as well as the crisis here, as you showed on television, in California and Utah. I mean, it is over the top they didn’t need to do all they’re doing. They can celebrate and help those that need help out there.

MAY: You can celebrate too, Vic. I’ll give you my tickets.

KAMBER: I don’t plan to be here.

S. O’BRIEN: Hello, I’ll go to a ball or two, come on.

MAY: OK, you can have mine.

S. O’BRIEN: All right, you guys, as always — I’m just joshing you. Cliff May and Victor Kamber, nice to see you, as always. Thank you — Bill.