January 31, 2004

RITA COSBY: Is President Bush ready for the Democratic onslaught? Joining us now from Washington is former Republican presidential candidate Ambassador Alan Keyes. Always good to see you, sir. How are you doing?

ALAN KEYES: Good to be here. Thank you.

COSBY: I want to show you a new poll. This is something that came up. This is the American Research Group, we've seen a couple of these recently, but this is putting John Kerry pretty close to President Bush--I mean, the margin's narrowing--but Senator John Kerry had 47%, President Bush had 46%, as you can see there on the screen. Should Republicans be worried?

KEYES: Well, I think there ought to be some concern--not because I think the president is really weak and vulnerable, but because in this country anything can happen once the Democrats consolidate. They do have a certain natural base in the country, and that's going to make any Democratic candidate, as we've seen over the years, potentially a strong challenger. Nothing can be taken for granted.

COSBY: What about the special interests? We were hearing from Steve Brown that, you know, some of John Kerry's ties to special interest are coming back to haunt him. Meanwhile, he's out there attacking special interests. Surprise, surprise, we're hearing two different things from politicians. Is this going to resonate with the voters?

KEYES: I don't know. I think we're at that stage in the campaign now when they try to knock each other down at some personal level--and that's, I think, really because there are few, if any, real differences of substance among these candidates.

As I often tell people, Howard Dean is the basic leftward-leaning liberalism or socialism of the Democrat party with its mask off, and for a while there, they were content in their enthusiasm to raise him up. Now that it looks like the race might be a little closer, they might really have a chance of beating President Bush, they think, they want somebody with the mask on--and that is Kerry, with a military background, something that can camouflage what is basically his outrageous liberalism, if you look at his voting record, on just about every issue.

I don't think there's a substantive difference here, and so they start trying to pick at other things that are extraneous.

COSBY: And speaking of something that is important, not extraneous, everyone's looking at South Carolina. I went to the University of South Carolina, so of course I'm biased to the state. But South Carolina--I want to show one of the polls. This is sort of the latest on how everybody's playing, and this is a critical state, particularly for John Edwards, Ambassador. Look right here, he's leading right now, 30%. You got Kerry, 18%, and the other ones following. How critical is it for Edwards? If he wants to secure a position, he's got to win at least this key state in the south, don't you think?

KEYES: Well, I think it's critical for Edwards, if he's going to establish himself at all. I also think, by the way, that it's important for Kerry--because, even though he's had the surprise early wins, they were in those two states where the election can be focused, and where campaigns can actually pull off something. As we get into the states where more and more of the states are front-loaded, and many primaries are happening on a single day, they're going to have to show real strength across a number of states--and that's what Kerry is going to have to prove.

COSBY: All right, Ambassador Alan Keyes, always great to see you. Thank you very much. Good to have you on.

KEYES: Good to be here.

COSBY: And I love that mosh-pit shot of you years ago. I'll never forget it. It was great.