Election
Washington University---North, Douglass---Professor / Academic
>> john kerry is focused on five potential running mates, according to his campaign and party officials. among them, former party rivals john edwards, retired general wesley clark. michael forsyth has been following the kerry campaign and joins us from washington with a look. the short list includes edwards and clark, representative dick gephardt, florida senator and iowa toshihiko governor. any surprises?
>> the one may be the governor of iowa. he has a compelling life story, an orphan from pennsylvania. iowa is what they call a swing state for the 2004 election and could go either way and his home state of pennsylvania is, too. if he picks him, that’s a two-for there.
>> you have edwards, a southerner, bob graham, a southerner, clark, a southerner and then villsac in iowa, not a huge state to try to get. but clearly it looks as if it would make sense for a northeasterner like john kerry to go after a southerner, does that not seem likely?
>> it is because there’s a sobering fact that no democrat has ever won the white house without carrying at least four states that were once part of the confederate states of america, dixie, those are 11 states. so in order to secure the presidency, he needs to carry states in the south and that’s why he’s looking in that direction.
>> if you look at john edwards, the rivalry between edwards and kerry during the runup in the campaign was heated at times. are they going to be able to bury the hatchet and move forwards. it edwards on the record as saying he would not want to be a running mate.
>> politicians are adept at burying the hatchet. he ran laya strong campaign, edwards did and has been vetted by the media nationally through the campaigning process. he’s young and voters find him appealing. he’s a good public speaker and he’s from north carolina, 15 electoral votes, probably will go for bush but if kerry captured that, it would be a blow to bush.
>> the next on the list is general clark. this would be a serious military ticket with kerry’s own military record, a big part of who he is and then general wesley clark, as well, also from arkansas, originally a southern state but not with the electoral votes or clout of a florida or north carolina.
>> that’s right. with the election increasingly focused on iraq, perhaps this is an opportunity for kery to further burnish his military credentials.
>> dick gephardt, dropping out of the race very emotionally saying goodbye to politics in many ways at least for his run for the white house. could you see him actually making a charge as a number two on the ticket?
>> definitely. he’s retiring from the house so it’s no blow to the democratic chances in the house of representatives since he’s leaving anyway. he’s tested on the national campaign. he’s known as a very straightforward, good man. so he may be very attractive. missouri, again, a large state, 11 electoral votes, carried by bush in the 2000 election and missouri often votes with the likely winner in an election.
>> if you talk about bush and the 2000 election, you can’t not talk about florida, which is a huge prize, a must-win state, some would say. what could you tell us about senator bob graham in terms of simple demographics, age, et cetera.
>> graham is the oldest of the five, 67 years old. but he has a wealth of experience, the governor of florida. florida is the third most populace state, 27 electoral votes and it was the state that decided the election four years years ago. graham has experience in the senate and in the state as an executive and we’ve been told by the kerry campaign that that is a prime criteria kerry is looking for, executive experience.
>> experience is good to have and we appreciate your experience today and our team in washington to get this story. some had said that prior to today’s bounce in the stock market , maybe things were technically oversold in the market . fundamental analysis also showing a complex picture. this with the markets , the big three benchmark indexes all down year to date. have a look at these chartss i put together. this one, a lot of lines and numbers. this is the yield on the dow jones industrial average, the orange line going back 10 years. the white line is the price. and the yellow line is 2%. you can see that any time that the dividend was at or below 2% and on a down trend, the market was rising. we’ve only seen this happen one other time in the past decade, from 1997 to 1999, and the market was up 60%. and you can see the yield bounce down, hit the 2% line and move on. more after the break.
