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COKIE ROBERTS Well, Senator John McCain officially announced for the president this week. Former Vice President Dan Quayle officially got out of the race this week. But perhaps the most interesting part on the Republican side was what happened between the front - runner and the Congress. Here’s George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, talking about a Congressional plan to deal with its budget with the earned income tax credit. Here’s Governor Bush.

GOV GEORGE W. BUSH I don’t think they ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor.

COKIE ROBERTS That came as something of a surprise to the Republicans in Congress who thought they had cleared this with the governor. The Majority Whip, Tom Delay, also a Texan, had this to say. “It’s obvious the governor has got a lot to learn about Congress.”
Bill, what’s happening here?

BILL KRISTOL The Governor does not believe he has a lot to learn from the House Republicans about how to win a national election. I saw the governor Monday in Austin, spent some time with him. It was off the record, but I think I can safely say, having — based on conversations with him and his most senior aides, he is not worried about distancing himself from the House Republicans. He is going to cheerfully triangulate a la Bill Clinton, against Gore and against the House Republicans.

SAM DONALDSON Well, they’ve become almost sacrificial in this thing, though, because am I not correct that David Obey, one of the most partisan of Democrats, was pleased to rise on the Floor and read Governor Bush’s words with approval? And President Clinton jumped in and said, that’s it, we support Governor Bush on this particular issue.

BILL KRISTOL And if you look at the two weeks together, he was more interested in keeping Pat Buchanan in the Republican Party than slapping the Republican Congress. It shows that he’s more worried about the social conservatives than he is about the economic conservatives.

COKIE ROBERTS What do you think, though? Do you think this was kind of a moment of turning against the — in the same way that Bill Clinton did, have his moment with Sister Souljah?

GEORGE WILL A bit.

SAM DONALDSON At the expense of Jesse Jackson.

GEORGE WILL A bit. But to put this in context, Republicans are thinking of this bookkeeping dodge because they have no other strategy for keeping the ’97 spending caps or for cutting spending enough to avoid dipping into the $14 billion of Social Security surplus. I mean, they’re caught in a mathematical climate.

BILL KRISTOL And they’re still going to do it.

GEORGE WILL That’s right. And it’ll get to the Senate. If mean, if they pass it and it gets to the Senate, the Senate will swat it down anyway. So ...

COKIE ROBERTS And so would the president, so it’s useless.

GEORGE WILL It is useless and it was therefore a free vote in a sense, for George Bush to vote against them.

BILL KRISTOL Well, the degree to which Bush understands that his strength comes from being two things, not Bill Clinton, and not Newt Gingrich. Gingrich is gone, but the House Republicans are still there. He is not going to carry any of Gingrich’s baggage. Now, if you’re a conservative Republican, that might make you a little nervous, because what’s he going to say about the Patients’ Bill of Rights, what’s he going to say about other issues where the House Republicans are going to take unpopular positions? That’s a fair question. On this, it was a total free shot at the House Republicans.

SAM DONALDSON But look what he’s been able to do. Look at the Christian Coalition.

COKIE ROBERTS Right.

SAM DONALDSON We would have thought the Christian Coalition would say, this guy’s too moderate for us. No, they love him.

COKIE ROBERTS And then when Pat Robertson says, oh, those members of Congress are too, you know, lily - livered to get rid of the Department of Education. And you say, well, the governor wants to expand it. Well, maybe we can change his mind. I mean, they are going to support him. They want a winner.

BILL KRISTOL And contrast that to the situation his father faced in 1992.

COKIE ROBERTS It’s unbelievable.

BILL KRISTOL Had to leave the Republican Convention a year later, go to an evangelical group and say, the Democrats don’t have God in their platform. George W. Bush goes to the Christian Coalition this weekend and really doesn’t talk about their issues; he talks about his issues in a strong position.

SAM DONALDSON So, they want a winner. And the old style idea, “I’d rather be right than president has gone out the window.”

BILL KRISTOL Well, certainly the leadership of a lot of these groups want a winner. Pat Robertson wants a winner, and that was pretty clear ...

COKIE ROBERTS Right.

BILL KRISTOL ... on this show. He will support George W. Bush. He will not support John McCain. John McCain is just as pro - life as George W. Bush. Why won’t you support John McCain?

COKIE ROBERTS Because he thinks he can’t win.

BILL KRISTOL No, because of campaign finance reform, which hurts his institution. (Laughter)

COKIE ROBERTS Let me just say, before we run out of time here, George, you were at an interesting event this week, Warren Beatty’s non - declaration.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS And what a show it was. But it is his — he’s not running for president. It’s political performance art. He’s an actor playing an actor running for president.

COKIE ROBERTS Maybe he could get taxpayer money and open a new Brooklyn Museum.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS Playing an actor running. But to be fair to him, he gave a very serious speech, a half - hour speech packed with statistics drawing very sharp points about how big money is corrupting our politics. I know that George Will has no patience for this, but he really draws some sharp lines between how big money is preventing action on health care and the persistence of childhood poverty.

SAM DONALDSON I liked his line about we don’t need a third party, we need a second party.

GEORGE WILL It’s an old line, however. (Laughter)

SAM DONALDSON Governor George Wallace said it.

GEORGE WILL It’s an old line, and here you have Bill Bradley, in a week he announces a $65 billion health care plan. He’s given his endorsement to the full union agenda to make organizing easier, strikes easier. He’s for racial preferences. And Beatty gets up and says, I’m the conscience of American liberalism? It’s a bit odd.

COKIE ROBERTS Well, Beatty, American liberalism?

BILL KRISTOL I think he’s a perfect epitome of current Hollywood limousine liberalism. But Jesse Ventura made news this week, I think, more than Warren Beatty, with his Playboy interview, with his denigration of organized religion. What struck me, though, is that he also said he believes the military - industrial complex killed John F. Kennedy. It turns out the Reform Party are a bunch of conspiracy theorists. Ross Perot believes in conspiracies all over the place, Bush operatives, you know, moving his daughter’s wedding. Pat Buchanan believes in conspiracies of financiers that got us into World War I, and now it turns out Ventura believes in conspiracies.

COKIE ROBERTS e of our colleagues says it’s not a reform party, it’s a Halloween party. Well, Sam and I will be back in a moment.
(Commercial Break)

COKIE ROBERTS And, Sam, you have something coming up on “20/20” this week.

SAM DONALDSON That’s right. On Monday night. Former president bush has collected letters and diary entries that he’s collected over the years. You’re going to see a side of him we haven’t seen before. At one point he just breaks down in tears and can’t go on. If he’d shown that emotion in 1992 — but that’s water under the bridge.

COKIE ROBERTS Well, I’ll be looking forward to it.

SAM DONALDSON Monday night.

COKIE ROBERTS That’s all for us this Sunday. Until next week, that’s This Week.

In This Series This Week Roundtable: Rough Week for Gore Campaign Mayor Giuliani Discusses Controversial Exhibit John McCain Is Running for President Christian Coalition Celebrates 10th Anniversary

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