Your campaign began to surge on the basis of your opposition to the Iraq war. But has the war lost its potency as an issue?
I think the American public has moved their attention. I think the war is an important issue because people feel like they were deceived, which they were. But people are really tuned into social justice issues more so than they were and I think that's a good thing.
So did Americans lose their antiwar fervor after the capture of Saddam Hussein?
I think Americans did, but I don't think Democrats did. [But] it's not as important an issue. Look at what people are facing: They're losing their jobs, they're losing their health insurance by enormous numbers, people are kind of losing hope in the country. They see this Medicare bill pass, which really is much more oriented to the pharmaceutical companies and the HMOs than it is to seniors. I mean they've just sort of flung up their hands and said, "My God, what's happening here?" Folks [think] Iraq is still important -- we're still losing lives every day -- but that's not where their focus is. They're really worried about what's going to happen to their own families now and that always takes precedence.
What's driving all this anxiety?
I think the social justice problem has been a problem as long as this president has been in office. He's made it very clear that his philosophy appears to be that if you're rich you deserve it, if you're poor you deserve it, and that's that. I'd like to think we can do better than that in this country and I think most folks agree with me.
You campaign manager Joe Trippi, credited with pioneering the innovative Internet-based strategy that helped make you the front-runner in the first place, abruptly quit the campaign last week when you decided to bring in a new campaign CEO. Why did you make the move?
We needed organization in the office. Joe was really overworked and was trying to do it all. I needed somebody to come in and be the last word on all issues and Joe didn't want to give up that authority so he left. I'm hoping at some point he'll come back because he's a brilliant strategist. I don't think it's going to have an effect on the message.
Did Trippi tell you to basically let it rip before you walked out onto the stage in Iowa for the so-called I Have a Scream speech?
Sure, but I'm not going to blame Joe Trippi. One thing about this campaign stuff and Joe Trippi and all that: I do not blame him for one thing that went wrong in the campaign. The reason is, actually what drove Joe crazy, is I want to know everything, and I want everything explained to me, and I sign off on all the final decisions. I have not one piece of ill will about spending too much money. I OK'd every major strategic decision and you can put the blame at my feet for anything going wrong.
You say you hope he comes back. Have you had a real conversation with him?
Yeah, we had a real conversation. He was pretty upset the last time I talked to him so I think I'm just going to give him a week or so to relax at his Maryland farm. Here was a guy who did everything. We would have never been where we are if it hadn't been for Joe Trippi.
Has Trippi's departure caused any wavering among your supporters?
No, they've been really supportive. They've been really terrific. They've just been great.
You mentioned money. You raised a record amount of money last year -- $41 million. Where did it all go?
A lot of it was spent in Iowa and New Hampshire. Our idea was to do what Senator Kerry is now trying to do, which is to knock everybody out early. We still raised $3.2 million since Iowa, so we're not in bad shape. But we've got to conserve and we've got to retool. We've got to redo the whole operation.
So with all the changes, how do you turn things around?
Well, we have somebody who really knows how to run a tight ship, the CEO of the campaign, Roy Neel, who ran Al Gore's operation in the White House and then was a deputy chief of staff to Bill Clinton. We're going to make a lot of adjustments; we're obviously not going to run a front-runner campaign at this point. We had it well set up to run against George Bush, which we knew was going to be very tough. We had field organizations everywhere. But we obviously can't run that kind of campaign now. We have to run a come-from-behind campaign.
You've been attacking the culture of Washington and special interests for some time. Now other candidates, in particular John Kerry, are doing so as well.
I was really incensed today when I read in the Washington Post [Jan. 31] that Kerry took the most special interests' and lobbyists' money in the Senate in the last 15 years. These guys all adopted my message, so I've got a certain amount of pride that I've set the agenda for the party, which is one of the things I intended to do. But it's one thing to adopt a message. It's another thing to just plain ignore your own past. [Kerry] has no right to ever talk about taking on the special interests because that's who's keeping him in business. The way our campaign is run, 89 percent of our money comes from people who are ordinary Americans, who aren't special-interests people. We are the quintessential campaign finance reform of this campaign. I was really outraged when I read that [Post article]. I was sputtering I was so mad.
But Kerry refuses to take even a dollar of PAC money.
Yeah, he doesn't take the PAC money but he takes money from the lobbyists. He takes the money from other special interests. Read the article -- in 1999 he intervened in a rules case with the Coast Guard on behalf of a foreign company, which is very unusual. After he got the rules changed he apparently got $7,200 in contributions. That's exactly what we don't want in Washington. Harry Truman used to say if you nominate a Republican to run against the Republicans a Republican is going to win every time. We don't need any more of that in Washington. The whole point of my campaign is to clean house so that ordinary people get their voice back in the nation's capital.
You've criticized John Kerry as too much of an insider, too much of a compromiser. But on healthcare, for instance, you told a Seattle audience today that you'd sign any halfway decent bill that improves the healthcare system. Aren't you being unfair to Kerry?
Here's what I object to about what Senator Kerry has done. It's one thing to say you're against special interests, but he isn't. He's taken more money than any other senator in the last 15 years. I mean, that's pretty blatant. George Bush does the same thing. It seems to me there's a little of George Bush in John Kerry. George Bush says the most blatant things that are just plain false. No Child Left Behind leaves every child left behind -- something that Senator Kerry also voted for. How many rationales has George Bush given us for the Iraq war? Well, how many rationales has John Kerry given us for the Iraq war (which he also supported)? So I'm beginning to see a pattern. Maybe they shared a little more than just brotherhood at Skull and Bones, I don't know. I think that is not the kind of person the Democratic Party is going to win with. If you have a choice between Bush and Bush Lite why not go for Bush? Of course I never would.
That makes you a better potential nominee than John Kerry? A more electable nominee?
First of all, I say what I think and I stand up for what I believe in even when it's not popular. No Child Left Behind and the war are two examples of that. It's easy to stand up when the polls are in your favor. The president I admire most in the last 60 years is Harry Truman because he did exactly that and he's one of the great presidents of the last century. Secondly, I can get things done. Senator Kerry sponsored 350 bills. Three of consequence passed. We have health insurance for everybody under 18 with prescription benefits for a third of all our seniors in my state. I've balanced budgets. So I have a record of actually doing something. Washington, D.C., is the only place in the country where sitting on a committee makes people think you have experience. I have executive experience and that's a big difference. The other thing is that I don't owe anybody except the voters, and so I don't have any fears about saying what I believe. The voters are the only ones I'm responsible to, not the special interests.
Next page: Defending his "gaffe" about Saddam Hussein