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The state of the economy
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With two weeks to go until the midterm elections, Democrat and Republican candidates are increasing the intensity of their campaigns. One of the major election issues concerns the economy. Former Al Gore campaign chairman Tony Coelho and former Republican congressman Bob Walker joined "Crossfire" hosts Tucker Carlson and "West Wing's" Ron Silver on Friday to discuss the role the economy plays in this year's election. SILVER: ... Now as I said before, the 401(k) third quarter statements are coming in [and] people are going to be very, very depressed. CEOs are going to jail. The stock market is tanking. The economy seems to be in some sort of trouble. A lot of people are getting fired at all these places. That's a midterm election, Democratic issue. Why isn't it helping? WALKER: Well, in large part because I don't think the Democrats are trusted to lead on the economy. ... SLIVER: But certainly in terms of the economy, the eight years under Bill Clinton -- whether it was gratuitous or not with his bubble, whatever -- seem to have been pretty good. Now I understand circumstances are different now. WALKER: Even Bill Clinton's own economists say that this recession started at the end of his term and so what we're doing is fighting our way through a problem that grew out of that period. That's partially a stock market problem, but it's also a problem with the fact that we haven't done all the things that are necessary to get the economy straightened out. The Republican House has passed several pieces of economic legislation, which Bush and his team believe are necessary. Those have all died in the Senate, and that's a problem. CARLSON: Tony Coelho, Celinda Lake has basically made the same points. She is, of course, a renowned Democratic pollster. Here's what she says, "To our chagrin," she told "USA Today," "the public is not yet blaming Republicans for the bad economy." In other words, everyone recognizes the economy's in tough shape. COELHO: Not according to Bob. CARLSON: But people also, more than that, recognize that blame placing is vulgar partisanship and they reject it, which is to say they reject the Democrat strategy. Isn't that true? COELHO: That's a strange connection. No. CARLSON: No, that's what Celinda Lake is saying. She is saying we want to blame all the problems on President Bush. People aren't buying it. We need to think of something new to lie to them about them. COELHO: No, I think the issue is, Tucker, that the economy is in serious trouble. And I do think in every poll it says that the public is concerned about the president's leadership on the economy. He has one of the worst economic teams that we have had since Carter's team. I mean, this is a disaster with this administration. And the public, if you look at the polls, the public will say that they do not have confidence in this administration in regards to the economy. The polls also say that they favor the Democrats in regard to these issues ... WALKER: That's just not the case. There are a number of polls ... COELHO: I politely let you get away with your rhetoric ... WALKER: Thank you. COELHO: The thing is that I think the issues are there. What is very obvious is that the administration is trying to make sure that those issues don't come up. The president doesn't talk about those issues. And he's talking about a lot of other issues, and running around the country with his pom-poms, running campaigns instead of dealing with the issues that this country really has.
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AIRS: Weekdays 4:30 p.m. ET / 1:30 p.m. PT
