WOODRUFF: We have Bush campaign ads out arguing that John Kerry's plan, health care plan and his plan to cut the deficit is going to have to mean $900 billion worth of new taxes. Are you worried that this campaign is going to be painting John Kerry right off the bat as another tax-and-spend liberal?
MCAULIFFE: Well, first of all, the ads are wrong. They're misleading. John Kerry has called for tax cuts. He wants to make sure that the middle class, lower-income, small business gets tax cuts.
So, you know, it's just plain wrong. But what I have been saying, Judy, on your show for the last three years is that these Republicans and George Bush are going to continually mislead the American public. They can't talk about positive news about the economy. He's lost three million jobs. Health care has gone up, as you know, 14 percent. He's underfunded schools. So, you know, he's going to try and resort to these tactics to distort our candidate.
WOODRUFF: But this is the way -- but this is the way the Bush campaign is trying to introduce John Kerry to the American people.
MCAULIFFE: Well, that's right. And they're just plain wrong. I think the president of the United States...
WOODRUFF: But how do you know it won't stick, is my question?
MCAULIFFE: Well, they won't because we aggressively are also going to go up with television advertising. The Kerry campaign has just gone up. The Democratic National Committee, as you know, we are prepared to go up immediately.
We're going to get out with our positive a message. Let George Bush and the Bush-Cheney campaign, you know, talk about their distortions. We're going to talk about what we're going to do to move this country forward on the economy, on health care and on education. John Kerry has served this country admirably and we're going to have a campaign that's going to excite a lot of people.
WOODRUFF: Well, it is true that John Kerry's responding. But is he going to be able to keep up? The Bush-Cheney people raising something like $140 million, $150 million. Is John Kerry going to have the ability, the resources, to get his message out there?
MCAULIFFE: Well, and that's something that, you know, I've worried about for several years. As you know the national party, we've got $17 million in the bank, which is $17 million more than we've ever had. We're debt-free. John Kerry can continue to raise money.
I promised John Kerry -- he and I were meeting together for an hour this week over at the national headquarters. The DNC, I'm committed to putting another $100 million together for the campaign. So we're going to have the resources we need. We're never going to have as much money, Judy, as they have. They've got the best money they can buy from the insurance industry, from the energy industry. We're going to be able to compete. We're going to have enough money to get our message out.
I remind you that they outspent Al Gore by $178 million and he did get 500,000 more votes than George Bush did.
WOODRUFF: Well, but they also made it to the White House.
What about the front-loading system, Terry? This was clearly something you wanted. You've done, Don Fowler, one of your predecessors as head of the DNC, said the other day: "Whether or not John Kerry can be an effective candidate operating on limited funds for four or five months until the convention will determine whether this" -- in other words, this front-loading thing -- "was a good idea."
MCAULIFFE: Well, first of all, I remind you that Al Gore and George Bush were the nominees on March 7, about the exact same time that John Kerry became the nominee of our party.
But instead of three days of voting, which you had under the old presidential calendar, three days of voting, 19 states, you now had 38 states voting, over 10 different states. John Kerry proved that he could win in the South, he could win in the West, the East, the North.
WOODRUFF: Right.
MCAULIFFE: It was a much better calendar. We have a nominee. I've said for years that George Bush is going to go up early with an aggressive media buy.
WOODRUFF: All right.
MCAULIFFE: He did that on March 4. We're going to have the money that we need. We are in the best shape -- as John Kerry said to the DNC staff, best shape this party's ever been in.
WOODRUFF: Well, let me talk to you about you, Terry McAuliffe. It was reported that John Kerry, that his campaign was furious with you after you described the president as AWOL in his Air National Guard service. One Kerry aide was quoted as saying at the time, it was just not the message we wanted out there.
They are now putting their own man in at the DNC. Is this going to be somebody who outranks you?
MCAULIFFE: There's no one going into the national party that's going to outrank the chairman of the party. Clearly, the campaign is going to send people over to the DNC. We have been preparing for this. I've been doing this for 24 years. It is always the same with the DNC when you have a candidate.
John Kerry got up in front of the staff and he was spectacular. He said, this is the best DNC we've ever had. He said, Terry McAuliffe deserved tremendous credit. I'll let John Kerry talk about me. I don't need to do that today. But we're going to have people move over. We are one unit today. The Kerry campaign and the DNC, we are together. I spoke to Senator Kerry today. I spoke to him yesterday. I met with him the day before. He and I have had a long 20-year friendship. We're very close personal friends.
We are now and we always will be. So I'm very excited about where we are. We're in the best shape. We have a nominee. We are unified. We have money in the bank.
WOODRUFF: All right.
MCAULIFFE: The issues are on our side. And we're ahead in the polls. It is all positive. You're always going to have campaign people talking about this and that. Listen, this is politics.
WOODRUFF: All right.
MCAULIFFE: We're excited. We're ready to go.
WOODRUFF: We hear you.
MCAULIFFE: Thanks, Judy.
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