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GOV. ED RENDELL (D), PENNSYLVANIA: I figure even if Senator Kerry goes on to become president, I think in some ways it will be Bill Clinton's party because so many of us in elected office, so many of the major contributors, the fund-raisers for the Democratic Party, so many of the field organizers, really cut our teeth in presidential politics with Bill Clinton. He attracted so many people to the Democratic Party and despite, obviously, the missteps during his presidency, it was a great eight years for the American people. Poverty went down. Teenage pregnancy went down. Crime went down. Housing starts were up. The economy created 24 million new jobs. People feel a great affinity for what he did and for who he is.
I was listening to your report about his mother-in-law saying he was upbeat as usual. Well, he was always upbeat. Bill Clinton has a way of making people feel good about themselves, feel good about the human race, feel good about the country and I think that's why he's so loved and I understand there are people who dislike him and people who don't think he did a good job as president. But the people who do and they were in the vast majority -- remember, he left office with the highest approval rating of anybody since we've been doing this, highest job approval rating -- I think people do have a great affection for them because he made them feel good. He made them feel better about themselves. Unlike what we saw at the Republican convention, he always appealed to the best parts of America, the best parts of our spirit.
GIBSON: Now, governor.
RENDELL: That's the truth. That's the truth and you know it's the truth.
GIBSON: I don't want to this to sound like a eulogy. I mean I think the bad news for the people who dislike Bill Clinton is that these operations work extremely well. He's going to come out, you know, as if new. And he's probably --
RENDELL: Better.
GIBSON: Better, yeah, you get this stuff cleared up and you're good for 30 years. I mean Bill Clinton is going to come out of this in all likelihood -- the odds always say, in great shape and a force for another 30 years or so. So --
RENDELL: There's no question. This is slow -
GIBSON: So let's look ahead a little bit. Is it -- is John Kerry the Bob Dole of 2004? Is this a place holder election and basically when it's over, it's going to be back to being Bill Clinton's party?
RENDELL: No, I wouldn't say that. We are a long way from over in this election. I want everyone who's out there thinking George Bush has a 10-point lead, this is over, I want everybody to remember 1988. We came back from Atlanta, John, you'll remember this -- after Mike Dukakis made that great speech, came on the stage to the Neil Diamond song, "Coming to America," we were up 17 points as we came back from Atlanta. I think we lost by 10? So there's a lot of campaign left to go. I think the American people are going to get way from the rhetoric and start thinking more about issues as we get closer.
GIBSON: Let me just set Kerry aside for a moment. We all know Bill Clinton would like to see his wife, Hillary president, some day. And that he will do whatever he can to engineer this and he has considerable political skills. So tell me, how is he going do that?
RENDELL: Well, in my judgment, Hillary's in great shape and in 2012, she'll be a great candidate and she'll be the odds-on favorite. She'll probably have to contest with Vice President Edwards for the nomination. But seriously, whether it's 2008 or 2012, Hillary Clinton has, A, inherited a lot of the president's upside, avoiding a lot of his downside, plus she's also created a real good following in her own right. So I think that she's well positioned to be the next nominee, either if John Kerry loses in 2008 or if John Kerry wins in 2012, and Bill Clinton will obviously do that by calling on all of the people that he has helped. You said at the outset -- he's been an enormous help to me, an enormous help to me, not just to me politically, an enormous help to the city of Philadelphia when I was mayor. If he picked up the phone and said I want you to help Hillary or if Hillary picked up the phone, I would be hard pressed to say no.
GIBSON: Governor, Governor, let me ask you -- does President Clinton continue to hold the strings of power in the Democrat Party? Is he in essence the hidden hand?
RENDELL: Well, I don't think it's the strings or power so much in terms of organization or whatever. I think it's the loyalty because as I said, so many -- he's helped so many people. So many people cut their teeth in politics with him and that's going to be there even if John Kerry becomes president, which I believe there's a solid chance he will. I think Bill Clinton will retain a lot of that loyalty. And obviously the president of the United States is the president of the United States. But Bill Clinton will have that ability to call in those chips, to call on those relationships. I mean, I was with him Monday night in Pittsburgh. He came in to do a fund-raiser for Joe Hoeffel, our Senate candidate, and people came in droves and they came to hear him. They came to touch him. They came to shake his hand, to have their picture taken and that's not going to go away. We're going lose him for, I guess, two to four weeks in this campaign and that's going to hurt because I think he's a very effective weapon in raising money, in turning out our base. But my guess is you'll see Bill Clinton out in full force in October.
GIBSON: All right. Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania. Governor, it's always good to talk to you and I just want to remind people, we're not doing a eulogy for Bill Clinton.
RENDELL: He'll be back.
GIBSON: This operation usually in high probability, the guy comes out of it with flying colors and is around for a long time. Governor..
RENDELL: I had a friend, Lou Katz, the owner of the Devils who had the same operation at Presbyterian and he's stronger than he ever was.
GIBSON: All right. Governor Rendell, thanks a lot, appreciate it. Coming up in THE BIG STORY, people in the Bahamas get a taste of which's headed for Florida -- hurricane Frances, category three, borderline category four, 150 mile-an-hour wind gusts, as millions of people head out of town, our correspondents are fanned out across Florida.
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