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CAMPBELL
BROWN: Welcome back, everybody.
We are about 45 minutes away from the start of the
debate at Ole Miss down in Oxford, Mississippi,
everybody looking forward to this moment that we have
been waiting for, riding the roller-coaster ride of
today, wondering whether it was going to happen or
not. But it is on. John McCain will be there. And we
are back with the best political team on television,
or, as Jeffrey Toobin pointed out, the best political
team in the world, because we have Michael Ware and
Christiane Amanpour with us tonight. And we're taking
full advantage of it.
And, Michael, let me pick up where we left off with
you and talk a little bit about Iraq. You have spent
so much time there. This was very much considered to
be a strength for John McCain...
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
BROWN: ... especially with the success of the surge,
how he would be able to highlight that. But if you
look at the polling now, where Iraq falls in terms of
people's priorities, I think it is number four in our
latest CNN poll, health care ahead of it, and
certainly the economy ahead of it, terrorism more
generally ahead of it.
Is, in a way, John McCain a victim of his own
success? Americans aren't paying attention to Iraq.
They don't want to talk about it. They want to talk
about the Iraq, so he doesn't get to highlight where
he was on many of those issues.
WARE: Well, it cuts both ways, really. I mean,
obviously, for people back home, these day-to-day
issues are much more salient. They're front and
center. That's what people are living, you know, dawn
to dusk. So, that's what people care about.
And Iraq... Iraq is a double-edged sword for Senator
McCain. Yes, it's been one of the center points of
his credibility as a potential leader in
international affairs, but he has got so much wrong
on Iraq as well. And the more and more he and even
Senator Obama stick to these -- this trite sort of
sound-biting of "the surge, the surge, the surge,"
it's evident that they're dumbing it down, the
complexities of the war in Iraq.
And the more they hammer that point, success or
failure, the more they're revealing or they're
telling us that they're not looking at the real
issues, like, what is the surge? It goes far beyond
30,000 extra combat troops. I mean, we are talking
about a whole host of factors. And, at the end of the
day, the success we are seeing in Iraq comes with a
heavy price tag.
And to just keep rabbiting on about the surge ignores
the real issues that will face the next president.
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CAMPBELL
BROWN: And able to get into, Michael Ware, I think
some of the nuance that we talked about especially on
issues like Iraq, which is very difficult to ask
these candidates to do when they're asked to give two
or three-minute answers.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT:
Absolutely. And surely we are at the point where
we're beyond sound bites. I mean, the American public
unless I'm reading them wrong --
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Michael, you've really been gone from
America for a long time.
(LAUGHTER)
WARE: Yes. It's just one too many bullets, there,
Jeff. Nothing like a front line to make it real. But,
you know, I think America's hungry for something
real.
I mean, aren't we tired of this pastiche, I mean,
this veneer? I mean, people want a real conversation.
We want to know what we're really getting.
BROWN: Well, we'll see.
WARE: So let's actually -- let's actually hear from
these people.
BROWN: Well, we might tonight. Who thinks we will?
Gloria?
BORGER: I do, I do. I mean, look, we've had how many
debates during the primaries where you had candidates
really going at each other in some of those debates
including ours.
COOPER: I also think given what's gone on in the last
week, people -- I mean, people -- it's down to brass
tacks and people, you know, their livelihood is at
stake and they want to hear answers.
BROWN: Such an important point.