SHOW: JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS 16:00
HEADLINE: Upstager in Chief; Medicare Grudge Match
GUESTS: Tom Harkin
BYLINE: Ron Brownstein, Dana Bash, Jonathan Karl, Kate Snow
BODY:
SNOW: Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will be the featured guest at Senator Tom Harkin's Hear it From the Heartland forum on Saturday. The forum Mason City is Senator Harkin's fourth in a series featuring Democratic presidential candidates.
Senator Harkin joins us now live from Capitol Hill.
Senator Harkin, thanks for being with us.
SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: Thanks, Kate.
SNOW: You're getting a lot of attention for this. Why are you doing this? You have said you want air the -- get the candidates out there, let them talk to Iowans. Is it about that or is it also somewhat about getting some attention for yourself?
HARKIN: No, it's actually about ensuring that our candidates get sufficient time to get their message out and respond to questions, so that first the people who are attending the Iowa caucuses have a better idea about where these candidates stand on the issues and where they want to take us in the future.
But it's not just for Iowa. Because C-SPAN carries these live and rebroadcasts them, it's a way for each of the candidates to get his or her message out nationwide.
SNOW: The people in the audience, though, are all from Iowa. What's -- you've done three so far. What's the most popular question?
HARKIN: Well, we've tried to -- I've tried to make sure that the audiences -- I don't plant the question. We just call them randomly.
But I ask people to think about what's really important and what's going to be important next year, which I think is going to be the economy. If it was the economy, stupid, in 1992, it is the economy, stupid, in spades right now: three million jobs lost. So when we get into these forums, I think the most popular questions are those that deal, basically, with the economy and how we're going to get the economy moving again.
And I would say a very close second to that is health care and what they're going to do about health insurance, about Medicare. And right after that, I would say, would be education.
SNOW: You've got Senator John Kerry this Saturday in Iowa. He said yesterday -- and got a lot of attention for saying -- the president misled every one of us, he said, in talking about building an international coalition to go into Iraq.
Senator Kerry has, in the past, of course, supported the president. He voted for the Iraq resolution. How do you think that's going to play with your -- with Iowans? And with you, how does that play?
HARKIN: Well, I think John Kerry is on to something here, because someone didn't tell us the facts. Now, I don't know whether it was the president. Or did the CIA mislead him? Somebody is misleading someone here, because I don't think the American people got all of the facts.
And I don't think even we, last fall, in the Senate, voting on this, had all the facts. And so I think there's some accountability that needs to be done here.
SNOW: Does Senator Kerry need to be strong about that this weekend? Because he's sort of played it both ways.
HARKIN: Well, I think everyone needs to be strong about this. I think we as Democrats need to hold President Bush accountable for the misrepresentations that were made about Saddam Hussein and about Iraq.
SNOW: Are you screening these candidates, Senator, so you can make your own personal endorsement?
HARKIN: Well, I have said that I'm not endorsing anyone right now. I have no favorites. I'm being an honest broker.
I just wanted to set up a structure to give the candidates enough time to get their message out. I'm opposed to these cattle calls, where you get all of them together. They get five minutes. And so I wanted to give them enough time to connect with the audience, to connect with voters, and get their message out.
SNOW: What question, finally, do you want to see Senator Kerry handle this weekend?
HARKIN: Well, I personally will want to know what his views are on the economy, what's his economic plan to get our jobs back again, and how we get out of the deficit crisis that we're in, in America. How are we going to rebuild our country and provide jobs for our people in the future?
SNOW: Senator Tom Harkin, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it.
HARKIN: Thanks, Kate.
SNOW: Good luck this weekend.
HARKIN: Thanks, Kate.