AMY GOODMAN: There are indications Steve Forbes may be preparing to get out of the Republican presidential race. One of his senior aides says Forbes might drop out in two or three weeks if Bob Dole agrees to push for tax reform. The aide says Forbes is looking for some sort of recognition of his role in the nomination battle. Publicly, however, Forbes dismisses the idea of his leaving the race.

And on the eve of this critical Super Tuesday primaries, Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is planning a campaign swing through Oklahoma. Buchanan acknowledges the odds are against him in winning the GOP nomination, but he still calls his campaign the miracle of 1996. Buchanan told a Texas rally last night he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him, but says he’ll fight to make sure the Republican Party remains opposed to abortion. Rejecting suggestions that his campaign might be damaging the party, Buchanan says he’s been a good Republican and only wants to bring supporters of Ross Perot back into the GOP.

And a day before seven states vote in the Super Tuesday primaries, Bob Dole is campaigning in the two biggest: Texas and Florida. Dole said at a rally yesterday in Melbourne, Florida, “If one candidate should win all seven states, I think this thing is virtually over.” The Senate majority leader has been stressing his 30 years’ experience in Washington. He also says he’s no longer paying attention to his Republican rivals, but to defeating President Clinton in November. Three hundred sixty-two Republican delegates are at stake tomorrow, just under two-thirds of them in Texas and Florida. Dole has two more campaign stops planned for today in Fort Lauderdale and San Antonio before heading home to Washington.

Well, if it’s Monday, it’s money here on Democracy Now! And today, in our “Money Talks” segment, we look at an attempt to have citizens talk to the ever-increasing role of money in politics. Joining us to talk about this issue is Becky Cain. She is chair of the League of Women Voters, and she is part of a project that is bringing groups together around the country in six different states to look at this issue and to come up with solutions.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Becky Cain.

BECKY CAIN: Well, thank you. Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Good morning. Why don’t you tell us what the League of Women Voters is doing?

BECKY CAIN: Well, we’re working with The Harwood Group, which is another organization that’s interested in getting people together and talking about issues, to bring, as you mentioned, in six different sites across the country, individuals together to talk about money in politics and how people might change that equation. And what we’ve seen is that citizens do care and have concerns about money in politics. They are less united or even hopeful that that can be changed. And it’s our hope that with the project, we’ll be able to bring people together to talk among themselves, to talk with elected officials, to see how they might indeed be able to make some change and to change that equation.

AMY GOODMAN: What states are you doing this in? And how are you choosing the people in each state?

BECKY CAIN: Well, we’re doing it, and I guess we kick off in Greeley, Colorado, then go to Chicago, Illinois; Newton, Massachusetts; Tallahassee, Florida; Seattle, Washington; and Los Angeles, California. And we’re doing what — sort of a random sample of the community. We will have some phone numbers picked at random, and our recruiters, our volunteers, will call these folks and talk to them and try to get some sense of age, background and so forth, and so that they really will reflect the communities that they live in. We don’t want it — we want it to be very much representative of the community.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, what will happen? How long will these people gather for? How will they be informed about money in politics?

BECKY CAIN: Well, we have put together an advisory committee, which has helped us choose what kinds of information. And it’s people that have been interested in campaign finance reform, as well as academics, and to make sure that we don’t in any way bias the information. They will actually meet in this — in their group to talk about these things three different times — or, I mean, five different times, actually.

The first time they meet, they’ll just sort of try to understand and define the problem. And we have given them and will give them some just basic information about money in politics, about what the terminology means, about how the system works now. And we’ve run it through our advisory committee to make sure that we aren’t going to in any way bias the slant. I mean, we really just want to give them the information that they need. So, in the first assembly, they’ll just sort of talk about what this thing is and define the problem and get an understanding of how the system works.

In the second assembly, the second time they meet, then they will come back and try to wrestle with some options for action. We’re not going to give them what — the different alternatives. We’re going to let them talk about what they think might be possible alternatives.

Then, the third time they meet, they’ll come together with officeholders. So, much of the discussion around campaign finance reform has been some concern about officeholders’ ability to manipulate the system and what the trade-offs may or may not be. So, in the third assembly, they will actually be able to talk with officeholders and get everybody’s point of view together and allow the officeholders to really hear what the citizens think.

Then, in the fourth assembly, they’ll really start to clarify the issues and some of the choices. They will have put the options out there. They will have talked to elected officials. And they’ll really start beginning to mold their opinion.

And then, in the fifth one, they will really make some choices and decide how they really feel about the issue, so that we can compile a report, at the end of all of this process in all of these cities, to really clarify the public’s concern and options and how they feel about the system and about how money drives the system.

AMY GOODMAN: Will you be bringing in people, for example, that were defeated, people who ran for public office? Will you be bringing in third-party representatives to talk about how the system focuses on just two parties?

BECKY CAIN: Well, I, frankly, don’t know the answer to that one. I don’t think that we’re going to be focusing at all — we’re trying not to focus specifically on any type of problem ourselves. What we’ve been trying to do is let the public define those issues. We will be bringing in experts from time to time, but I honestly don’t know who we have on the agenda in some of these places to talk to them. So, I’d hate to tell you.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me put the question to Richard Harwood — 

BECKY CAIN: Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: — who is joining us from The Harwood Group, which is a consulting group that is joining the League of Women Voters in running these different groups in the six different states. And we welcome you to Democracy Now!

RICHARD HARWOOD: It’s good to be with you.

AMY GOODMAN: This question of when you bring in the experts to talk about money, and then you bring in the public officials to give their views on how money enters into the public campaigns, will you also bring in representatives of third parties and people who have been defeated in elections, who can talk about the problem and the obstacles that money poses and how it reinforces a two-party system?

RICHARD HARWOOD: Well, I think that’s a possibility. I think the most important thing in how we go about this process is to make sure that different voices get heard by citizens, whether they’re in person or over a video or through written materials. We believe it’s important that they get the full spectrum, the whole story, about what they need to think about.

AMY GOODMAN: The reason I asked the question, and the reason I am interested in these kind of groups that form around the country is I watched carefully the National Issues Convention that ran on PBS, and I think there were a lot of problems with that convention. And one of the problems was that they identified the people before the big TV event where people got to ask questions. They had planned who it would be that asked the question. Well, they said this was a very representative group, and you saw people of all colors in the audience. It turned out that the — at least the day I watched, when this large group of Americans who were pulled from all over the country and had gone through days of education, that when they were brought together, and their, quote, “leaders” asked questions, they had eight people asking questions of Vice President Dole [sic] on Democrat night, and all eight of them were white. Six of them were men. And overall, they asked extremely conservative questions, except for — except for one of the women in the group. How is this decided? And will yours be any different?

RICHARD HARWOOD: I think ours will be different in two fundamental ways. One is, we’re going to make sure that the folks who participate, or who are participating now, in these citizen assemblies represent a cross-section of America. If we don’t do that, if we fail to do that, I would say that the project has come up well short of its goals.

The second thing is, when we — in the third citizen assembly, when we bring citizens together with elected officials, perhaps other people, a third-party person who has lost or even one of the main two-party persons who have lost, those conversations — excuse me — those assemblies will be a conversation. They won’t be, as happened at the National Issues Convention, sort of the typical town hall meeting where one person stands up at a microphone, nails a public official with a question, and then it’s just the public official essentially holding a press conference. What we want to create is a fundamentally different approach, which is a conversation among all the participants and all the officials, leaders, candidates, who are sitting around the table with them. That’s going to take creating a different — different ground rules for the ways in which that conversation unfolds.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something. You do have some preconceived ideas of how people — of what people think of money in politics. I was looking through your “America’s Struggle Within: Citizens Talk About the State of the Union,” put out by The Harwood Group, and you have an idea of what people feel about money in politics. Is there a sentiment that campaigns shouldn’t be publicly funded? If a candidate wants to run, why should we pay for it?

RICHARD HARWOOD: Well, I think we have a first cut at what the public thinks, and I think that’s one of the things that will make this project different from other projects that have come before it. I think we know, for instance, that a lot of people think that moneyed interests are more important in candidates’ and politicians’ eyes than is the common interest. I think we know that people believe that politicians increasingly use their money to talk down other candidates, as opposed to stating what they believe. We think increasingly that citizens believe that when they look at candidates and public officials, they don’t see themselves. They say that “these people do not look like me. They do not feel like me. Anyone who raises the amount of money that they have to raise is living an entirely different life than I live.” That’s what we know.

What we don’t know and what we hope to find out through this work is: What does that mean for where people want to move the political system? And here, I think there are lots of internal or inherent conflicts in the debate. For instance, as you talk about public financing, for instance, let’s say full public financing, on the one hand, there are those people who say that’ll level the playing field, it’ll make it fairer and perhaps more competitive. You have other people who say that runs counter to competition. What we need, actually, is more money in the process, so that people, for instance, who are a minority candidate, people who are just first starting out, can raise more money to level the playing field. And so, you have a conflict in values between how we think about fairness, how we think about competition, how we think about a lot of other political values. And I think, fundamentally, when you strip aside or strip away all the jargon about campaign finance reform, what you have is a full and needed debate about our political values in a day and age of rapid change and fundamental change.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking with Richard Harwood. He’s head of The Harwood Group, which is joining with the League of Women Voters to conduct these six — and you are careful not to say “focus groups” —

RICHARD HARWOOD: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — but six groups around the country to look at the issue of money in politics. Becky Cain, let me ask you how people can get involved. Is this being done randomly, so people can’t say to you, in Colorado, for example, the first place you’re going to go, “I would like to be a part of this group”? And how many people are in each state.

BECKY CAIN: That’s correct. It is a random sample, and because we do, as Rich mentioned, want to be very careful that we do reflect the communities and where they live and the American population. So, it isn’t something you can volunteer for. It is something that we hope to be able to select, the random sample. And the other question was how many are going to be in the group?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

BECKY CAIN: I honestly don’t know. Rich, how many?

RICHARD HARWOOD: Twenty-four, 24 in each group. And let me just pick up where Becky left off. The second phase of this project will be where we roll out sort of a streamlined version of these conversations, so that people across America, volunteers, as you suggest, can plug into this process. And I think that’s an important element of this work as it rolls out into the future.

AMY GOODMAN: How can they do it?

RICHARD HARWOOD: Well, we’re going to be — a couple different ways. One is the League of Women Voters will be spearheading sort of the distribution of these materials across the country. In addition, we’re going to identify five sort of leading organizations that people believe in and which have credibility, who will spread these materials out, as well. But, Becky, is it fair to say that they could call the League of Women Voters to get the materials?

BECKY CAIN: Oh, absolutely. This is — as you mentioned, this is phase one, and we’re kicking it off now. And Rich is absolutely correct: We will have phase two, so that we can broaden, see how the system works, see how people have been involved in this phase, and then take it all across the country. And absolutely, they can call their League of Women Voters, ask if they can be a part of it, get the materials. No doubt about it.

AMY GOODMAN: And you can call your League of Women Voters anywhere around the country. In Washington, the number is 202-429-1965. That’s 202-429-1965. Now, let me ask you something, Becky Cain. I see that this whole project is sponsored by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. Now, the Pew Center and the Pew Charitable Organization Philadelphia is a very establishment group, as is the League of Women Voters. There may be some skepticism that people have that this is going to very much reinforce the status quo. For example, I know that the League of Women Voters has been involved with a number of controversies around who gets to debate in presidential debates, congressional debates, and that it very much focuses on the two-party system, and third-party candidates feel very left out. What is your response to that?

BECKY CAIN: Well, first of all, we do have another partner, and that’s the Joyce Foundation, so — and we are, as you mentioned, a very established organization and, over the years, have really gotten the trust of the American public.

While we may indeed have not always been able to accommodate everyone in the presidential debates, we have always used a system that has stood the test of time and the courts, to make sure that we have had an opportunity to bring you as many candidates as possible, given the format and the restrictions that we’ve had to live with over air time. I think the general public does understand that the League’s mission is to get people involved in the process, regardless of how they may feel or how they may care about a particular issue. We want people involved in the process. We want them talking about public policy, regardless of how they cast a ballot or regardless of what they say to their members of Congress or their city officials when they do participate. Our goal is to get you involved in the process.

And frankly, not only does this kind of a project deal with an issue, an issue of concern, an issue that keeps people, frankly, out of the process, because there’s so much emphasis on money from time to time, but this project actually has also a component that does allow people to come together and, as Rich mentioned, exercise their concerns, talk about what’s on their mind. We won’t preset any agenda. We won’t in any way try to impose anyone’s views, except the citizens involved in the process.

And I think that the citizens will be able, and should be able, to trust the League. As Rich mentioned, if we in any way don’t live up to the integrity that we’ve built into the process, then we, the League, will think that we have failed. And we don’t want to do that to ourselves, to our project or to the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: Rich Harwood, we just have 30 seconds, but I wanted to ask you about David Broder’s attack on Chuck Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, David Broder, The Washington Post, saying that his focus on money makes people cynical. Do you think you’ll be making people cynical, or are they already?

RICHARD HARWOOD: I think they’re frustrated. I think they’re exasperated by where the country is, and they believe now that we lack the capacity and the sense of public responsibility to solve many of these problems. I think, fundamentally, what we will do differently, than perhaps Chuck Lewis did, is we’re going to open up this debate not about campaign finance reform, but about people’s frustrations with politics and the relationship of money to those frustrations, and what their aspirations are for America’s political system. As we do that, I think this debate will enlarge beyond sort of the typical campaign finance reform debate and begin to let people in to thinking about how we reframe and rethink what it means to have a political process.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Richard Harwood of The Harwood Group, Becky Cain, chair of the League of Women Voters, thank you very much for joining us.

Up next, we go down South. Super Tuesday is tomorrow. We’re going to look at two states involved, Mississippi and Tennessee, after this.