Time columnist Joe Klein is guest at Richardson Auditorium
By: Chip McCorkle
Former CBS anchor Dan Rather hosted his weekly television news magazine "Dan Rather Reports" live Tuesday night from Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium.
The colorful newsman and his guest, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein, answered questions from pre-selected Woodrow Wilson School students and faculty about the 2008 presidential race on a night falling exactly one year in advance of New Jersey’s primaries.
The February date will be the earliest in New Jersey’s history, part of a nationwide trend toward holding earlier primaries. But much more about the upcoming race strikes him as unique, Mr. Klein said.
"It really is something different," the veteran of nine presidential campaigns said. "Sometimes the American people are focused on the election, other times it’s sort of on the distant horizon for them. This time people are dead serious."
Mr. Klein said there seemed to be great discontent among voters, but that the candidates haven’t quite responded to it yet.
What he’s looking for from candidates, Mr. Klein said, is honest, straight talk.
"A candidate won’t have credibility unless he or she tells me something I don’t want to hear."
Besides writing a regular column for Time since 2003, Mr. Klein is the author of several books including the bestseller "Primary Colors," a then-anonymously-written novel based on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.
On the subject of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, Mr. Klein speculated that voters might not want to see another Clinton in the White House.
"In 2008, we will have had 20 years of Clinton and Bush … two prohibitively weird families," he said.
Mr. Klein also said he "would not be stunned if (New York City Mayor Michael) Bloomberg got in the race" as a third-party candidate.
While the discussion touched on a variety of subjects related to the election, the show’s scripted portions, including a pre-recorded opening report, focused on what was described as the virtually all-important role money plays in presidential campaigns and the dangers associated with it.
Mr. Rather closed the show with a statement warning against shifting from "a country of, by and for the people to a country of, by and for people with money" and to one with "some voices much more equal than others."
Mr. Rather left the CBS Evening News after 24 years in the wake of a widely discredited "60 Minutes" report about President Bush’s time in the National Guard. "Dan Rather Reports" premiered in October on HDNet, the first television channel to present all its programming in high-definition.
The show will hold more such town-hall meetings across the country as the election approaches.

