THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT.  THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Greg Valliere, a political economist at Charles Schwab Washington Research Group, rejoins us at this hour. Obviously Gary Condit continues to be a major distraction for the nation's capital. It was all over the airwaves all weekend long after that interview on "PrimeTime Live" on Thursday with Connie Chung. How much of a distraction is it?</s>GREG VALLIERE, POLITICAL ECONOMIST, CHARLES SCHWAB WASHINGTON RESEARCH GROUP: Well, you know, I vowed I'd never talk about this with you guys in the morning, but it is a story now to this extent in the bigger economic business picture. The Democrats thought they would have all of late August, early September to really bash Bush on the issue of the shrinking surplus. They thought finally they could get some traction to use this against Bush, instead, Condit has hogged all the publicity. It's all Condit all the time if you look at a lot of the cable networks. And because of this, the Democrats are really frustrated and angry with him so angry they want him to step down so they can focus on things like the surplus.</s>HAFFENREFFER: OK, and the shrinking surplus and what it means for tax cuts and whatnot and more with Greg coming up in just a moment.
Gary Condit Distraction for Democrats