Early Democrat handicapping for 2004
DICK MORRIS - THE HILL
The very first thing to understand about the 2004 Democratic primaries is that they do not exist. There is no such thing as a Democratic primary in 2004, except in the handful of states that do not permit independents to enter Democratic voting booths. In the vast majority of states, there is no primary. There is a general election to which, in most cases, Republicans are not invited.
In 2000, the impact of the independent vote was masked because it was split between former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Almost none of it went to either Al Gore or George W. Bush in the primaries.
But with no Republican primary in the offing for 2004, the independents will flood and overwhelm the Democratic primary in most states.
That will give the advantage to a moderate Democratic candidate such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.). There is a huge amount of room for a pro-war Democrat who praises Bush's toughness on terror and attacks his Democratic colleagues for weakness, flip-flopping and timidity in the face of terror.
Unfortunately, Lieberman seems to have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. How else to account for his abysmal failure to raise money during the last quarter, a period in which he only received $2 million. Meanwhile, Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) set the pace, raising $7 million each, and Rep. Dick Gephardt (Mo.) was not far behind. Even former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean raised money.
If Lieberman shows a similar inability to raise money in the next quarter, his laziness and lethargy in picking up the phone, or his lack of persuasiveness once on the line, will have cost him a very good shot at the nomination.
Edwards may be headed for disaster because of his success in fundraising. As reported in The Hill, he collected $2,000 contributions from paralegals, clerks and secretaries who work for his big trial-lawyer donors. Undoubtedly, Edwards got them on the phone, one at a time, and asked how much they could pledge. Taking off their gloves, shoes and socks, they counted on their fingers and toes how many employees they had, multiplied by two and quoted a number.
A close and careful review of Edwards' fundraising may provide enough ammunition to knock him out of the race.
Gephardt, the Democratic Bob Dole, may also have contracted the political equivalent of SARS by missing 84 percent of the votes in the House since the first of the year. How many wonderful negative ads will that provide fodder for? The lame excuse that he was running for president won't cut it with voters who want to know what he is doing to earn the $154,700 taxpayers pay him to be in Congress.
Bad attendance always seems excusable to the insiders but never to the voters. In missing votes on the Democratic alternative to the Bush tax cut, legislation to prevent child kidnapping, the extension of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the statute banning human cloning, and the resolution condemning the United Nations for naming Libya chairman of its disarmament committee, he is going to have a hard time explaining where he's been.
Edwards can point to an 87 percent attendance record and Lieberman to a 77 percent score during the same period. Kerry, also vulnerable, made only 60 percent of the votes (even excluding January, when he was recovering from prostate surgery).
Kerry, who had manfully resisted putting his foot in his mouth all throughout the Iraq war, finally couldn?t help himself and alluded to the necessity for regime change in Washington, injecting partisan divisiveness where it is least welcome, in the midst of a war.
Finally, Kerry, Gephardt and Edwards each face a major challenge in their need to win the neighboring states of New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina in the very early going.
The conventional wisdom holds that Gephardt won Iowa in 1988 and holds a commanding lead there. It also suggests that Kerry is popular in New Hampshire and that the South Carolina vote is sufficiently dominated by blacks so as to give Edwards a good shot.
But Dean is tied with Kerry in New Hampshire and free to move as far left as he wants. With no real chance at the nomination, he can out-peace Kerry and leave the Massachusetts senator caught, à la Muskie, trying to appeal to a national centrist electorate while competing with Dean on the left. It's a good way to fall between two chairs.
In South Carolina, independents may overwhelm the Democratic black turnout. Al Sharpton could also catch fire and soak up votes. In that case, a genuinely moderate/conservative/hawk Democrat such as Lieberman could have an advantage by running to the right.
But only if he gets off his butt and raises some money.
Dick Morris is a former consultant to President Clinton, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other political figures.
thehill.com |
