Where's straight shooting from Dean on financing?
By Scot Lehigh, 12/3/2003
THE QUESTION to candidate Howard Dean was perfectly straightforward. His answer was anything but.
However, the candidate's misdirection was so adroit that the unwary might just have left the Kennedy School after Monday night's ''Hardball'' special thinking Howard Dean is exactly what his supporters claim: a blunt, plain-spoken, truth-telling country doctor, Vermont's fresh-air antidote to a plague of cynical politics.
Until you realize what's really going on, that is.
Here is the query from an audience member: Would Dean, who has opted out of public financing, still respect the accompanying state spending limits in the primary process? And if not, how could Dean claim he was committed to public financing, given that he was abandoning the system now that he could afford to?
''Actually, I abandoned the system not because we could afford it but because we can beat George Bush that way,'' Dean replied.
And besides, Dean added, his own fund-raising, with its third quarter average donation of $77, was the very definition of campaign finance reform. That claim of low-dollar political virtue drew a round of applause and some cheers -- and Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show, moved on to the next question.
But let's hit the pause button for just a moment. The real issue is the one Dean didn't answer: that is, whether he will abide by the primary spending caps in the individual states.
At the rate he is currently spending, the strong suspicion is that Dean will not. The Vermonter is in the midst of an Iowa ad splurge, dropping $450,000 on TV spots over 10 days. Unless he slows his spending precipitously, there's little doubt he will bust the cap of $2.5 million in spending.
''They are headed toward blowing through the cap in Iowa by several million if they maintain their current rate of expenditure,'' says Bill Carrick, consultant to Richard Gephardt. ''And the most disingenuous part is this whole characterization that this is about beating George Bush.''
Actually, it's about beating Dick Gephardt. Gephardt, who hails from next-door Missouri, must win the Iowa caucuses. And if Gephardt should win in his backyard, he would be reasonably well positioned to emerge as Dean's principal challenger after New Hampshire, since the congressman has footholds in several of the states that hold primaries on Feb. 3, one week after the Granite State contest.
But Gephardt, who is accepting public matching money, must operate within the Iowa cap. So if Dean's bigger media blitz buys him an Iowa win on Jan. 19 -- and he prevails the following week in New Hampshire -- he would likely eliminate both Gephardt and US Senator John Kerry. And gain a huge head of steam as the campaign goes South and West.
And if Dean's dollars don't boost him to victory in Iowa? Well, by forcing Gephardt to focus on fortifying his base, the doctor's tactics will still have drained time and resources that would otherwise help make the Missourian a more formidable candidate later on.
All that stands in the way of that consummate bit of political realpolitik is Dean's supposed status as a guileless straight shooter who has no truck with politics as usual.
Dean having deftly ducked the question during the show itself, it seemed worthwhile to ask it again afterward. So: Given that his rationale for rejecting public financing is that he will need to spend more heavily to beat George Bush, why does he have to reject the primary spending limits as well?
''Well, we actually haven't decided to do that yet,'' Dean replied. ''But it looks very much like the other candidates are doing it anyway, so we may not have to make that decision.''
Now, wait just a minute. The only other candidate who has opted out of public financing is Kerry. And Kerry did so explicitly because Dean rejected public dollars -- and spending limits -- first.
Thus what we have here is Dean using the reaction to his own decision to justify a possible further violation of the spirit of fair primary play. That's why it's important to keep your eye on what Dean does in Iowa.
If the Vermonter does spend more than the Iowa cap, as seems likely, we'll have learned something important about him.
Namely, he's not really a no-nonsense country doctor. He just plays one on TV.
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