It's tough being the tallest Poppy in the field.
"I'm tired of being a pincushion here."
Dean Goes on Offensive in Iowa
Democrat 'Tired of Being a Pincushion'
By John F. Harris and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 13, 2004; Page A01
PELLA, Iowa, Jan. 12 -- Former Vermont governor Howard Dean opened the final week of campaigning before next week's crucial Iowa caucuses with a sharp attack on his leading rivals Monday, charging that they are part of a Washington establishment that failed to hold President Bush to account and that they cannot bring change to the capital or the country.
The campaign in Iowa remains extremely fluid, with many undecided voters. Dean's decision to push back against his opponents underscored concerns among his advisers and supporters that he has spent too much time on the defensive in recent weeks and that he has sometimes appeared rattled by rivals' attacks and lackluster in debate.
Dean's advisers have worried for some time about how other candidates can gang up on him. On Monday, Dean explained his new, more aggressive posture by saying, "I'm tired of being a pincushion here."
Seeking to recapture the mantle of the anti-establishment outsider and to stoke the enthusiasm of a grass-roots movement he is counting on to deliver him a victory next Monday and elsewhere, Dean struck back.
"We need real change, and we don't just need a change in presidents," Dean said at a pancake breakfast here Monday morning. "We need a change in Washington, and we're not going to get it by electing someone from Washington."
Although he has been declared the Democratic front-runner and holds a strong lead in New Hampshire, Dean is in a tight race in Iowa. With polls showing him roughly even with Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), and with Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) behind them, each hopes to spring a surprise next week.
A loss by Dean could change the dynamic of the Democratic race, and far from embracing a front-runner's strategy of soaring above the fray, Dean mentioned all his main rivals by name.
Dean said that "Washington politicians and the established press . . . have attacked us for months." He added that although his rivals "want to say they are against the establishment, they are the establishment."
He dismissed them all as politicians who stand for the "Washington establishment," and he repeatedly reminded voters that, with the exception of Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio), the other elected Democrats in the race supported the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war with Iraq.
As Dean banged away at his opponents, Kerry received the endorsement of Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack, while his national co-chairman, former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, attacked retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark.
Kerry had sought but failed to win the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who remains neutral in the Democratic race. But Kerry's aides said they see his wife's support as the next-best thing -- what one described as a "seal of approval." Standing next to Kerry on the steps of the state Capitol, Christie Vilsack said, "Iowans choose not just on policy, but on intangibles." She described the personal relationship she has developed with the Kerry family over the past few years and said that, in listening to Iowa voters, she "heard only good things about Senator Kerry."
Afterward, she joined Kerry for an open meeting in Williamsburg and caught a ride home to Mount Pleasant aboard his campaign bus. There the pair greeted supporters on the white-columned porch of the Vilsack residence and visited inside over coffee.
As Kerry focused on Iowa, Shaheen dealt with his problems in New Hampshire, where Clark has overtaken Kerry for second place, behind Dean. She showed a videotape of Clark's appearance before an Arkansas Republican Party fundraising dinner in 2001, in which he praised Bush and members of his Cabinet, then said:
"I welcome Wesley Clark to our party. I just don't think someone who raised money for Republicans, praised George W. Bush after he had begun his systematic reversal of Bill Clinton's policies, and who as recently as this past summer refused to rule out running for president as a Republican should be the Democratic nominee for president."
"When you're attacked like this, it's the sincerest form of flattery in politics," Clark said in response.
Kerry told reporters traveling with him in Iowa that he had no advance knowledge of Shaheen's decision to go after Clark and refused to echo the attacks.
The multistate attacks by candidates underscored the unsettled nature of the Democratic race and the fact that none of them feels particularly confident as the caucus and primary season begins.
Gephardt, worried about money, campaigned briefly in Iowa on Monday. Then he departed for a campaign swing that will take him to California, Washington state and New York for fundraising, a foreign policy speech and an appearance on CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman."
Although Iowa is crucial to Gephardt's candidacy, the former House Democratic leader said he learned from his 1988 experience that he cannot afford a one-state strategy if he hopes to become the nominee. He won the Iowa caucuses in 1988 but ran out of money, lost a series of primaries on Super Tuesday and was driven from the race.
Dean seemed particularly annoyed with the campaign tactics of Gephardt, who has said that Dean would not protect Social Security and Medicare. "Don't believe any of that stuff you get in your mailbox about me," Dean told one senior citizen in Sigourney. "They're filling me full of buckshot."
He said he plans to spend the next week trying to "hammer" back against what he described as a barrage of attacks motivated by fear of the radical change he would bring to the capital. He said Monday's sharper tone fits his temperament. "It goes to a pattern I have," he said of his critics and his response Monday. "I let 'em pass for a while, and then I really try to hammer" his accusers.
Dean did not dispute a suggestion that he had a lackluster performance in Sunday's debate, but he pronounced himself energized because "the more people attack me, that rejuvenates me."
Edwards spent part of his day scouring for votes in rural Iowa, where he has made a special effort to build an organization. "We're organized everywhere, but I come from rural America and I have a real personal sense of what they care about," he said, adding: "We've gotten a great response in rural Iowa."
Clark and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who have skipped Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire, both left the Granite State on Monday -- Lieberman for Arizona and Clark for Texas.
Before leaving New Hampshire, Clark was asked about a 2002 statement in which he said "certainly" there was a link between Iraq and al Qaeda, and whether that was inconsistent with his assertion that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was not responsible in any way for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The statement was captured on home video and reported in Monday's New York Times.
"It would be naive to think the Iraqi intelligence agency never tracked anyone from al Qaeda, but that's a far cry from saying there's any relationship between Saddam Hussein and 9/11," Clark said in explanation.
"The administration was trying to hype the intelligence leading up to their decision to go to war with Iraq," he added. "I was downplaying that intelligence and saying of course there might have been some contacts, but that's not the same thing."
In Texas, Clark was endorsed by Rep. Martin Frost (D).
Staff writers Paul Schwartzman, Vanessa Williams and Jonathan Finer contributed to this report.
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