ballot box
Post-Game Pre-Game
Iowa's top three spin the fight in New Hampshire.
By William Saletan - SLATE
10:20 a.m. PT: One of the most important things to watch after a big primary or caucus is what the candidates say on the morning TV shows. Today, Kerry, Edwards, and Dean made the network rounds. Here's how they're revamping their messages for New Hampshire.
Kerry
1. Experience in foreign and domestic policy. In New Hampshire, Kerry faces a governor with no significant foreign policy experience, a former general with no significant domestic policy experience, and a first-term senator with some, but not much, of both. (This leaves out Joe Lieberman, who hasn't yet become a threat.) Of those four, Kerry says he's the only one with significant experience in both departments. Some of his pet phrases seem to aim at Dean ("safer and stronger," "judgment and temperament," "steady, trusted hand"). Others seem to aim at Clark (we need a president who "knows how to move the Congress"). Others seem to aim at Edwards ("ready to be president"). Kerry isn't afraid to state his political age: "35 years of experience."
2. Proven fighter. Kerry has adopted some of Dean's rhetoric, promising to "fight" and "take on powerful interests." He turns Dean's argument on its head. Dean says encrusted Washington Democrats are part of the problem. Kerry argues that unlike candidates who complain about Washington special interests from afar, he's been in the trenches fighting those interests (on the environment, prescription drugs, and Medicare). This is a tricky argument to pull off. It will take more skill than Kerry has shown so far, even in victory.
3. It isn't about me. Kerry's message about his readiness to be president is a return to the theme he stressed early last year. The reason that theme failed was that Kerry presented it in a self-absorbed, self-satisfied way. He sat in debates, looking confidently presidential while Dean talked about real issues and ate Kerry's lunch. What Kerry seems to have learned from Iowa and from Edwards is to focus more on real people and their problems. This morning he brushed off invitations to claim "vindication" in Iowa. Instead, he shifted the conversation to "the concerns of real people."
4. Gut check. In several interviews, Kerry said Iowans had checked his "gut" and "character" and had "looked in my eyes." This sounds to me like a shot at Clark for ducking Iowa. The message seems to be that while both men have shown military courage, only one has shown political courage.
5. Democrats don't need the South. On Good Morning America, Kerry was asked about Edwards' argument that the Democratic nominee must be able to win in the South. Kerry said this wasn't true because Al Gore could have won in 2000 just by picking up New Hampshire, West Virginia, or Ohio. A week from now, Kerry will sorely regret this comment, as Clark, Edwards, or both pummel him with it in South Carolina.
Edwards
1. Positive, hopeful, optimistic, uplifting. Blah, blah, blah. I'm one of the cynical pundits who finds this message fake and meaningless. But evidently it catapulted Edwards from single digits in Iowa to 32 percent. That's why he's a top-tier presidential candidate, and I'm sitting behind a computer.
2. It isn't about me. This is the theme Kerry is copying. It was Clinton's central message, allowing him to survive impeachment ("I just get up every day and work hard for you") because it made his opponents' attacks on him look like distractions from the job of helping people. Edwards applied the same lesson to Iowa with great effect. His rivals' attacks on each other, he argued, suggested to Iowans that those candidates "weren't listening to the voters." Edwards is so good at this shtick, Harry Smith of CBS had to plead with him this morning, "But I need you to talk about yourself for a second."
3. I can win everywhere. The Southern part of this message is as obvious as Edwards' accent. What's less obvious is the way he turns the message on fellow Southerner Clark. By describing his Iowa showing as proof that he can compete anywhere, Edwards implies that Clark forfeited his claim to being a national candidate by ducking Iowa. Edwards also tries to elevate himself above Clark by saying, "I have a proven record of being able to win in a very tough place." That boast looks pretty weak next to other presidential candidates who have won several elections. It works against Clark because Clark hasn't won any yet. But a Clark victory in South Carolina or Oklahoma would put it to rest.
4. I'm from the real world. Officially, this message targets Bush. According to Edwards, Bush has been "removed" from real people and encounters only people who are admitted to "ticketed events," whereas Edwards has been "out in the real world … listening to voters' concerns." Unofficially, the message targets Kerry, too. On Good Morning America, Edwards said, "The question is whether [real] change can be brought by somebody who spent most of their life in politics and in Washington or … somebody who spent most of their life in the real world." It's worth noting that in the waning days of Iowa, when Kerry made a crack about Edwards' youth, Edwards replied with a dig at Kerry's comfortable upbringing.
5. Foreign policy experience. This is the hard question Edwards can expect from now on. Here's how he answered it on the Today show: "I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee … I investigated Sept. 11th, helped write the laws that keep this country safe without taking away our rights and liberties; I've been in all the hot spots of the world, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Middle East, Europe; met with leaders in that part of the world; met with our own security operations in that part of the world; have a clear view of what America needs to do around the world." I like Edwards, but this still sounds like a bunch of junkets and committee assignments.
6. Domestic policy experience. Edwards gives two answers to this question. The first, that he has "two decades of real-world experience fighting the battles" on key issues, is horribly lame. Edwards was a plaintiff's attorney, not a lawmaker or even a policy advocate. His second answer is better: He has laid out "specific ideas" for creating jobs, expanding health care, and solving other problems. Edwards does have a 60-page plan spelling out his ideas. It'll be interesting to see whether its detail overcomes doubts about his readiness.
Dean
1. Keep fighting. Every interviewer today asked Dean whether he had learned anything from his tumble in Iowa. His answer was no. "All I can do is fight. That's all I know how to do, is stand up for what I believe in," he said on Good Morning America. On Today, Dean likened himself to Harry Truman, who "said what he thought … and he didn't look at the polls first." Maybe New Hampshire voters will respect Dean for sticking to his guns. Or maybe, like Iowans, they'll decide that his guns are the problem, in which case Dean is sealing his fate by spurning humility.
2. Fun. This is Dean's chief character flaw. His comments this morning underscored it. Last night he gave a furious non-concession speech in which he railed, snarled, contorted his face, and pledged to take his fight to the home states of his opponents. On CBS, Dean explained the speech this way: "You've got to have a little fun in this business." On ABC, he said of the Iowa supporters to whom he had been speaking: "I thought I owed them a little bit of fun. We're going to have some fun in this race. We're going to fight back." I used to worry about Dean because his idea of fun might scare other people. Now I worry because it scares me, too.
3. Washington Democrats. In his dark-horse days, Dean offered a clear critique of Democratic big shots. Then the big shots climbed onto his bandwagon, and the message became confusing. Dean was still trying to argue this morning that he lost Iowa because the establishment didn't want to let him "into the Washington club." But at the same time, he noted that he "had a lot of support from folks both inside the Beltway" as well as outside. Can Dean win New Hampshire with big shots at his side?
4. Gubernatorial record. Dean does seem to have learned one thing from his spanking in Iowa. He's distinguishing himself from Washington Democrats less on the basis of what they've done wrong and more on the basis of what he's done right. In every interview this morning, he stressed that he was the only candidate who had balanced budgets and delivered health care.
5. Good people. This is Dean's concession to niceness. He now routinely begins his critiques with, "These folks in Washington are good people, but …" The sentence sometimes ends with "they've been on committees for 18 years" or "they haven't balanced budgets," but Dean always stipulates that they're good people. Etiquette? From Dean? Goodness.
William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent.
Article URL: slate.msn.com |
