Democrats Picking at Nearest Targets: Each Other
Tone of Rivalry for Presidential Nomination Turns Harsher as Finger-Pointing Begins Among Top Five Candidates
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A08
The Democratic presidential race, a rather collegial affair for much of the past year, is turning more negative and more personal as several leading candidates seek to distinguish themselves and discredit their rivals.
With five of the 10 Democratic candidates consistently bunched near the top of recent national polls, several are looking to protect or improve their standing by hitting their nearest rivals -- sometimes using questionable charges or remarks made nearly a decade ago.
Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), who until recently rarely attacked by name, is slamming Howard Dean -- the favorite target of several campaigns -- for abandoning Democrats in past fights over gun control, trade and Medicare. Gephardt is unleashing his attack in speeches, ads, press releases and a new Web site: Deanfacts.com, which accuses the former governor of advocating unpopular changes to Medicare and Social Security in the mid-1990s.
Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) is whacking Gephardt and Dean for allegedly telling voters "America can retreat from the global economy," as part of their trade policies, even though neither has made such remarks. Kerry has gone after Dean in a more personal way, telling a reporter this past weekend the Vermont Democrat is not qualified to be president because he makes too many gaffes on the campaign trail.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark is feeling the intensifying heat, too, as Kerry and aides to other candidates question Clark's commitment to the party. Just weeks ago, Clark announced he was a Democrat.
The new, more combative tone reflects the increasing pressure on all the leading candidates to differentiate themselves from the crowd. With the books about to close on the third-quarter fundraising period, the Democrats are scrambling to show voters and donors they have not just the message but also the muscle to defeat President Bush.
The candidates vacuumed up the easiest-to-get money during the first half of the year, so they are facing a more discerning crowd of party faithful who want to see signs of life and momentum before cutting checks. Several campaigns predicted today's debate in New York will feature the most pointed and personal exchanges yet.
The campaign is swinging into a critical phase, when more voters are tuning in to the race and the contests are starting to take shape in early voting states. Gephardt, for instance, is going after Dean, in large part because the former governor is eating into his support in Iowa, a must-win state for the Missouri congressman. It may be working: Erik Smith, Gephardt's spokesman, said Gephardt will raise more this quarter than he did during the last one, when the candidate was more collegial.
In many ways, Gephardt and Kerry are following the lead of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who has been highly critical of Dean, some of his other rivals and many Democrats for months. Lieberman's harsh critiques helped define him as the most conservative Democrat in the race.
Before Clark became a part of the race, the calculations seemed obvious to several campaigns: Gephardt needed to hold off Dean to win Iowa; Kerry needed to blow past Dean to win New Hampshire; and Lieberman and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) needed to bide their time and make their moves in February.
But Clark is complicating matters for all as he jumped ahead of the pack in new national polls. The candidates are proceeding as if Clark never jumped in, taking a wait-and-see approach to his candidacy, but the retired general could undermine Gephardt, Kerry and the other candidates if his pledge to pursue a less divisive and more "patriotic" tone takes hold, political strategists said. Polls show voters are turned off by harsh personal attacks, though Democratic voters are shopping for a candidate tough enough to go toe-to-toe with Bush.
Mark Fabiani, an adviser, said Clark will purse a "more optimistic campaign" and encourage the others "to respect each other's points of view."
Personal attacks also might play into Bush's strategy to paint Democrats as divisive and angry. "The rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is . . . a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech," Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie told reporters on Monday in what is becoming one of his standard lines.
Dean is making a similar case, as he tries to deflect the criticism coming from Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman. "It's bad for them" and the party, Dean said. "I think they are in real trouble . . . and making it worse" by attacking fellow Democrats.
Gephardt, however, feels Dean has misrepresented himself as a defender of the party when he undercut the party on Medicare and other issues in 1990s. At the time, Dean did applaud efforts to slow the rate of Medicare's growth, and said the government should consider raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70. In a recent letter to supporters, Gephardt's campaign manager, Steve Murphy, pointedly accused Dean of breaking ranks with the Democratic Party during fights over gun control and Medicare cuts.
Kerry, whose campaign has been locked in a debate for several months over how hard to hit Dean and when, is intensifying his attacks, too. This past weekend, Kerry told a reporter in New York that Dean "has been imploding" because he is making so many gaffes over Israel. Dean recently infuriated many Jewish leaders by suggesting the United States should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and calling suicide bombers from the terrorist organization Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, "soldiers."
"You can't make 15 gaffes a week and be president," Kerry said in recent remarks picked up by several news organizations. On Monday, Kerry went after Dean again, this time accusing him of jeopardizing U.S. jobs with his anti-trade rhetoric. "Anger and attacks are all well and good," Kerry said. "But when it comes to our jobs, we need a president who can build a barn and not just kick it down."
Dean's response: "I think these guys are cutting their own throats" by going on the attack. "I need to stay above the fray -- voters don't like what they are doing."
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