Democrats test Iowa platforms
Key caucus state possible gauge for presidential race
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 1/20/2003
URL:http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/020/nation/Democrats_test_Iowa_platforms+.shtml
ARION, Iowa - A Democratic Party that has struggled to find a voice since the midterm elections heard pitches from three potential leaders this weekend, each of whom challenged Iowa political activists to find their sea legs and steel themselves for next year's presidential battle with the Republican Party and President Bush.
''We can do better,'' declared the former Vermont governor, Howard Dean, in a speech Saturday night before a partisan audience of 300 at a fund-raiser for the Linn County Democratic Party. ''If we're proud to be Democrats again ... and we are proud and sell our message and educate folks that it's all right to come out and don't worry about Rush Limbaugh and the president's popularity ratings and stand up for what we believe in as Democrats ... not only will we be right, but we will win the presidency of the United States in 2004.''
Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri called for abandoning an administration-sponsored $1.35 trillion tax cut in favor of providing health insurance for all Americans.
''I don't think we can win this election by nibbling around the margins,'' he said. ''I don't think we can win this election unless we describe a way that everybody in this country can move forward together.
''I don't think we can win this election unless we're bold and decisive and distinctive, and we lay out a path that is very different than the path that George Bush has us on,'' he added.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, in his first visit to the state since announcing in December that he planned to be a presidential candidate, urged citizens to rediscover the political activism of the 1960s that propelled the antiwar, civil rights, and voting rights movements.
Amid a steady buildup of military forces in the Persian Gulf, Kerry also warned the Bush administration against abandoning its current support for weapons inspections in Iraq to pursue a more aggressive posture of a military attack to remove President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Kerry voted in Congress to support such an attack, but only if it is preceded by a multinational effort to seek Iraq's disarmament.
''One of the things that I know to a certainty in my heart, my gut, and my head is that the United States of America should never go to war because we want to go to war; we should go to war because we have to go to war,'' said Kerry, a Navy veteran who served two combat tours in Vietnam.
''Now I say to the president of the United States, don't look for some cheap way to end-run the United Nations,'' Kerry said. ''Don't look for some way to have a `material breach' that requires us to stretch our imaginations.
''Work with the rest of the world to put America in its greatest position of strength, so no blood of any American has to be shed if there is a better way to protect the interest of this country,'' Kerry added.
The speechmaking came a year and a day before Iowa political activists are scheduled to gather in living rooms and schoolhouses for caucuses in which they will rank the candidates. Gephardt, who has near-favorite son status, is expected to win, so the race is expected to be for second place - or an upset.
''It's just really exciting to have in all the candidates some intelligent approaches,'' said Renee Sneitzer, a 38-year-old attorney from Cedar Rapids.
Dean, who fashions himself a populist, took aim at the media and spared no quarter within his party.
''Naturally, when you do this, you get asked by the media all the time, `Why are you running for president?' I think they always hope that I'm going to give the same answer that Ted Kennedy did in 1980, and that'll be the end of my campaign,'' said Dean, referring to an interview in which Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, stammered when asked about the basis for his candidacy.
Gephardt, the former House minority leader who highlights his political experience, lambasted the Bush administration for opposing an affirmative action program at the University of Michigan Law School, from which he graduated in 1965, saying Bush benefited from family connections when winning admission to Yale University and Harvard Business School.
''I am stunned at his failure to understand the irony in what he said and what he did,'' the congressman said. ''Affirmative action stands for the most important values of this country.''
Following his speech, Kerry traveled to Dubuque for a house party yesterday. Matt Drudge, an Internet columnist, reprinted comments last week in which Kerry complained about fund-raising, telling the Globe in 1996, ''I hate going to places like Austin and Dubuque to raise large sums of money. But I have to.'' Drudge ran the comments under a headline reading, ''Massachusetts senator expressed `hatred' over trips to Iowa.''
The senator said he was not expressing hatred for Iowa, but for the demands of fund-raising that used to send a senator from Massachusetts to distant cities in Texas and the heartland, seeking campaign cash.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A3 of the Boston Globe on 1/20/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. |
