Democrats' First Presidential Debate Shows Party Fissures
nytimes.com
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
COLUMBIA, S.C., May 3 — Nine Democratic presidential candidates battled tonight over the war in Iraq and over how to provide health care insurance for all Americans, in a debate that highlighted deep fissures in the party that several candidates warned could endanger its chances of winning back the White House next year.
It was the first time these candidates have met in debate, and it almost instantly turned into a squabble that revealed strong and, in one case, apparently personal differences in this crowded field, on national security and domestic policy.
Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri was repeatedly attacked by his opponents for proposing the abolition of President Bush's tax cuts and using the money to provide subsidies to business to cover health care insurance.
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina described it as a giveaway that "takes money directly out of the pockets of working people and I know it gives it to corporations." Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut called Mr. Gephardt's proposal a "big-spending Democratic idea," suggesting that it could allow Republicans to once again portray Democrats as a party of big spending and big government.
Dr. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts squabbled so intensely over their differences on the war in Iraq and on each others' credentials that the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York finally stepped in and urged an end to disputes that he said could hurt the Democrats in their attempt to win the White House.
"Republicans are watching," Mr. Sharpton said, adding that "we should not have the bottom line tonight be that George Bush won because we were taking cheap shots at one another."
The exchanges came in a 90-minute debate sponsored by ABC News that seemed unlikely to draw much attention across the nation. The debate began at 9 p.m. on a Saturday and, with the exception of one television station in Washington, D.C., was not broadcast live anywhere in the country. C-Span is planning to air it four times on Sunday.
The debate was moderated by George Stephanopoulos, who tried, with much success, to impose order on a stage filled with Democratic candidates competing for a moment of time on television. And in the process, there were some episodes of agreement among the candidates. None said they supported a law in South Carolina that made sodomy against the law, and only Mr. Sharpton said that he supported a federal law that would license and regulate handguns.
But the candidates disagreed on fundamental issues of war and peace in a way that suggested that Democrats are in for a rocky fight in the months leading to the Iowa primary.
Mr. Lieberman, who was one of the biggest proponents of the war in Iraq, criticized Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry for their views on the war, suggesting that those positions would undercut what he said was the key task the Democrats faced in winning back the White House: presenting the Democratic Party as tough on national security.
"Both have sent an uncertain message: one in principled opposition to the war, Governor Dean, and the other in an ambivalence about the war," Mr. Lieberman said. He said that would "not give the people confidence about our party's willingness to make the tough decisions to protect their security in a world after September 11."
Dr. Dean disputed Mr. Lieberman's suggestion that his position would allow him to be portrayed as weak. "I don't want anybody to mistake my opposition to this war because of its preventive nature for a lack of toughness," he said.
And Mr. Kerry said that he strongly supported the need to remove Saddam Hussein, but that he quarreled with what he described as Mr. Bush's failed diplomatic efforts to put together a coalition to support the war. |
