Team touted by Gephardt fades in Iowa
stltoday.com
By Jon Sawyer Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
updated: 08/03/2003 07:58 AM
WASHINGTON - When Richard Gephardt announced his "leadership team" of Iowa supporters a month ago he said, "I don't take one bit of support for granted," and touted what he called "a great team of folks behind me."
But in politics, a month can be painfully long, and if Gephardt looks behind him now he'll find that his leadership team is fading in a state deemed crucial to his presidential hopes.
Of the 34 "leadership" individuals listed until Friday on Gephardt's Iowa campaign Web site, 11 say that in fact they are either undecided in the presidential campaign or actively supporting one of Gephardt's rivals.
At least seven of those listed, including three mayors and a county supervisor, say they never intended to be counted among Gephardt supporters to begin with.
Among the 15 individuals who identified themselves as actual Gephardt supporters, several appeared to be wavering. "I said I'd support him for now, verbally, but that's as far as it goes," said Joe McCasland, the mayor of Calmar, Iowa.
Gephardt's campaign dismissed the defections as "par for the course" and pointed to recent union endorsements as a better bellwether of Gephardt's standing in union-strong Iowa, where caucuses Jan. 19 mark the start of the presidential nomination process.
"We did call these folks and got verbal commitments from them," said Bill Burton, Gephardt's Iowa spokesman. "It's too bad that this has happened," Burton said, referring to the defections and confusion, "but organizationally we have public support from important folks."
Burton also supplied the Post-Dispatch with the names of an additional 53 activists and public officials in Iowa who he said have endorsed Gephardt. He acknowledged that those names had not been included on the campaign Web site; he said they have been disseminated to local reporters in Iowa.
Until Friday the leadership list and Gephardt's quotations about it were prominently displayed on the campaign's Web site. They were removed some two hours after a Post-Dispatch reporter raised questions about the accuracy of some of the reported endorsements.
"Here's what happened," Burton said. "I told (campaign) folks you were feverishly working on your story, and they said that if there were problems we should fix them."
"I've switched to Kerry"
Interviews with members listed on the Gephardt leadership teams for western and east central Iowa suggest slippage for Gephardt in a state where recent polls show him maintaining a narrow lead over former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont and with several other candidates bunched closely behind.
"I've switched to Kerry at this point in time," said Leland Carmichael, a member of the Montgomery County board of supervisors, referring to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Carmichael said he had informed Gephardt's campaign of the switch last weekend, in a conversation with Matt Gephardt, the candidate's son.
"I'm anxious enough about the situation now to where I want to see if we can get some really strong candidate," Carmichael said, "because the prospect of another four years with [President George W.] Bush just scares the living daylights out of me."
Steve Gorman, a party activist in Council Bluffs, Iowa, said his name had been included in Gephardt's leadership list "without me knowing anything about it." He has thrown his support to Dean, he said, because of Dean's success in expanding access to health insurance in Vermont, his opposition to the Iraq war and "his consistency from the very beginning."
Donald Linduski of Sioux City, a former county auditor, said that "when they called me originally I definitely was for Gephardt but since then I'm kind of undecided ... I would be for (former Vice President Al) Gore if he'd get back in there," Linduski added. "He'd have a better chance than any of these guys."
Doug Walish of Sioux City, chairman of the Woodbury County supervisors, was listed on the Gephardt leadership team along with his wife, Kimberle. "I don't know how our names got on that list," Walish said.
He said his only contact from the campaign had been a telephone call asking if he could participate in a campaign event. He says he declined the invitation.
In the union strongholds of eastern Iowa, Gephardt appeared to have a firmer hold on his leadership team, with several of the individuals declaring that they remained enthusiastic supporters.
Rosemary Gordy, a member of the Bettendorf city council, said she was "definitely a Gephardt supporter. Personally, I think that when he ran in 1988 he should have been the choice then. I just feel he represents all the people in the United States, not a certain class."
But even among those on the leadership team still supportive of Gephardt, reservations emerged.
"I'm disappointed he didn't show up for that Head Start vote," said Linda Kresser, a party activist in Davenport, referring to Gephardt's absence last month when the House approved a Republican plan to curb Head Start funding. The measure passed by a one-vote margin.
Another who still supports Gephardt is Gary Kampe, the mayor of Camanche, Iowa. But he said he thought recent criticism of Bush's foreign policy by several of the Democratic candidates, including Gephardt, was a mistake. "It's hard to run a guy down when he's president," Kampe said. "Doing a job like he is, you've got to back him.
"In my opinion a lot of the Democrats are doing a lot of slandering of the president. I don't support that, I can tell you that."
"People jumping ship"
Specialists on the Iowa caucuses said the process traditionally is known for loose endorsements and candidate-shopping. But they say it is unusual for such a large proportion of designated "leadership team" members to disavow their endorsements so quickly - especially in the case of a candidate like Gephardt, who has worked so long to make Iowa a linchpin of his campaign.
"You want to put together these sorts of lists to send the signal to the other camps, and to close observers, that things are going well," said Peverill Squire, a political scientist at the University of Iowa. He said it was especially important in the case of Gephardt, coming off a disappointing showing in fund-raising for the second quarter.
"This is the sort of thing they don't need at this point," Squire said, referring to the endorsement denials. "You don't want people jumping ship."
Hugh Winebrenner, a professor emeritus at Drake University and author of an Iowa caucus history, cautioned that the process of endorsements generally "is maybe a little sloppier than people would like to admit."
"You'd like to think that your staff people have done a good job of cross-checking, that they're constantly in touch with your supporters and so forth," he said. "But that's usually not the case. Usually it's hit or miss."
What makes the Gephardt situation unusual, Winebrenner said, is precisely the fact that Gephardt has invested so much in the state since his victory in the caucuses during his first presidential run in 1988.
"Gephardt has certainly been around Iowa long enough," Winebrenner said. "He should have a halfway decent list."
Jessamyn Blau and Deirdre Shesgreen of the Post-Dispatch Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Reporter Jon Sawyer:
E-mail: jsawyer@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 202-298-6880 |
