He's another story
Dean Takes Heat on Campaign Trail
Friday, December 19, 2003
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean (search) is under fire on the campaign trail, leaving some to wonder whether other contenders can catch up to the former Vermont governor.
The Democratic front-runner's unfavorable rating has risen substantially since he said America is no safer since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Dean, who once mused aloud about whether President Bush knew about the Sept. 11 attacks before they happened, also said he remains opposed to what the United States is doing in Iraq.
But the most notorious statement he's made of late was: "The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope very much will help keep our soldiers safer. But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer."
He later defended his comments, arguing that the "capture of one bad man" doesn't allow Bush or Democrats to declare victory in the war on terrorism.
Now, Dean's rivals, particularly those who supported the congressional resolution authorizing the war, are using those words against him and calling Saddam's capture a boon for the anti-terrorism campaign. They said Dean's words just show how little foreign policy experience he really has.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (search) of Connecticut said Dean had crawled into a "spider hole of denial," and Sen. John Kerry (search) of Massachusetts said Dean showed a lack of "leadership skills or diplomatic temperament" to be president.
Rep. Richard Gephardt (search), D-Mo., charged that Dean has been playing politics with foreign policy for more than a year.
"Obviously they're [Dean's rivals] trying to make it a problem," Richard Fisher, former deputy U.S. trade representative, told Fox News. "The question is, does it derail someone who seems to be way ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire?"
And even though Dean's views on Iraq could convince Democratic voters to back Gen. Wesley Clark (search), who supports the death penalty for Saddam, "Dean's going to be hard to displace" in new Hampshire, Fisher said.
But "the capture of Saddam is a huge plus, it's a plus for the whole country, certainly it's a boost for the president," he added.
Unfortunately for Dean, Americans think the war in Iraq was the right decision by a 2-1 margin and are more inclined to approve of the job done by Bush in foreign policy and terrorism following the capture of Saddam, according to an Ipsos-Public Affairs poll conducted for The Associated Press.
The poll found that nearly half of respondents, 45 percent, said they would definitely support Bush's re-election, while 31 percent said they would definitely vote against him. A month ago, people were evenly divided on that question, at 37 percent definitely for and 37 percent definitely against.
Two-thirds said they were confident the United States would capture or kill Usama bin Laden (search), who is believed to have orchestrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That's up from about half who felt that way in a poll in September.
"There's no question about it — it [Saddam's capture] helps President Bush," former White House Chief of Staff Craig Fuller told Fox News. "The course he's set for the country is working … I think it [the capture] does reassure people that the plan President Bush laid out is working."
Although the spike may taper off a little, Fuller said, "frankly, we're picking up more people every day."
Next Week's Campaign Trail
Dean has three days of hard campaigning in New Hampshire on his schedule before Christmas. He shocked his party this week when he urged Democrats to abandon the centrism of the Clinton 1990s for a more traditional left-leaning liberalism. It's said that sentiments like this are scaring many Democrats from throwing their full support behind the doctor-turned-presidential hopeful.
Lieberman on Friday argued Dean was taking Democrats backward because he was a "divisive force" within the party.
"We're too divided," Lieberman said as he toured a technology plant in Delaware. "I don't want to replace one divisive leader with another divisive leader."
Dean also raised eyebrows and choruses of criticism for saying this week that if the United States had "permission" from the United Nations to invade Iraq, he would not have opposed the war.
Kerry, who recently mortgaged his Boston mansion house to shovel $850,000 more into his campaign, plans a 24-hour nonstop campaign blitz next week in Iowa. He has another loan coming before the new year.
Clark, a four-star general and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, re-emerged on New Hampshire's campaign trail this week after several days in Europe testifying at the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Polls show Clark moving into third in New Hampshire and nipping at Kerry's heels in second place.
All this adds up for tough news for Gephardt, who took much of this week off the campaign trail to raise money. That's given Dean a chance to widen his lead in Iowa, a state in which Gephardt must do well to stay in the race.
Lieberman isn't even competing in Iowa and, despite blasting Dean this week, he's failed to get any traction in New Hampshire.
And it's been weeks since Democratic Sen. John Edwards (search) of North Carolina made headlines. Every time Clark inches up in the polls, it seems to freeze Edwards in the low single digits and squeeze him out of the headlines.
Next week's campaigning could give a better picture of whether Dean can succeed in moving the Democrats further to the left, or whether a huge battle bubbling beneath the surface of the party can be won by centrists who believe a lurch left will only get Bush re-elected.
Fox News' Carl Cameron, Liza Porteus and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
