Here. This should make you feel better.
John Kerry Brings Drama to Iowa Race
Terry Neal - Washington Post
Sen. John Kerry's entrance to a campaign event in Adel this afternoon was as dramatic as his seemingly sudden ascendence in this race.
Kerry toured the state by helicopter today, hitting about seven towns in the span of about 13 and half hours. For his fourth event of the day, Kerry's rental helicopter, with Kerry visible in the front passenger seat giving a thumbs up, touched down on Denny Dorman's bean farm in tiny Adel, about 30 minutes west of Des Moines.
Few people outside the Kerry campaign have given him much of a chance to win Iowa, but suddenly journalists and others watching the race are taking him seriously. It's been quite a turn around for the senator from Massachusetts, whose campaign until recently has seemed moribund and going nowhere fast.
A new survey of likely caucus voters by independent pollster Research 2000 has four candidates, Kerry, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), former Vermont governor Howard Dean and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) in a virtual dead heat, all polling between 18 and 22 points. Given the poll's 4-point margin of error, it's too close to call.
Campaigning today around Iowa, Kerry demonstrated some of the reason he seems to be catching on with some voters. In a 20-minute stump speech, he focused on issues -- corporate responsibility, foreign policy, taxes and health care -- verbally slapped around President Bush, and said not a word about any of his Democratic opponents.
To be fair, the closing line of his speech is a direct and clear reference to Dean, but it's vague enough that it doesn't come off as a direct insult.
"As Democrats, we cannot just offer anger," he said. "We've got to offer solutions." He ends by urging people to caucus for him and to "go there not just to send a message, but to send America a president."
Kerry's spokeswoman Laura Capps echoed that sentiment, saying the senator was surging in Iowa because "people want someone who offers answers not just anger." She added that, "we haven't done any negative ads on TV or by mail either."
Maybe not. But Kerry certainly has taken his shots at Dean, although perhaps not as often or forcefully this week.
The Dean and Gephardt campaigns continue to hold on to what may now be an outdated paradigm.
"We still believe this is a Dean-Gephardt race," said Gephardt senior adviser Ed Reilly on a conference call with reporters today.
Reilly argued that polls simply couldn't account for organizational strength in caucuses, where so few people participate. Dean's camp echoes that sentiment, arguing that its small grass-roots army of volunteers would more than compensate for any slippage in the polls.
Campaigning in the northern part of the state today with newfound friend Carol Moseley Braun, Dean addressed the issue about whether the battle between him and Gephardt had become too negative.
Rejecting charges that his campaign had been too negative, he said, "This is a campaign of hope."
He better hope he's right. |
