Candidates dismiss polls, push for turnout
Sat Jan 17,11:39 AM ET
URL:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/chitrib_ts/20040117/ts_chicagotrib/candidatesdismisspollspushforturnout&e=2&ncid=2027
By Rick Pearson and John McCormick, Tribune staff reporters
DES MOINES -- With polls showing a fluid, ever tightening four-way race in Monday's Iowa caucuses, the leading Democratic contenders intensified their campaigning at stops across the state Friday and exhorted supporters to deliver them victory.
Howard Dean (news - web sites), Richard Gephardt, John Kerry (news - web sites) and John Edwards (news - web sites) dismissed the results of varying polls that showed each of them with the potential to score a win in the opening contest of the Democratic presidential nominating process. Instead, they agreed that turning out their own voters on caucus night would be key.
The need for each of the four to re-energize his base of support was evident throughout Iowa with only three days left until voters attend the 1,993 precinct caucuses being held in the state's 99 counties.
Dean, the former Vermont governor whose once comfortable lead in public opinion surveys has evaporated in Iowa in recent days, said voters deciding on the race were "very fluid." That, he said, made the final hours of his Iowa campaign difficult as he pondered strategies to pursue.
Gephardt, a veteran Missouri congressman whose political future hinges on a win in Monday's caucuses, resurrected the specter of the controversial 2000 presidential election. Calling Monday's contest a "dead-heat race," he told supporters "the last person you talk to . . . could be the difference."
Kerry, the Massachusetts senator who has surged to a narrow lead in some polls only months after he shook up his campaign operations, refused to embrace any mantle of front-runner status. Reminding pundits that they shouldn't have written him off early on, Kerry said he wanted to maintain fighting as "the underdog" in the race.
And Edwards, the North Carolina senator who saw support for his candidacy begin to swell a week ago after his campaign had languished for months, made it a point to note that he had not engaged in the sometimes bitter attacks among his rivals and had run a positive, upbeat campaign.
As each campaign looked for ways to step up its organizing in preparation for caucus night, Dean and Gephardt also took a step back and removed attack ads aimed at each other.
Instead, they substituted more positive commercials in seeking to end their campaigns on a higher note. The move by Dean and Gephardt may be a recognition that after weeks of hard-hitting confrontations with each other, voters may have become weary of negativity, which has traditionally not played well in Iowa.
In stops in east-central Iowa on Friday, Dean did not directly mention his rivals as he sought to pump a last burst of energy into a campaign that has relied heavily on Democratic dissatisfaction with President Bush (news - web sites) and opposition to the Iraq (news - web sites) war to encourage the disaffected to rejoin the political process.
`Four-person race'
"It's a four-person race," Dean said in Newton. "Essentially we are all tied as far as I can gather from the polls, which are relatively meaningless. But the best I can tell, that's where we are and that's a difficult race to run in, so you're constantly making strategic adjustments and that's what we do."
Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said of the myriad surveys being conducted in the state, "Polls here aren't worth anything."
Appearing on CNN, Trippi denied as "absolutely ridiculous" reports that the Dean campaign was paying former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (news - web sites) a salary following her announcement Thursday that she was dropping out of the contest and endorsing Dean.
Trippi said the campaign had budgeted $20,000 a month for travel expenses for Braun and a staff aide in her role as a surrogate for Dean in future state contests. While he said no deal was made to retire her campaign debt, Trippi said a "huge unity dinner" would be held after the nomination is decided to pay off the debts of unsuccessful contenders.
Gephardt, making visits to five northern Iowa communities, has fallen in some polls to third or fourth place. But in appealing to supporters to redouble their efforts, he dismissed the reliability of such polling efforts.
"All of you were saying three days ago that Howard Dean had won the nomination," Gephardt said in Ft. Dodge.
"I mean, let's get serious here. This is a dead-heat race," said Gephardt, who won the caucuses but fell far short of the nomination in 1988. "It is within the margin of error, frankly, for three or four candidates. And if you're going to win this race, you have to produce your people on Monday night. That's always been the test."
Riding a wave in the polls that campaign aides said has increased crowds and offers of volunteer help, Kerry said in Decorah that some of them had written him off too early when his campaign was in turmoil in November.
"I have always believed in this candidacy," Kerry said. "I told you that when I decided to put personal funds in. I told you that from the beginning."
Still, Kerry has acknowledged he lacks the organizational strength that Gephardt and Dean possess.
"I'm going to keep on fighting, and I said I was an underdog--but I'm a fighter as an underdog."
Edwards, who traveled Iowa from east to west, marveled at increasingly larger audiences at his campaign events. He attempted to convince undecided or wavering voters by promoting "the politics of hope."
In short, vote
"If I could grab you out of your chair and pull you to the caucus, I would do it," Edwards told one crowd.
In New Hampshire, meanwhile, where retired Gen. Wesley Clark (news - web sites) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record) have virtually unfettered time to campaign for the nomination, Clark announced he would make available to the public his papers, tax returns, speeches and financial disclosure forms.
Clark said the move was a slap at Bush, whose administration has held secret meetings to draw up energy policy. But the move also was a shot at Dean, who has sealed many of his Vermont government documents from view.
Clark said anyone in New Hampshire could stop at the Sheraton Four Points hotel in Manchester to look through his papers. Next week, he said, the documents would be posted online at his campaign Web site.
Tribune staff reporter Dan Mihilapolous in Decorah, Iowa, and national correspondent Jill Zuckman in Manchester, N.H., contributed to this |
