Democrats Hunt for Votes in Tight Iowa Race
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By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
URL:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040118/pl_nm/campaign_dc&e=1
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - The Democratic presidential contenders fired up their supporters in Iowa on Saturday and reached out to undecided voters, hoping for a final burst of momentum to snap a four-way tie heading into the campaign's first test.
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· Democrats Hunt for Votes in Tight Iowa Race
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Two days before Iowa's caucuses kick off the battle to find a Democratic challenger to Republican President Bush (news - web sites), the four leading contenders raced back and forth across the state to motivate workers, find new voters and build turnout.
A new Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll showed John Kerry (news - web sites), Howard Dean (news - web sites), Richard Gephardt and John Edwards (news - web sites) bunched within five percentage points of each other at the top of the field in one of the closest and most intense campaigns in the history of Iowa's caucuses.
The poll also found 11 percent of likely caucus-goers were still undecided, leaving the door open for more movement and a final swing in momentum over the last 48 hours before Monday night's caucuses.
"Now we're going to find out if we can convert this unbelievable grass-roots effort into votes," Dean told a crowd in Council Bluffs, Iowa, declaring himself "in full combat mode" for the race to the finish.
The campaigns sent thousands of volunteers into neighborhoods across Iowa to hunt for voters and get them to the caucuses. The nature of the caucuses, in which participants gather in public to declare their support, puts a premium on organizations that find and track the most committed caucus-goers.
"The race is wide open for whoever does the best job of getting their supporters to the caucuses on Monday night," said Steve Murphy, Gephardt's campaign manager.
Gephardt, a veteran congressman from neighboring Missouri who faces a must-win race in Iowa, rallied supporters outside a union hall in Cedar Rapids, climbing on the back of an American-made pickup truck to spread his message of job creation, expanded health care and protection from what he said were unfair trade agreements.
"You win by having the best organization to get out your people, and I believe I have the best organization," he said.
Edwards, a North Carolina senator who has seen his campaign surge in the last week by focusing on a positive message, met with volunteers at his state headquarters in Des Moines.
'POLITICS OF HOPE'
"There is so much energy and excitement and momentum behind this campaign right now and it's all for a very simple reason -- this campaign is not based on the politics of cynicism, it's based on the politics of hope," Edwards said.
Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, held a reunion with former special forces soldier Jim Rassman of Oregon, who he had not seen or spoken to since he rescued him in 1969. Rassman called Kerry headquarters on Friday and asked to help the Massachusetts senator. The two embraced in a crush of photographers in a Des Moines community center.
"I owe this man my life," Rassman said, describing how Kerry turned around his river patrol boat and ran to the bow under heavy fire to pull him in.
Kerry, criticized for his agricultural record by the Dean and Gephardt campaigns, earlier accused his rivals of a "smear campaign" and warned a crowd in Clinton, Iowa, to be "prepared to reject the politics of fear."
The Dean and Gephardt campaigns resurrected comments that Kerry made five years ago calling for a reduction in the size of the Agriculture Department and an overhaul of farm subsidies, big topics in a farming state like Iowa.
"I'll be a president who fights for the small family farmer," Kerry said, defending his record and promising to protect smaller farmers "against the big special interests of agribusiness who are feeding at the trough."
Dean and Gephardt have battled back and forth for months for the top spot in polls in Iowa, but the late surges by Edwards and Kerry have scrambled the Democratic picture in what had become a bitter campaign atmosphere.
Dean, the former Vermont governor, and Gephardt decided on Friday to pull their harshest attack ads off the air after pounding each other over the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and Dean's past views on Medicare in a state that sometimes punishes negative campaigning.
But in Council Bluffs, Dean resumed his criticism of his opponents by name for their support of the Iraq war and expressed confidence he would win on Monday. "We're not going to change America by nominating a Washington insider who's got the same ideas as everybody else," he said.
Dean also has seen his lead vanish in polls in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Jan. 27, in the face of an advance by retired Gen. Wesley Clark (news - web sites), who skipped Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire. |
