Clark Steadily Gains Momentum in N.H.
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As Most Rivals Court Iowa, Candidate Points to Résumé
By David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 18, 2004
washingtonpost.com
EPPING, N.H., Jan. 17 -- Friday night, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark enjoyed an experience he will not soon be able to repeat.
While most of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination were putting on their final push for votes in Monday's Iowa caucuses and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) was observing the Jewish Sabbath, Clark had New Hampshire all to himself.
He made the most of it, drawing an overflow crowd of about 400 on a frosty night to the elementary school gym in this normally Republican town halfway between Manchester and the seacoast.
Saturday, Clark was all over the state, staging five events at which he was accompanied by fellow Arkansans, led by former senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. On Sunday, while Lieberman is in South Carolina and the others are still camped in Iowa, the former NATO commander will build his bonds with voters in the first primary state by joining a crowd in Sunapee watching television as the New England Patriots play the Indianapolis Colts for the American Football Conference championship.
But come Tuesday, when the quintet of candidates contesting Iowa arrives by plane, the landscape and airwaves will be crowded until the polls open Jan. 27.
By all measures -- including public polls and the judgments of rival managers -- Clark has benefited from his decision to skip Iowa and to camp out here.
Dante Scala, a professor at Saint Anselm College and author of a recent book on the New Hampshire primary, said on Saturday: "Clark has clearly made better use of the time than Lieberman," the only other candidate to bypass Iowa. "Lieberman has made a little movement, but Clark has made big strides; some would say he has caught fire. He has used his biography to the best advantage of all the candidates, and his low-key, self-deprecating manner has established a connection with the voters."
Scala and others note that Clark's personal appeal -- backed by the heaviest television advertising buy of any campaign in the past three weeks -- may have outrun his organizational muscle. The Clark staff scrambles even to collect names of those turning out to see him and apparently lacks the quick follow-up to potential supporters for which Howard Dean's organization is noted.
Private tracking polls suggest that the surge of support everyone noted for Clark in the first half of January may have leveled off as spokesmen for rivals Lieberman, Dean and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) have begun criticizing the general's consistency and questioning his very recent affiliation with the Democratic Party. Kerry was doing just that Saturday from Iowa.
And it is Kerry whom the Concord Monitor chose to endorse in its Sunday edition, saying he "is prepared to take office tomorrow." Still, no one disputes that in the temporary, two-way fight for attention and support in New Hampshire, Clark has far outdistanced Lieberman.
Geoffrey Garin, the general's pollster, said that when Clark entered the race in mid-September -- long after all the others had begun -- Dean had 43 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote and Clark 5 percent, trailing not only Dean and Kerry, but also Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.). Less than one-quarter of the voters here said they knew enough about him to make any judgment.
"We have not completely eliminated the disadvantage," Garin said. "But now 59 percent say they know a lot or a good deal about him, and he actually leads Dean within that group."
The gains have come from a relentless emphasis on Clark's biography -- a modest boyhood in Arkansas (somewhat akin to Bill Clinton's), top of his class at West Point, Rhodes scholar, wounded in Vietnam and then a rise to four-star general -- all capsulized in a slick film shown to audiences before Clark speaks.
His speeches bristle with criticism of President Bush, but not of his Democratic rivals, and emphasize the intangible quality of leadership far more than policy positions. As a result, Garin said, he has much lower negative scores than Dean and more even appeal across the ideological spectrum of Democrats and independents, who also can vote in the primary here. The solidity of that reputation will be tested in the final week of campaigning, including a debate.
Lieberman, by contrast, has pursued a different strategy as he has moved into a Manchester apartment for the month. Brian Hardwick, his deputy campaign manager, said Lieberman has spent more time with newspapers around the state, explaining his tax reform plan and other proposals, and focusing on undecided voters at house parties and coffee hours.
Lieberman also has been Dean's most caustic and consistent critic, claiming the mantle of Clintonian "New Democrat" policies for himself and arguing that the former Vermont governor is outside of that successful tradition. Hardwick conceded that "Clark may have been the immediate beneficiary" of the doubts about Dean sown by Lieberman and the Iowa rivals, "but now there are doubts about him [Clark]. We think that in the end, Joe's integrity and consistency over a 30-year career will bring people to him."
But local reporters note that the crowds at Lieberman's events have been small compared with those at Clark's and that he has seemed awkward at times, trying to tie himself to Clinton in an appeal to Democrats but also claiming to independents a political kinship with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the winner of the 2000 GOP primary here.
A rival campaign manager said of Lieberman: "He's not a fresh face and he's got a complex message, and he's been the most negative of all the candidates. None of that has helped him."
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Staff writer Jonathan Finer contributed to this report. |
