Republicans Relish Facing One of the 'Liberals'
They Don't Know His Name, but the Label Is Ready
washingtonpost.com
By David S. Broder and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 26, 2004; Page A06
MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 25 -- Ask any of President Bush's Washington strategists to size up the Democratic candidates campaigning for Tuesday's New Hampshire primary and they will say they are delighted at the prospect of running against a liberal tax-raiser who is soft on terrorism. They don't know what his name is, but those Republicans say that they can put him in that box, whoever he turns out to be. One Republican consultant said the basic message of ads on behalf of Bush will be that the Democrat is "liberal, liberal, liberal."
By contrast, key Republicans here say their close-up view convinces them that the Democrats may field a ticket capable of making November's election as close as the 2000 race.
Peter Spaulding, an elected member of the state Executive Council and a strategist in Arizona Sen. John McCain's successful 2000 New Hampshire GOP primary campaign, said Sunday that a ticket combining Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) "could be very, very competitive" in New Hampshire and nationally.
"The country is still very polarized," Spaulding said, "and I don't see a lot of Gore-Lieberman people who wouldn't vote for that ticket." Still, neither Kerry nor Edwards has commented about such a ticket.
None of the half dozen New Hampshire Republican leaders interviewed said Bush was anything but a favorite for a second term. But they were far less dismissive of the Democratic challenge than their counterparts at the Republican National Committee or the Bush reelection headquarters in Arlington, Va.
The campaign strategists there said after creating that general picture of an ideological liberal, they will add specific attacks, such as tying Edwards -- a former trial lawyer who has won multimillion-dollar verdicts -- to the high cost of malpractice insurance, which has caused some obstetricians to stop practicing. RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie first signaled this strategy last fall when he said that former Vermont governor Howard Dean had pushed the pack leftward. "They're all Howard Dean, now," he said.
Jim Dyke, the RNC's communications director, said Democrats have "already decided" that their nominee will be for increasing taxes, for repealing legislation on what opponents call "partial birth" abortions and against extending the law enforcement powers granted under the Patriot Act.
The New Hampshire Republican officials expressed doubt that Dean will recover quickly enough from his third-place finish in last Monday's Iowa caucuses to snare the nomination. And they tend to see retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark as stumbling after a strong start here.
Republican National Committeeman Tom Rath and his predecessor, Michael Dennehy, expressed relief and puzzlement that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) appeared to be lagging in the primary here. "No question in my mind," Dennehy said, "he would be the toughest for us to run against, but he's running as a centrist in a Democratic primary dominated by liberal voters."
Rath and Nancy Sinnott Dwight, a former top staff member for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said they had been impressed by what they had seen from Kerry and Edwards. "Kerry has a competence to him that is attractive," Rath said. "Edwards looks to be the candidate with the biggest up-side potential."
"If experience is the criterion for leadership," Dwight said, "Kerry could be the most formidable." Edwards, she added, "has really matured as a candidate" from the time she first saw him a year ago.
Dwight and Dennehy both volunteered the thought that however he might fare nationally, Kerry as the presidential nominee could well make New Hampshire a battleground. "He might give the president a race," Dwight said.
But Dennehy said he thought "any Massachusetts liberal will be challenged to carry any state in the South. That's why I think he'll turn to an Edwards or a [Rep. Richard A.] Gephardt" as a running mate, hoping they could put their home states of North Carolina and Missouri into play.
In Washington, Republican officials joke that they love all their potential opponents equally, but that is not quite true.
Republicans close to Bush said campaign strategists think Dean would be the easiest to tag with their preferred description and would play to the caricature they hoped to create of him. However, the campaign is concerned about Dean's proven ability to raise money, because he -- along with Kerry -- chose not to accept federal funds and the spending restrictions that come with them.
These Republicans said they worry most about Edwards, because he is so little known and has such a comparatively short public record. That combination would give him the easiest time morphing into whatever his campaign decides that swing voters want. "Personally, I'm the most concerned about Edwards, because he has a huge attractiveness to him," a senior Republican official said. "The only negative is the lack of experience."
Another Republican official who is worried about facing Edwards called him "Clinton without the scandal -- John Kennedy, from the South."
"He's the most appealing of the candidates, and hardest to typify as a hard-core liberal," this official said. "Edwards is seen as a problem. Everybody in Massachusetts hates Kerry. Everybody in the Democratic Party hates Dean. Everyone in the military hates Clark. But nobody hates Edwards."
Clark's image is one of "confusion," a senior GOP official said, but acknowledged his military credentials would make it harder for Bush to draw an obvious contrast.
These Republicans said they think that Kerry would be harder to run against than Dean, but easier than Edwards, with Clark in the middle. "Running against a Massachusetts liberal can't be a bad thing for a Republican," the official said. "Dean would be fun, but Kerry's pretty good, too."
Republicans said Kerry's tenure as lieutenant governor under Michael S. Dukakis, who was crushed by George H.W. Bush in 1988, gives them easy entree to portraying what they consider a long and consistently liberal record.
Republican sources said the Bush campaign spent many months last year preparing to run against Kerry or Edwards, but then followed the media pack this fall and began pouring most of its resources into preparing for a general election against Dean.
"Kerry appeared to be flopping so completely, and Edwards never seemed to get into the race," said a Republican official who declined to be named. "Dean looked unstoppable -- an insurgent candidate who also has the most money. I don't know what else we could've done."
Allen reported from Washington.
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