Dean's early sniping draws fellow Democrats to battle
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By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 4/30/2003
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- With the first presidential contest still nine months away, bitter private and public sniping among the Democratic contenders is already underway, shaping the contours of campaign 2004 and setting the stage for a pointed debate between the candidates Saturday night in South Carolina.
The catalyst in this escalating war of words is Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who entered the race as an unknown but has risen to prominence on his opposition to the US invasion of Iraq as well as his willingness to break from the pack and sharply criticize his opponents. Dean is now running neck and neck with a fellow New Englander, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, in the all-important state of New Hampshire, host to the nation's first presidential primary.
Analysts say the early sniping is indicative of the unusually large field of nine candidates, and is a reflection of their attempt to winnow their ranks in the absence of formal primaries and caucuses that do not begin until January.
''A lot of it is positioning and playing to the press and trying to create news stories and angles,'' said independent analyst Stuart Rothenberg. ''You don't have a real test coming up for a while, so campaigns are looking to score points wherever they can.''
The nastiest exchanges have been between Kerry and Dean. A feud between their aides over military matters culminated Monday with Kerry's communications director questioning Dean's fitness to be commander in chief.
''I think this is a clear strategy by the Kerry campaign to relegate Dean to the status of `not-a-serious candidate' early,'' said Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant. ''The last thing Kerry wants to do is get into a food fight with Dean in the closing weeks of the Iowa and New Hampshire contests. You might as well call him on his statements now and have him explain rather than hold ammunition on this one.''
The other contenders largely watched the exchange from the sidelines, but they, too, have had their conflicts. Amid the fratricide, President Bush sits in the Oval Office, pursuing a Rose Garden strategy even as his aides prepare for a $200-million-plus reelection campaign.
Private conversations with high-level aides to the Democratic contenders show the nomination race breaking into two groups at this stage. Kerry, Dean, Senators John Edwards of North Carolina and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, and Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri are in one group, trying to one-up one another. They recently traded barbs over campaign finance reports that showed Edwards raising the bulk of his money from fellow trial lawyers, and Lieberman and Gephardt raising far less than might be expected given Gephardt's eight years as House Democratic leader and Lieberman's national exposure as the 2000 vice presidential nominee.
Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, former senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York are in the other group, trying to elevate themselves with candidacies rooted in opposition to war with Iraq and the chance to give female voters, blacks, and other minorities a larger voice in the political debate.
Senator Bob Graham of Florida, who will formally declare his candidacy next Tuesday after being delayed by heart surgery, is viewed as straddling the two groups, a wild card who is a seasoned politician with a firm fund-raising base in an electorally potent state. But Graham is coming to the race after many of the primary campaign's most coveted activists in early voting states have committed to other candidates.
Already there is talk of Graham as being the perfect running mate.
By contrast, Dean has risen to virtually tie Kerry in polls among voters in New Hampshire, primarily through his bluntness, whether about Iraq or his rivals' policies. Dean acknowledged in a January interview with the Globe that his frankness sometimes got him into trouble with other lawmakers. ''It hurts me because I'm abrupt sometimes,'' he said. But ''I'm not afraid to tell people the truth.''
That blunt talk has helped shape the tone of the primary campaign. While much of the sniping has taken place through campaign staffs, the candidates will have a chance to challenge one another directly Saturday night in Columbia, S.C., during their first televised debate before a Democratic audience.
''The season of attacks has been accelerated really by Howard Dean, which is to say, Dean has gone after Edwards, Kerry -- and nobody sits still and takes that lying down for very long,'' said a Democratic pollster, speaking on condition of anonymity. ''Dean brought it on himself by deciding he was going to use very sharp elbows to force himself onto the national stage. Eventually it would have happened anyway and eventually it will happen with even greater ferocity.''
During a speech in March to California Democrats, Dean took the stage and declared that Kerry and Edwards had voted to support war with Iraq while in Washington, only to travel cross-country and tell the crowd in a largely antiwar state that they opposed it. It was a blatant falsehood, considering that both senators had been booed by the audience for affirming their vote, but Dean saw fit to apologize only to Edwards, which he did in a handwritten note.
Of Kerry, Dean said he was ''trying to have it both ways'' by authorizing war while railing against the administration's diplomacy that preceded the fighting.
Last week, when Gephardt unveiled a sweeping plan to provide health insurance for all Americans, Dean took aim at a fresh target. He issued a statement declaring: ''What we don't need is another pie-in-the-sky radical revamping of our health care system that has no chance of ever being passed.'' Dean, a physician by training who helped provide near-universal health coverage in Vermont, went further, saying the country could not afford Gephardt's plan because ''Congressman Gephardt and too many in my party support huge tax cuts -- tax cuts that make his own health care plan unworkable,'' even though Gephardt led the House opposition to the president's tax cut.
With the war essentially over, the scars still fresh on their hides, and Dean potentially becoming an icon to populists across the country, many of the campaigns have decided the time is ripe to challenge the free-speaking former governor. They feel Dean has avoided the scrutiny they would face if they made comments similar to his.
A story posted on Time.com over the weekend quoted Dean as saying, ''We have to take a different approach [to diplomacy]. We won't always have the strongest military.''
The Kerry campaign gleefully seized the moment. Chris Lehane, Kerry's communications director, issued a statement that said: ''Howard Dean's stated belief that the United States `won't always have the strongest military,' raises serious questions about his capacity to serve as commander-in-chief.''
The comment ignited a round of recriminations Monday between the campaigns, with Joe Trippi, who manages Dean's campaign and shares his boss's relish for a fight, ultimately issuing a statement asking, ''Who the hell is Chris Lehane?''
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 4/30/2003.
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