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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (2539)	6/21/2003 6:23:19 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793970

Yepsen: Dean's caucus elixir has a dash of Carter's recipe By DAVID YEPSEN Des Moines Register - Political Columnist 06/19/2003 Atlantic, Ia. - Back in 1975, farmer Forrest Teig picked up Jimmy Carter at the local airport here. The unknown former Georgia governor needed a lift to a campaign event and Teig's pickup was the motorcade. "He popped his shaver into the cigarette lighter and off we went," Teig said. Today, the unknown former governor running for president is Howard Dean of Vermont, and Teig says "I see some parallels" with Carter. Like Carter, Dean has worked himself into a position where he could actually win the Iowa caucuses. A Dean win? An upset of front-runners Richard Gephardt and John Kerry? It could happen. Early polling in Iowa shows Dean in third place and closing in on those leading rivals. No other candidate shows his kind of forward motion. Polls show Dean has come farther in Iowa than any of his rivals. "He's an impressive person who has a young, energetic message," said Don Sontag, a real-estate developer here. Sontag, the vice chair of the Cass County Democratic Party, is uncommitted but likes Dean a lot. "I look at it as who is the most electable," he said. "Governor Dean has a new and somewhat different message than we've seen from the old Democratic standbys and I think that's kind of refreshing and I think that will catch a lot of attention. It's kind of a Jimmy Carter, new person, new message campaign." Several ingredients are going into Dr. Dean's Iowa elixir: * He is presidential. He has passed a subtle but very real test caucus-goers apply to presidential candidates who show up here. It's a private gut check that has nothing to do with positions on issues and everything do to with stature, decisiveness, charisma and gravitas: Do I see this person as someone of presidential caliber? Historically, Americans like governors in the White House because they pass such tests of executive leadership. Of our last five presidents, four served as governor. * Dean is a good cultural fit. Campaigning in small Vermont town meetings is no different from campaigning with 12 people at City Hall here. And "we're both rural states," Dean told his audience. "You're just a little more spread out than we are." Carter, a peanut farmer, plucked similar rural chords. * Dean's message is reson- ating. Just as Carter capitalized on the anti-Washington feelings of the post-Watergate era, Dean is capitalizing on the anti-politician feelings of today. Unlike the Gephardts and the Kerrys of the race, Dean's not a career politician. He's a doctor who got into politics. This week, he became the first candidate to start airing television commercials in Iowa this year as he tries to keep that message resonating through the summertime lull. * Time. Dean has spent more time campaigning in Iowa this cycle than any other candidate. Aides say he has spent 52 days in the state visiting 47 counties. Since Carter, one trait of winning presidential candidates is to start early and go everywhere. It doesn't guarantee a victory - you also need a message and a persona to sell - but it's a start. * The war in Iraq. Dean was doing well in Iowa before the war but his anti-war views broke him from the pack. Yet Dean avoided becoming just an anti-war candidate by focusing on other issues, such as balanced budgets and health care and leaving gun control to the states. Now, the failure of the United States to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is giving Dean a second boost from the war. While the other Democratic candidates who voted for the war are squirming, Dean's message is in effect: Told you so. During his speech here in Cass County - not exactly a hotbed of anti-war activism - Dean's critique of that failure provoked the most nods of approval of anything he said. * Staff. He has hired respected operatives who know what they are doing here. People like Joe Trippi and Jeani Murray are among the best in the business. More than 20 paid staffers are deployed in Iowa. * New people. One trait of winning caucus campaigns has been an ability to attract new people to the caucus process. Whether it was George McGovern and the anti-Vietnam War folks or Pat Robertson and the evangelicals, inspiring new voters to turn out is a key to doing well. In Carter's case, he attracted a lot of teachers and rural folks who'd not been involved in presidential politics. One of the most interesting stories of the 2004 campaign is Dean's use of the www.meetup.com Web site to connect supporters with one another. Other candidates have used the Internet to raise money, but Dean uses it to get campaign operations to self-start around the country. Nationwide, more than 34,000 people have identified themselves for Dean via the Internet, he said. Dean is also organizing gays and lesbians, folks he energized when he signed a bill authorizing civil unions in Vermont. While Iowa's gay and lesbian community may not be all that large - Iowa has a way of running off gays and lesbians - they will be a factor in a precinct caucus fight where a few hundred votes can make a difference. desmoinesregister.com