Surge of Cash Puts Pressure on Insurgent Dean To Deliver Votes
washingtonpost.com
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2003; Page A01
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean has tapped a lucrative vein of discontent in the American electorate in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, but now faces the challenge of converting grass-roots energy into the kind of disciplined political force that can deliver victories in next year's primaries and caucuses.
Almost overnight, Dean has redrawn the contours of the Democratic race, vaulting from dark-horse candidate to top tier on the strength of an extraordinary, Internet-based fundraising operation and the mobilization of party activists fed up with President Bush's policies and, it appears, the lack of a vigorous Democratic opposition in Washington.
Dean's insurgent candidacy threatens all the other better-known contenders, most of whom had lightly regarded him as a curiosity. Now that Dean has outstripped all of them in second-quarter fundraising, they see him as a force likely to knock out one or more candidates who had expected to be in the thick of the nomination battle next winter.
As a result, Dean can expect the attention that comes with success: more scrutiny from the media, more criticism from his rivals and higher expectations all around. How successfully he makes the pivot from long shot to contender, Democratic strategists said yesterday, will prove whether his campaign has the strength to go the distance.
"He either has to rise up to the next level, or there will be an implosion," said Anita Dunn, a top adviser to former senator Bill Bradley's 2000 presidential campaign. "But I think there is potential for him to rise up to the next level, because he clearly has more talent than a lot of us gave him credit for."
Ron Klain, a key adviser to former vice president Al Gore in the 2000 campaign, offered a more pessimistic assessment. Recalling that Bradley had outraised Gore in the second quarter of 1999, only to lose every primary and caucus in 2000, Klain said, "The issue is, is he peaking too soon and are his supporters the kind of folks who vote in Democratic primaries? In the end, those are the two hurdles that Bradley couldn't get over in 2000, and those are the challenges that Dean has to deal with now."
Those hurdles are significant, but Dean's recent success puts obstacles in the paths of the other candidates, as well. "I think it has made other candidates redefine the race," said Gina Glantz, another Bradley adviser in 2000.
Advisers to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) long have assumed those two candidates would face each other in the showdown for the nomination, in part because Gephardt is favored to win the Iowa caucuses and Kerry is favored in the New Hampshire primary. Not surprisingly, those Kerry and Gephardt advisers now see Dean as a bigger threat to the other.
Gephardt adviser Steve Elmendorf said Dean is now a threat to finish ahead of Kerry in Iowa and defeat him in New Hampshire. "There's a greater likelihood of that happening now than there was two weeks ago," he said.
Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan disagreed, arguing that Dean's rise has come at Gephardt's expense. "The race is turning into essentially a Kerry-Dean race," he said. "We're very comfortable with that prospect."
Three other Democrats may face an even larger problem because of Dean's success. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) leads the Democrats in many national polls, but has not developed a significant following in Iowa or New Hampshire and now trails Dean in fundraising. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) raised $7.4 million in the first quarter but raised about $5 million in the second quarter, and has yet to show the kind of grass-roots support Dean has demonstrated. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) got a late start and will find the field even more crowded with Dean in the top tier.
None of the major candidates besides Dean issued second-quarter fundraising numbers yesterday, although a Kerry adviser said the senator would raise close to $6 million and a Gephardt adviser said his candidate would raise $4 million to $5 million. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) raised about $1 million, according to his campaign, while former senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois raised about $150,000. An adviser to Al Sharpton said Sharpton had raised about $80,000.
Bush's campaign swamped all the Democrats, reporting yesterday that the president had raised $34.2 million in the second quarter, besting the $29.7 million he raised in the second quarter of 1999.
Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said the former governor raised almost $4 million of his $7.5 million on the Internet -- $3.4 million of it in the last eight days -- following Dean's formal announcement. "We set out to be the greatest grass-roots campaign of the modern era," Trippi said.
Dean's candidacy took root with his vociferous opposition to the war in Iraq, but Trippi said he sees several forces coming together behind Dean. One group is Democrats angry with Bush; another is voters unhappy that Democrats in Washington have not stood up to Bush more directly; a third comprises Americans who see the Bush administration and the Democrats in the grip of corporate interests and lobbyists and feel dealt out of the system.
"Most of the other Democrats are kind of trying to position themselves for a general election fight, or at least they don't want to say anything that might make it more difficult for them to run a competitive campaign in the general election," said William G. Mayer, professor of political science at Northeastern University. "Dean is the one who expressed that anger [with Bush and Washington] most directly."
Donna Brazile, Gore's campaign manager in 2000, said she believes Dean has tapped "a unique pool of voters" and that other candidates will have to redouble efforts to build grass-roots support.
"It's amazing," she said of what Dean has accomplished, "but I don't know if it's transferable into delegate support . . . to nail down the nomination."
Political researcher Brian Faler contributed to this report.
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