After Six Months Of Running, No Leader Emerges
Six months of intensive campaigning by nine candidates have left the race for the Democratic presidential nomination every bit as unsettled as it was at the beginning of the year, with no clear front-runner, the addition of a surprise insurgency and several nationally prominent candidates struggling.
By almost any measure, the field of candidates has become more closely bunched during the first half of this year, partly because of the unexpected success of former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Each of the Democrats, including Dean, must now overcome doubts about his or her candidacy to have hope of winning the nomination next year.
"It is still unformed, and that is surprising because of the intensity with which the first six months was conducted and the intensity with which 2002 was conducted behind the scenes," said Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser in Bill Bradley's campaign four years ago.
The muddled state of the Democratic race comes at a moment when President Bush, reeling from questions and confusion about key elements of the case used to persuade the nation to go to war with Iraq and hobbled by more bad news about the economy and deficit, has begun to look vulnerable. His poll ratings have started to sag from the weight of international and economic problems.
Bush's problems have energized the Democrats, who spent last week competing with one another to launch the sharpest attack on the administration's Iraq policies. But the real test for the Democrats comes in their competition for the nomination, and here they face difficult choices about when and whom to engage.
Dean is an obvious target, but weakness draws attention as much as strength. Last week, other Democrats began circling around Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) after the former House Democratic leader reported that he had raised just $3.8 million in the second quarter, $1.2 million short of his goal. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) attacked him as a protectionist, while Dean and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) stepped up efforts to block Gephardt's bid to win the support of organized labor.
On Wednesday, the day after Gephardt filed his second-quarter fundraising report, Kerry visited Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to give an upbeat report on the state of his campaign. Kerry also talked last week with AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney; Andrew L. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, and other union chiefs, according to an aide. Dean telephoned McEntee on Tuesday to talk up his candidacy.
Meanwhile, Gephardt also visited McEntee on Wednesday, and tried to explain why his fundraising had fallen short and to assure the union president that fundamental changes in his campaign were in the works. "We've got to see what he's able to do," McEntee said, sounding carefully noncommittal. He added that the former House leader "still has some time to prove himself."
Gephardt faced the toughest questions of any Democrat last week because fundraising prowess was supposed to be one of his biggest assets. At least one labor president voiced the belief that Gephardt's fundraising problems could make some unions reluctant to endorse him, according to a Democratic source. If that happens, Gephardt's rivals will redouble efforts to win those endorsements and to stop Gephardt from winning the Iowa caucuses next January, where he is favored.
Gephardt may have had the rockiest week, but strategists said he is not the only Democrat with questions to answer after the first six months of campaigning. In one way or another, most of the major candidates have underperformed or missed opportunities to get their campaigns moving.
Lieberman, as the party's vice presidential nominee in 2000, began the year as the clear leader in national polls. That lead has evaporated, and as one of Bush's most loyal supporters on Iraq, he has generated little enthusiasm among Democratic activists. Last week, he suffered a staff shakeup among his fundraising team.
Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) has done well raising money -- he is second overall to Kerry among the Democrats -- but has not moved in the polls. He plans to spend considerable time in Iowa and New Hampshire over the next month to change that, and his hope is to strike late -- the only choice left to him.
Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) has been one of Bush's toughest critics, particularly on terrorism and Iraq, but his fundraising has been weak and his campaign has been slow to start. Last quarter, he raised only $500,000 more than Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio), who with former senator Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.) and Al Sharpton round out the Democratic field.
Kerry began the year seemingly poised to claim the front-runner's mantle by this time, but prostate surgery in February slowed him down physically, and his support for the resolution authorizing the war with Iraq cost him with antiwar activists. His campaign manager, Jim Jordan, said that "despite changes in the shape of the race, we're on plan, actually ahead."
One important question for Kerry is whether he has a message beyond his résumé and Vietnam War biography. Kerry has accelerated plans for an aggressive post-Labor Day schedule to try to prove that he does have a strong message, but a Democratic strategist said the senator had missed an opportunity to take control of the race earlier. "Kerry is lucky because others are running such bad campaigns," the strategist said.
Dean's grass-roots support on the left and strong fundraising in the second quarter -- fueled in part by extraordinary success on the Internet -- have put him among the top-tier candidates. He has proved to be the most compelling anti-Bush candidate in the field, but he must convince even some antiwar Democrats drawn to his candidacy that a candidate who opposed the war and signed a civil union bill in Vermont can win the presidency.
"The big questions" heading into the fall, said John Weaver, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000 and now a Democratic strategist, are, "Does Howard Dean have a second act, and if he does, will anyone buy it? And then, who will emerge as the two establishment candidates who can make the turn out of Iowa and New Hampshire?"
William Mayer, editor of the new anthology "The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2004," said the absence of a solid Democratic front-runner marks this as one of the more unusual nomination battles of the past 25 years. Because no candidate has strong poll numbers, dominant fundraising or clear advantage in corralling institutional support, he said, "It doesn't look like there will be any kind of front-runner emerging soon."
Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said this nomination battle is unique for another reason. Never before has an insurgent candidate emerged so early -- Gary Hart didn't strike until the New Hampshire primary in 1984 and McCain began to gain momentum only in the late fall of 1999. Dean already is competitive in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and unlike other insurgents he will have plenty of money.
"You're witnessing the strongest insurgent candidate in the history of the party," Trippi said. That means, he added, "By default, all these other guys become the weakest establishment folks in the history of the party."
But Jordan countered, "At the end of the day, this will not be a cycle for a protest vote."
How does anyone emerge from this crowded field?
Ron Klain, a top adviser to Al Gore's campaign in 2000, said, "Someone needs to find their voice on the economic issue, with crispness and clarity." It may be easy to criticize Bush, he added, "but I think the golden nugget here is finding a way to present an economic alternative that resonates with voters. I don't think anyone's done that."
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said the candidates should try to do what Bill Clinton did in 1992. "I would win the vision primary and I'd win the anti-Bush primary," he said.
Greenberg said there is such anger toward Bush among Democrats that a winning candidate will have to find a way to galvanize that energy with a message that combines a critique of Bush and a Democratic blueprint for governing. "I don't think you get there simply by being hotter [than others]," he said. "You have to be compelling. . . . There will be a primary on which anti-Bush critique is most compelling."
The other challenge is to build institutional support among labor, elected officials and key interest groups. Gephardt, for all his money problems, still hopes to be labor's candidate, but labor could end up divided among several candidates. So far, no candidate has become the favorite among elected officials or key interest groups, including environmental and antiabortion activists.
"I would try to figure out how to appeal to some of the larger interest groups and see if they can't be pulled together in the late fall or early winter and coalesce around a candidate," said Harold Ickes, White House deputy chief of staff to Clinton. If a candidate can do that, he said, "you've got something rolling."
Dunn endorsed that view, with a caveat. "The history of this party is that, ultimately the institutional players win -- if they coalesce around someone," she said. But an attempt by party leaders or key groups to rally behind someone else could give Dean's antiestablishment message even more power among rank-and-file Democrats angry at their own leaders in Washington.
Klain discounted suggestions that Democratic candidates have not performed well. Each has done something right, he said, and when one candidate appeared ready to break out, others have responded to prevent that from happening. "I think this is the most evenly matched field I've seen in my lifetime," he said. "There are genuinely four or five people who could win this thing. That's pretty interesting."
washingtonpost.com |
