Kerry camp split on issue of Dean
Tougher approach winning out, but some have doubts
boston.com
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 8/2/2003
WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean's strong fund-raising and recent rise in public opinion polls have created a divide within Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, between aides who want to attack the former Vermont governor to stem the tide and others who believe his wave of support will crest on its own.
The views of the more aggressive group, represented by campaign manager Jim Jordan, were reflected this week when Kerry criticized any rival for the Democratic nomination who favors repealing all of the tax cuts enacted since President Bush took office in 2001. At least three of the nine candidates fit that billing, but aides circulated the Massachusetts senator's prepared text before a speech in Dover, N.H., and made it clear that Dean was the intended target.
''Real Democrats don't walk away from the middle class,'' Kerry declared Wednesday night. ''They don't take away a tax credit for families struggling to raise their children or bring back a tax penalty for married couples who are starting out or penalize teachers and waitresses by raising taxes on the middle class.''
A more reserved group of advisers is typified by David McKean, chief of staff in Kerry's Senate office. He is among those who believe that Dean's current political celebrity will fade with closer media scrutiny; they foresee an inevitable misstep for his campaign, and they argue that engaging Dean only helps him.
Both camps are united in believing that Kerry has built a strong campaign organization, and has successfully husbanded resources for an eventual showdown with Dean and the other Democrats, according to interviews with members of each group and other aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The senator is largely focused on executing a game plan that calls for a mid-September public declaration of his candidacy, a round of policy speeches and endorsements aimed at differentiating himself from his fellow Democrats and President Bush, and his first purchase of television time to air campaign commercials in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early-voting states, several aides said.
Dean's political strength was evident last month when he more than doubled his support in a poll of likely voters in California, the state with the most electoral votes. He and Kerry were both in the mid-teens, steady performance for Kerry but an improvement of 8 percentage points for Dean from a similar survey in April.
At the same time, Dean raised more than any of his Democratic rivals during the second three months of the year, taking in $7.6 million for the period ending June 30. Kerry raised $5.9 million, which placed him second for the second consecutive quarter, but Dean's finish was a marked improvement over the $2.6 million he raised during the first three months of the year.
Dean's rise has prompted the internal debate within the Kerry camp, but Jordan refused to discuss it. ''I have no comment whatsoever on internal campaign conversations,'' he said in an interview.
Jordan professed respect for Dean, saying, ''He's a serious candidate, as we suspected all along.'' One campaign aide said Kerry's criticism on Wednesday followed reports from Iowa that Dean was planning to attack Kerry.
Throughout the week, though, Jordan displayed the sharper tack in dealing with Dean.
One flashpoint was the governor's criticism that Kerry and other Democrats in Congress did not sufficiently question whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before approving a war resolution.
''Governor Dean is simply reinventing his own position and that of others, and that's the rankest kind of politics,'' Jordan told The New York Times. ''He was an unemployed doctor with no responsibilities, and it was easy to sit there and take political potshots from the outside.''
The New York Post also quoted Jordan as saying of Dean, ''Ultimately, voters are going to decide a small-town physician from a small and atypical state is probably not qualified to lead this nation in a dangerous world.''
McKean said in an interview there was ''nothing terribly controversial'' about what Jordan said, and he played down any perception of a rift.
''I think there is clearly a healthy debate in the campaign about issues, but Jim and the entire campaign are executing a strategy, and John is very comfortable with how the campaign is operating,'' McKean said.
Reflecting his more laissez-faire approach, McKean added: ''How many times have we seen people make a surge like this? [Senator John] Edwards did it after the first-quarter fund-raising, [Representative Richard A.] Gephardt did it after he announced his health care plan, and Dean is doing it after the second-quarter fund-raising. The only constant in this race has been John Kerry.''
Tricia Enright, Dean's communications director, said the Kerry campaign's debate reflects a failure to comprehend the roots of Dean's success.
''What's happening is they are struggling with understanding what the Dean campaign means,'' she said. ''What does it mean to have grass-roots momentum? What does it mean to be mobilizing people across the country? And they just haven't figured out that it's real.''
Jordan disagreed.
''We're building a strong, durable organization. We have more money in the bank that any Democratic candidate has had at this point in the race,'' he said. ''But there has never been any question this race would be close, hard -- and settled somewhere in the snow.''
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A2 of the Boston Globe on 8/2/2003.
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