Gephardt is Bush's toughest opponent? Yeah. Sure. Who sold this "bill of goods" to VandeHei?
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GOP Sees Gephardt as Toughest Rival for Bush
Many Say Midwest Is Key to Election
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 21, 2003; Page A02
With the strongest union backing and deepest roots in the politically important industrial Midwest, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) is emerging as the Democratic presidential candidate many prominent Republicans fear the most in the 2004 elections.
In interviews with nearly two dozen Republican strategists, lawmakers and state chairmen across the country, including several close to the White House, Gephardt was portrayed by a majority as the Democratic candidate best prepared and positioned to defeat President Bush in a head-to-head matchup next year. The reasons, they said: Gephardt consistently supported the Iraq war, enjoys unrivaled support among union leaders and hails from the Midwest, where many Republicans believe the presidential election will be decided. They also cited his health care plan, experience and discipline as key factors.
"When [we] look at the whole picture and who can get [Democrats] there . . . people are saying Gephardt is the biggest threat," said Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.), finance chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
A few mentioned retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark as a potentially strong challenger, but every Republican predicted Bush would win reelection. Still, their views about Gephardt (and some of his rivals) highlight the GOP's top concerns heading into 2004: job losses in key swing states, the high number of uninsured workers, the fallout from Bush's steel tariffs and the president's political standing in the industrial Midwest. With his plan to lower the cost of health care for most Americans, "Gephardt has hit on a real Achilles' heel, and he will get traction on it if he becomes the nominee," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.).
By historical standards, Bush remains popular with voters more than a year out from the election and gets high marks for integrity and strong leadership skills. At the same time, polls show Gephardt, Clark, former Vermont governor Howard Dean and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), among others, being competitive in matchups with the president.
Many Democrats do not agree with the GOP assessment of Gephardt's electability. The AFL-CIO has declined to endorse the Missouri lawmaker, despite his relentless courting, because several union leaders are not convinced Gephardt can win. In recent interviews in New Hampshire and Iowa, the two key early voting states, numerous Democratic voters have characterized Gephardt as stale, programmed and too closely affiliated with Washington. In Iowa, where Gephardt spends most of his time campaigning, Dean is doing as well or better in recent polls.
Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster, said he thinks Gephardt would be a weak candidate because he has called for a repeal of the Bush tax cuts. And Frank Luntz, a former GOP pollster who has conducted focus groups for MSNBC, said Gephardt "falls absolutely flat" with voters because he is seen as too political.
One of the main reasons many other Republicans fret about Gephardt is the electoral map, which many in the GOP say points to the Midwest as the region that will decide the presidency.
Several senior Bush administration officials consider Gephardt, a family man of humble origins in Missouri, the most serious threat because he "matches up better culturally" with the president than do Dean and Kerry, who are easier to paint as "eastern liberal elitists," a Bush adviser said.
"I have probably heard more people saying Gephardt looks the strongest because Dean is too far left and Kerry is not panning out as a candidate," added former representative Vin Weber (R-Minn.).
The Midwest is loaded with states that candidates consider must-wins for the presidency. They include Ohio, which every Republican president in history has won, and Missouri, which has voted for the winner in all but one election since 1900.
Although southern Democrats have the best track record for winning recent presidential elections -- think Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon B. Johnson -- Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) lags far behind the other candidates in the field. Clark, the only other southerner, entered the race only last month.
Scott Reed, who managed Robert J. Dole's GOP presidential campaign in 1996, said that it is too early to determine who matches up best with Bush but that the political map appears to favor Gephardt. "If you look at the electoral college map and where a lot of the polls sit today, all arrows point to the Midwest as the battleground," Reed said. "If they can nominate someone from the battleground region, they will have a slight leg up."
The Midwest has been hit hard by manufacturing job losses under Bush. In Michigan, Bush is under fire not only for mounting job losses but also for his decision to impose tariffs on steel, which has hurt automakers and other businesses there and in other states by driving up production costs. Several Republicans cited Bush's steel policy as among his biggest liabilities.
Moreover, Michigan's GOP congressional delegation is fuming at Bush because the White House has refused to intervene on behalf of the state's furniture manufacturers, which have a strong presence in Republican strongholds in the state. Michigan is a "very economic-driven state," Rogers said. "If [Michigan residents] are not working, they won't vote for Bush."
In Galesburg, Ill., just outside LaHood's district, Maytag Corp. recently announced it is closing a plant, laying off 1,600 workers and moving the jobs to Mexico.
By railing against Mexico's trading practices and free trade in general, Gephardt is considered the biggest defender of workers among the Democrats "hands down" and best positioned to oust Bush, LaHood said. Gephardt has been a forceful critic of Bush's trade policies and vowed to curtail foreign trade if elected.
In a recent Ohio poll conducted by the University of Cincinnati, Gephardt matched up best against Bush among the Democratic candidates (though he trailed by 13 percentage points). As the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page highlighted on Tuesday, Ohio lost 118,000 manufacturing jobs from March 2002 to March 2003. But Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said Clark might pose bigger problems for Bush because elections in the state are often decided by swing voters. "Clark would be the one -- the non-politician, the general," Bennett said. "He would be the one who would be the toughest if he can get the nomination." Clinton carried Ohio in 1992 and 1996; Bush won it in 2000.
But most Republicans said turning out party activists will be more important than wooing swing voters next year. Some Republicans fear Gephardt alone could persuade the unions, perhaps the most influential Democratic constituency and one with the potential to spend tens of millions of dollars, to treat the 2004 election like "their last hurrah," said Grover Norquist, a GOP activist close to Bush political adviser Karl Rove. Bush has been at odds with the unions throughout his presidency.
Norquist said Republicans are most worried about Gephardt inciting a passionate union effort that will stir African American turnout to historic highs in big cities and key areas across the country such as Florida.
Gephardt is best positioned to exploit Bush's weaknesses on the economy and jobs because he effectively neutralized one of Bush's greatest strengths -- national security -- by taking a hard line early against Iraq and Afghanistan, said Rick Davis, who managed the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2000.
"There's not a lot of daylight between" Bush and Gephardt on how to handle Iraq and Afghanistan," Davis said. "If he can survive [the primary], he's actually well positioned on foreign policy and national security."
As House minority leader in 2002, Gephardt worked with Bush to approve the congressional resolution granting the president the authority to strike Iraq. Gephardt is holding firm in support of Bush's policies by breaking with other presidential candidates and endorsing the president's latest $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan.
As a note of caution, several GOP strategists recalled Republicans thinking Clinton would be the easiest to defeat in 1992, and Democrats eager for Ronald Reagan in 1980. They were the last two-term presidents.
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