Dean is deluded and arrogant. He's not going to clobber anyone. Jeanne Shaheen of NH is going to start campaigning AGAINST Dean now. She's the most popular NH politician and she was governor there when Dean was governor of Vermont. She can swing 5-10% of voters Kerry's way. If Dean doesn't blow Kerry away in NH he'll be badly weakened.
Kerry, on offense, accuses Dean of flip-flopping on issues
Trailing in polls, senator unleashes round of criticism
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 11/7/2003
CONCORD, N.H. -- With Howard Dean off balance after the Confederate flag flap, Senator John F. Kerry launched a broad attack yesterday on the New Hampshire front-runner, accusing him of shifting views on gun control, Social Security, and Medicare policy, as well as campaign finance reform.
Kerry accused Dean of currying support by altering his prior opposition to an assault weapons ban and gun-purchase waiting period. He said Dean had changed his positions on raising Social Security's retirement age and cutting Medicare spending. He criticized the former Vermont governor for saying he may abandon federal financing for his primary campaign.
The Massachusetts Democrat's attack, which came amid a fresh poll that showed Kerry trailing Dean by 14 points in this early-voting state, appeared targeted at winning over the liberal activists who have flocked to Dean.
"Where's the principle?" Kerry asked from the steps of the Merrimack County Courthouse, flanked by a dozen law enforcement officials. "I don't think that that's `straight talk.' I think that's, frankly, saying anything to get elected and I think it's now doing anything to get elected."
Dean's spokeswoman, Tricia Enright, brushed off Kerry's accusations of flip-flopping. "To borrow a phrase from John Kerry's favorite philosopher, Yogi Berra, when John Kerry saw the fork in the low-road, he took it," she said. Kerry's personal criticism is part of a wider campaign plan to increase scrutiny of Dean and his record as the senator seeks to narrow the former governor's lead in the run-up to the Jan. 27 New Hampshire primary, according to campaign insiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The timing coincides with Dean's delayed apology for any pain he caused last week when he said, "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
Jeanne Shaheen, the former governor of New Hampshire and Kerry's new national campaign chairwoman, is expected to start speaking out about her former colleague, saying, for example, that while Dean touts his success in expanding child insurance coverage in Vermont, New Hampshire has covered more children in total and by percent.
The campaign is also poised to launch an advertising onslaught on New Hampshire television stations, supporting Kerry's stump speeches with commercials aimed directly at primary voters. To date, Kerry has restricted much of his local advertising to Boston stations seen in vote-rich southern New Hampshire.
In addition, Kerry plans more direct confrontation with Dean, speaking, as he did yesterday, of his rival by name, and highlighting perceived inconsistencies in the former governor's record.
Campaign officials believe Dean has won over liberals, an active primary voting bloc, with his strong opposition to the Iraqi war and his support for gay rights. They also believe that group would be less excited about Dean if it heard more about his views on guns, the Confederate flag, entitlements, and other hot-button issues.
For Kerry, such a critique presents risk. He himself has been accused of abandoning principle for political expediency. His criticism of Dean over campaign financing, for example, triggered immediate questions from reporters about his own recent statements that he, too, may abandon the system if Dean does.
"I've challenged him and everybody else to live by the standard, but I've said I'm not going to disarm," Kerry said. "I've been up-front and clear. It's his choice: He goes out, he invites somebody else to go out. If he will stay in, I will stay in."
In 1996, Kerry was criticized for abandoning a spending cap in his reelection race with then-Governor William F. Weld. Kerry argued the Republican broke the agreement, a contention Weld disputed.
Before his speech, Kerry picked up the endorsement of two local law enforcement officials: Stafford County Attorney Janice Rundles and Peter R. Favreau, the former police chief of Manchester.
Kerry told the group that Dean's flag comments were not, as the former governor later claimed, an outgrowth of his desire to speak about race relations, but instead an effort to refute criticism from Kerry last week about his gun views.
"This is not straight talk, when you stand up and try to translate your appeal to the NRA into some glorious effort to have a discussion of race relations in America," the senator said.
Sarah Brady, the gun control advocate, yesterday also took aim at Dean for comments he made about gun control.
In an on-line discussion hosted by the Washington Post and the Concord Monitor yesterday, Dean reiterated his support for state-by-state gun control laws and added, "The cross border issue has been resolved in the one case I know of where it became a big issue. Virginia now limits the availability of gun purchases because so many Virginia guns were turning up in New York City illegally."
Brady called the comment false and misleading. "The problem of gun trafficking is perpetual from states with easy gun laws into states with tougher gun laws," she said.
"As far as I am concerned, he obviously does not understand or know the issue at all," Brady said. "He just makes broad statements to appeal to a wide range of people." |
