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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (16231)	11/15/2003 7:08:34 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793709

The No. 1 Non-Candidate Takes Iowa's Center Stage By Craig Crawford, CQ Columnist DES MOINES — As the agenda for Saturday's Iowa Democratic Party dinner puts it no fewer than eight times: "Sen. Clinton takes the stage." Hillary Rodham Clinton first gives "introductory remarks" at the annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraiser here on Saturday, followed by her separate introductions for each of the Democratic presidential candidates in attendance. Iowa Democratic leaders enlisted New York's freshman senator as master of ceremonies after failing to sell out the Veterans Memorial Auditorium for the dinner. The existing presidential candidates proved to be an insufficient draw. Once Clinton was on the roster, however, all 7,500 dinner tickets were sold within hours. It is a telling commentary on the status of this Democratic race. No state other than New Hampshire is getting more attention from the current crop of 2004 presidential aspirants. They are running television ads, criss-crossing the state nearly every day and lavishing attention on Iowa news reporters. Yet it took a Clinton to sell out the party's biggest annual dinner. It shows just how little the Democratic Party has moved beyond the Clinton era. As much as this race is about Democrats trying to beat President Bush, it is also about who, if anyone, will lead the party after the Clintons. For the New York senator, this is a heck of way to dampen speculation about her presidential ambitions: showing up in Iowa to "take the stage" as Democratic candidates begin the final two-month sprint to the kickoff caucuses in the state the night of Monday, Jan. 19. Clinton is sure to be asked again: Are you running? And she is just as sure to give the same answer she gives when asked almost every day: No! At least not in 2004. The answer is murkier about 2008. To avoid an uncomfortable photo opportunity, she will have to dodge her most ardent admirers. A contingent of Internet-savvy supporters with Web sites pushing a 2004 Clinton candidacy will be roaming the dinner site in hopes of causing a stir. "We will be fully staffed outside," said Adam Parkhomenko, who launched VoteHillary.org a month ago. He claims the site has since signed up 42,000 Clinton supporters for online petitions urging her to run. Parkhomenko, a student at Northern Virginia Community College, runs one of several "draft Hillary" movements on the Web. When he registered his committee with the Federal Elections Commission in September, the press flooded the agency with calls inquiring if Clinton herself had filed. Ask an aide to a Democratic candidate about Clinton's participation on Saturday night, and most will just sigh in obvious exasperation. None will say an unkind word about her — on or off the record — but it is clear that the campaigns did not choose to have her onstage stealing their thunder at such a crucial time. Which raises a question: Why is she doing it? The official response from her camp is that she will be there to help the Iowa Democratic Party raise money, autograph copies of her memoir at a local Des Moines bookstore and raise money for the city's congressman, Democrat Leonard Boswell. If Clinton is headlining this major event in the first presidential battleground to be helpful to others, why didn't she ask those currently running if they thought it would be helpful? I could find no one in the campaigns who said their candidate got a heads-up from Clinton or her staff. Many learned about her role from the Iowa Democratic Party news release trumpeting her attendance. Who Could Stop Dean? Clinton's turn at the presidential campaign spotlight this weekend highlights how little progress Howard Dean's rivals have made against him. She overshadows the field of party insiders running for president, none of whom can find a way to best the former Vermont governor's insurgent campaign. This is still a two-person race: Dean vs. Establishment-Candidate-to-Be-Announced. After the weekend, there are nine weeks until the caucuses and no one has emerged to fill that second slot. If anyone currently running has a chance to stop Dean, who can stand tall this weekend? Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is facing a meltdown after firing his campaign manager, as polls show Dean eclipsing him in his neighboring state of New Hampshire. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri suffered the loss of major union endorsements he had been courting. Dean won the backing of the AFL-CIO's two largest unions with a combined membership of 3 million and more than 30,000 workers in Iowa: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union. Wesley K. Clark lost a promising chance for the AFSCME endorsement when the retired general unwisely chose to abandon campaigning for the Iowa caucuses. The other senators in the race, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and John Edwards of North Carolina, still show no signs of catching on. Watching Dean's struggling foes roam the after-debate spin rooms and troop to the podium at joint gatherings, you cannot help but think of the moment in the film, "The Sixth Sense," when the clairvoyant boy says, "I see dead people." If all of this political firepower is doomed to be helpless in the face of a dairy-state governor with no Washington experience, what are party insiders to do? One clue could come when "Sen. Clinton takes the stage." cq.com