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

To: KonKilo who wrote (16442)	11/17/2003 4:28:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793752

Dean Must Show Strength, Iowa Governor Says Vilsack Contends Candidate May Be Vulnerable to GOP Criticism That He Is Not Tough Enough By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 17, 2003; Page A02 DES MOINES, Nov. 16 -- Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) said former Vermont governor Howard Dean is vulnerable to Republican attacks that he is not tough enough to keep the United States safe in the age of terrorism, despite rising opposition to President Bush's handling of the war to stabilize Iraq. Vilsack's comments, which came in an interview shortly before an Iowa Democratic Party fundraising dinner Saturday at which Dean and five other presidential candidates spoke, highlighted the unease that exists in some parts of the party over Dean's candidacy and the importance the Iraq war is playing in the campaigns for the Democratic nomination. The Iowa governor, who has not taken sides in the nomination battle, said if Dean becomes the party's nominee, Republicans could charge that "he wasn't tough enough to pull the trigger" against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and will have to show Americans that he has the strength to deal with tyrants and terrorists. "That's an issue that Howard's going to have to confront," Vilsack said. "He's going to have to overcome that, he's going to have to convince people by force of personality, by his response in debates, by plans he comes out with. I don't know how he's going to do it. He's going to have to reassure Americans that he's just as tough as George Bush, but he's tougher in a smarter way." Alone among the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination, Dean opposed the war with Iraq and has ridden opposition to the war within the party to vault his once long-shot candidacy to the top of the Democratic field. Some leading Democrats believe the politics of Iraq have changed in recent months because of the stream of terrorist attacks there and the rising U.S. casualties. They say that leaves Dean far less exposed politically than he was when the war began and there was overwhelming public support for Bush's policies. Vilsack said he believes Dean may be able to overcome questions about his strength to protect the country, but not because of changing perceptions about Bush's policies in Iraq. "Just because the war is going differently than the Bush folks thought it was going to do doesn't mean Dean is out of the woods," he said. "There's a larger issue here than just simply Iraq. It's the world, it's terror in the world and threats in the world and the insecurity Americans feel because they've been hit by 9/11." Vilsack said that Dean's principal opponents in Iowa -- Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) -- have other questions to overcome about their candidacies, but added that Dean is more vulnerable on the question of leading the country in an age of terrorism than either of them. Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said that Vilsack's concerns have been a common question since Dean first opposed the war but that his candidate "feels strongly" that it was the right decision. "We continue to believe that this is a vulnerability of this president, and we intend to make that case," Trippi said. Vilsack's comments came just as Dean reinjected the war issue into the Iowa campaign by attacking Gephardt for supporting Bush and the congressional resolution authorizing the president to go to war. A new Dean direct-mail brochure includes a photo of Gephardt and Bush in the Rose Garden on the day the president announced a deal with congressional leaders on language for the resolution and says Gephardt stood "shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush" on the issue. Gephardt and Dean are in a fiercely competitive race in Iowa, and Dean hopes to tap the antiwar sentiment among many Iowa Democratic activists to counter criticism from Gephardt that he supported Republican efforts to slow the growth of Medicare in 1995. Gephardt said in an interview Sunday that he had appeared with Bush in the Rose Garden "because we [he and Bush] had made an agreement" on the language of the resolution and he wanted to signal unity to the United Nations to gain international support against Iraq. Speaking with reporters Sunday morning, Gephardt noted that Dean had said he would not make the war a political issue against other Democrats and accused Dean of inconsistency, saying that in 1997 the then-governor had said he believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. "I don't know that this is consistent with all of those views," Gephardt said. "But whatever it is, I'm going to do what I think is right. People have said, 'What if this hurts you in the election?' Nothing I can do about that. I don't care. I'm going to do what I think is right." washingtonpost.com