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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Richard S who wrote (497576)	11/24/2003 12:19:21 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Iowa Swing-Voters Sceptical About Dean MSNBC: SKEPTICAL ABOUT DEAN Interviews with Democrats across Iowa found many Dean skeptics. Lester Jones, a retired farmer and insurance salesman in Carroll, Iowa, who is backing Gephardt, said, “I don’t think Dean has got the experience. That’s what bothers me with him. I think as far as foreign policy and dealing with foreign governments, I don’t know if he’d be the right man to have in there. I don’t have a good feeling about his campaign. He’s a good speaker, but he’s a little bit radical to suit me.” Lester Jones, a retired farmer in Carroll, Iowa, will be backing Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt in the Jan. 19 caucuses. Jones added, “There’s been some things he’s said that he has had to retract. So he probably doesn’t think things through as far as he should before he makes a statement.” Vicki Shepard, a math teacher from Keosauqua, who supports Edwards, knocks Dean’s decision to opt out of the taxpayer matching fund system for his campaign, a decision that will allow Dean to spend as much as he pleases during the primary season. “I don’t like elections going to the highest bidder,” she said. “If we all stay within the public funding system, everybody can afford to run and not just the people that have the wealth or wealthy interests behind them.” Shepard said she wasn’t persuaded by the Dean campaign’s argument that it is drawing on thousand of individual donors who each give, on average, less than $100 each. Vicki Shepard, a math teacher from Keosauqua, Iowa, is backing Sen. John Edwards. Shepard said she supports Edwards partly because “I like his background. He’s from a working-class family, like I am.” Sometimes a candidate’s support may depend almost as much on surrogates as on himself. Kerry’s state director is John Norris, who ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the district that covers much of northern Iowa. Norris “has done a great job of keeping his support and giving that to Kerry. When you’ve got a race like this which is so very close with regard to most of the key issues, a state campaign manager can make a world of difference,” said Lapointe. Some voters have a very personal stake in the election. Chris Fink, a retired high school chemistry teacher from Council Bluffs, has a son in the National Guard who is serving in Iraq. Uncommitted to a candidate, Fink says she is “intrigued by Dean” but has doubts about his foreign policy bona fides. “Whenever you have somebody who is going from state government to national government you wonder about the foreign policy angle,” she said. One of Fink’s former students, Paul Shomshor, is now a member of the Iowa state Legislature. With Lieberman deciding to not campaign in Iowa, some conservative-leaning Democrats looking for a new champion. Shomshor backed Lieberman, but now is up for grabs. Kerry, Edwards, and Dean have telephoned Shomshor in recent weeks, seeking his endorsement. In June Shomshor told MSNBC.com that if Dean won the nomination, “that would pull the party so far left” that the Democrats might lose to Bush in November. “You have to nominate somebody that can win,” Shomsor said then.