Up Close and Personal
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 5, 2003; 8:36 AM
Running for president is harder than it looks. You have to grapple with attack ads, negative stories, embarrassing revelations, a grueling travel schedule. And you have to deal with the genetically modified seeds lady.
When I was following Howard Dean around New Hampshire last weekend, he was peppered with all kinds of questions by all sorts of voters. This is what's great about retail campaigning in the Granite State -- anyone can interrogate a presidential candidate, and the citizens take their job very seriously. (They're also obliging about providing quotes-on-demand for visiting reporters.) Once New Hampshire votes, it's a tarmac campaign, with candidates doing flyarounds and avails and photo ops in three or four media markets a day.
The press buses turn into press planes. The human scale, the intimacy, is lost.
Anyway, back to the seeds lady. After a Manchester town hall meeting, a woman came up to Dean and told him about the problems of genetically modified seeds.
"I'm worried about the effect on the environment," she said. "Doesn't corn inhibit insulin production in your body?"
Doctor Dean allowed as that he didn't know.
But the sheer range and velocity of questions is enough to knock anyone off balance. If you've set your sights on the White House, you're expected to have a position on everything.
Dean was asked about the Guantanamo Bay detainees.
"That's a hard one," he said, adding that the prisoners deserve protection under the Geneva Convention.
The Cuba embargo? "We need to flood the place with American tourists spending lots of money," he said, but only in the long run, not just yet.
Middle East peace? That would require a 20-minute answer, Dean said, but he'd name Bill Clinton as a special envoy.
A psychiatrist, Wendy Thomas, wanted to know his thoughts on special education. "It needs to be fully funded," Dean said. "The amount of paperwork in special ed is just outrageous."
Dean was running late, but he stopped to take a question from a Dominican union member who spoke through a translator. What about immigrants? "If you've been here for a period of time and paid your taxes, you should have fast-track citizenship," said Dean.
Asked what they liked about Dean, several people told me it was the fact that he is a doctor. Makes them trust him more, they said, and he'll know what to do about health care.
Sometimes the press misses things that are staring us in the face.
I learned one other thing about Dean. This business about him being a tightwad is no joke. When I got up close, I saw that the front edges of his suit jacket, where the buttons are, was frayed so badly that I wouldn't have worn it to a Sunday morning flea market.
Josh Marshall is agog over the latest New Hampshire numbers:
"MY GOD! I am always a bit leery of Zogby polls because about as often as his polls are dead right, they're dead wrong.
"But even if his numbers can be erratic, there's no ignoring his new poll out of New Hampshire:
"Dean 42% "Kerry 12% "Clark 9% "Lieberman 7%
"A thirty point spread. That's amazing. . . .
"What's really telling about those New Hampshire numbers is that Dean's number (42%) has been right about there for the last month, going by the last several public polls. (I looked at three public polls from November -- two gave Dean 38%, one gave him 44%.)
"The difference is in Kerry's number, which continues to fall. That's the lowest number he's ever tracked at in the state, judging from a quick scan of public polls stretching back to last spring. I think this state records thing in Vermont is making Dean look foolish and the gaffes (Soviet Union for Russia) don't help either. But for the moment at least none of that is showing up in the polls."
You think the right isn't worried about Dean? Check out my report in The Washington Post on the latest salvo in the ad wars:
"The Club for Growth, a Washington-based conservative organization, uses pictures of George S. McGovern, Walter F. Mondale and Michael S. Dukakis before casting the former Vermont governor as their political successor: 'Howard Dean says he'll raise taxes on the average family by more than $1,900 a year. Dean says he'll raise income taxes, marriage taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, even bring back the death tax. . . . Will Howard Dean ever learn?' "
What's really interesting is how quickly the doctor responded with a counterattack ad.
Dean's stance on his Vermont records just got a bit shakier, based on this Boston Herald piece:
"Despite his claim that he cannot release his gubernatorial papers because of privacy and safety concerns, Vermont Democrat Howard Dean has already made public sensitive security documents and letters detailing people's medical histories, records show.
"Tucked in boxes of Dean's publicly available files, the documents obtained by the Herald appear to undercut the presidential front-runner's chief excuse for keeping many of his records private.
"The records could bolster arguments from Dean rivals that the hidden papers in fact have little to do with personal data but feature the kinds of 'embarrassing' revelations Dean last year said he feared would hurt his presidential campaign."
Here's the Manchester Union-Leader take on the GOP assault against Dean:
"Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie insists Howard Dean isn't getting extra attention from the GOP now that he's emerging as the favorite to win the Democratic Presidential nomination.
"Gillespie, in Concord yesterday, insisted the nomination is 'wide open.' But, in an interview, he said Dean is defining the Democratic race.
" 'They've all moved further and further outside of the political mainstream in pursuit of the nomination,' said Gillespie, 'and I think it is partly in response to him. The fact is,' said Gillespie, 'they're all Howard Dean now.' "
Which hedges his bets in case someone else wins the nomination.
The Washington Post says Dean is starting to court the party establishment, but major elements are still non-fans of the doctor, says Don Lambro in the Washington Times:
"Democratic leaders increasingly worry about the prospect of antiwar candidate Howard Dean becoming their party's presidential nominee next year.
"For the most part, their deepest fears about Mr. Dean's weaknesses on national security issues have been expressed privately. But lately these party leaders are going public, questioning Mr. Dean's pacifist agenda on national defense and his opposition to the war in Iraq to topple one of the world's worst terrorist dictators.
"One of Mr. Dean's emerging critics is former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta who talked with me recently about the coming election.
"What he said is big news in and of itself, but it took on added significance because he talks frequently with former President Clinton and much of what he had to say reflects Mr. Clinton's views.
"In a nutshell, Mr. Panetta says there is growing anxiety Mr. Dean's fierce opposition to the war in Iraq -- despite strong public belief that going into Iraq was the right policy -- will make their party look weak on national security and the war on terrorism in next year's election."
Roger Simon gets Tom Brokaw talking about Howard Dean:
"Brokaw: I think it's a tribute to two or three things. One is that there is a large body of people who feel left out of the process and they feel he can bring them back in or that he's their ticket to get them back in in some fashion. Also, his ability to not be locked into "Washington speak" every time he opens his mouth on a subject. Even to run the risk of saying something that he has to pull back the next day. You know, it helps him.
"SIMON: Right. His mistakes don't seem to matter.
"Brokaw: It makes him seem human. And then finally, and I think this is partly generational, you cannot overstate for younger voters the place of the Internet in their lives. It's a force. It is the force. They're on it all day long as a means of communication with one another and as a means of retrieving information. It shapes their world. And he tapped into that."
The White House decision on steel, floated in trial-balloon fashion in The Post earlier this week, is being billed as a tactical defeat for Bush:
"President Bush had little choice on Thursday when he reversed himself and lifted the tariffs on imported steel that he imposed last year," says the New York Times.
"For the first time in his nearly three years in office, the president, who has often reveled in the exercise of American power, finally met an international organization that had figured out how to hit back at the administration where it would hurt. Employing relatively untested powers, the eight-year-old World Trade Organization authorized European and Asian nations to devise retaliatory tariffs against the United States, just 11 months before a presidential election. Not surprisingly, the Europeans pulled out an electoral map and proudly announced they would single out products made in the states Mr. Bush most needs to win a second term . . .
"It was left to the Europeans to design the penalties, and they pinpointed textile mills in the Carolinas and farmers in the Midwest and California with a precision that Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, must have grudgingly admired."
The political reaction took about 12 seconds:
"The Democratic candidates vying to unseat President Bush next year quickly seized on his decision Thursday to lift tariffs on steel imports, seeing it as an issue that will give them a political edge in key steel-producing states," says the Los Angeles Times.
"Party strategists said rescinding the tariffs had jeopardized Bush's standing in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia -- the country's top steel-producing states and likely battlegrounds in the 2004 presidential election. Combined, the states account for 46 electoral votes. . . .
"Some political analysts cautioned that Democrats were overestimating the potential of one issue to influence the outcome of the presidential contest in the steel-producing states."
The Wall Street Journal weighs in with a deliciously detailed piece about hardball -- not the Chris Matthews variety, but the kind played by the Bush team:
"After Sen. Richard Durbin blasted President Bush on Iraq this past summer, three reporters called to ask if he had leaked classified information and was facing pressure to quit the Intelligence Committee. The reporters, he says, told him the White House circulated both ideas.
"Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan insists the White House did no such thing. But add the Illinois Democrat to the list of Washington players who have concluded that President Bush and his team play an especially tough game of political hardball. That list extends from government whistleblowers to maverick lawmakers and former Republican cabinet secretaries. . . .
"Even some Republican stalwarts contend they have felt the sting after crossing Mr. Bush politically. Conservative economic analyst Stephen Moore says he was tracked down by telephone at a dinner party and excoriated by Mr. Rove for backing Republican primary challengers to White House-backed incumbents. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo says Mr. Rove told him "never to darken the door of the White House again" after he told a newspaper that the administration's immigration policy could lead to another terrorist attack."
The Rush Limbaugh drug story isn't over yet. Here's the latest development, in the New York Daily News:
"Florida investigators have raided Rush Limbaugh's doctors' offices and seized his medical records in the first sign the radio jock could face criminal charges for buying black-market drugs.
"The blockbuster development was revealed yesterday in search warrants that accused Limbaugh of 'doctor shopping' to find a steady supply of under-the-counter painkillers.
" 'Mr. Limbaugh's actions violate the letter, and spirit' of the law, said one of the warrants on file at the Palm Beach County courthouse.
"Limbaugh lined up four doctors to provide him with 'controlled substances' and 'alternated physicians to obtain overlapping prescriptions,' according to warrants that were issued on Nov. 25 before cops raided the offices in West Palm Beach and Jupiter, Fla.
"The right-wing radio jock has not been charged with a crime. In an apparent bid to blunt the impact of the revelations, Limbaugh said on his syndicated show yesterday that prosecutors were on a 'fishing expedition.' "
The question is whether they will reel in a big one.
My story in The Post the other day on Valerie Plame coming out, photographically speaking, in Vanity Fair magazine has touched off a bit of buzz, beginning with Chatterbox man Tim Noah, who gives husband Joe Wilson his Whopper of the Week award for saying earlier that his wife would not be posing for pictures:
"Chatterbox spares Plame Whopper status, possibly on grounds of misplaced gallantry. But Plame's extended striptease, enthusiastically barked by her husband, now has Chatterbox wondering how much of Wilson's story to believe. (It also has Chatterbox wondering when the couple will start renting themselves out for birthday parties.) Regardless of the merits, this photograph will surely give the Bush Justice Department whatever slim justification it seeks in dropping its Plamegate investigation."
InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds is also turned off by the Vanity Fair extravaganza:
"I'M OFFICIALLY PRONOUNCING THE PLAME SCANDAL BOGUS:
"Former ambassador Joseph Wilson has been quite protective of his wife, Valerie Plame, in the weeks since her cover as a CIA operative was blown.
" 'My wife has made it very clear that -- she has authorized me to say this -- she would rather chop off her right arm than say anything to the press and she will not allow herself to be photographed,' he declared in October on 'Meet the Press.' "But that was before Vanity Fair came calling.
"The January issue features a two-page photo of Wilson and the woman the magazine calls 'the most famous female spy in America,' a 'slim 40-year-old with white-blond hair and a big, bright smile.' They are sitting in their Jaguar.
"No word on whether she's missing an arm. . . .
"Wilson says the pictures won't identify her. Sorry -- if you're really an undercover spy, and really worried about national security, you don't do this sort of thing. Unless, perhaps, you're a self-promoter first, and a spy second. Or your husband is."
Finally, Salon's Tim Grieve takes on Drudge:
"Laurie David is a major player in liberal Hollywood politics. The wife of 'Seinfeld' creator Larry David, she is an activist, organizer and donor who spends her days railing against SUVs, George W. Bush and the abuses of the right. But there she was on the phone from Hollywood Wednesday, making nice about Republican gossipmonger cum news hound Matt Drudge. 'I owe him, and I'm trying to think of what I can do to thank him,' David said. 'I think I'm going to bake this guy some cookies.'
"OK, so maybe David was being just a little bit facetious. Maybe she won't be zipping down to Whole Foods tonight for baking soda and a bag of chocolate chips. But the fact is, David owes Drudge today. And so does everyone else hoping to beat Bush in 2004. The reason: Through hyperbole bordering on misrepresentation, Drudge turned what should have been a small meet-and-greet session for two pro-Democratic political organizations into a star-studded spectacle of publicity and support for the groups.
"Earlier this week, Drudge began trumpeting the news of a 'Hate Bush' meeting planned for Hollywood Tuesday night. In a breathless 'exclusive' report, Drudge claimed that 'top Hollywood activists and intellectuals' were planning to 'gather in Beverly Hills for an event billed as "Hate Bush." ' Recovering addict Rush Limbaugh played along with the tune, warning of a coming confab by a bunch of 'left coast Hollywood kooks' and suggesting that the likes of Jane Fonda would be involved.
"The event to which they referred was something less -- and, ultimately, something more -- than they suggested. It was, in fact, an informational presentation by America Coming Together and The Media Fund, two groups working to raise money -- and spend it -- in support of the Democratic candidate in the 2004 presidential race. Organizers expected about 100 politically active Southern Californians to turn out for the event Tuesday at the Beverly Hills Hilton. But with Drudge and Limbaugh on the rampage, approximately three times as many Hollywood Democrats made the scene."
Nothing like firing up the other side.
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