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

To: D. Long who wrote (19385)	12/11/2003 1:58:01 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793688

Clyburn stayed loyal and endorsed Gephardt. But it may be all over by the time they hit SC. Gephardt Wins S.C. Backing; Kerry Attacks Dean on War By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A10 MANCHESTER, N.H., Dec. 10 -- Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) picked up a key endorsement in South Carolina on Wednesday while Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) accused former Vermont governor Howard Dean of fudging the issue of how strenuously he opposed the Iraq war. One day after the last debate of the year and the surprise endorsement of Dean by former vice president Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidates crisscrossed New Hampshire, where Dean has built up a big lead in the polls for the state's Jan. 27 primary. But Gephardt, who began the day in the state's north country, was also looking ahead to the week after New Hampshire, rolling out an endorsement from Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), one of the most influential Democrats in a state whose Feb. 3 primary already shapes up as one of the most significant on the nomination calendar. South Carolina will be the first southern state to weigh in on the Democratic candidates and Gephardt is counting on Clyburn to give him a big boost there, particularly among African American voters, who could comprise more than 40 percent of the primary electorate. "Jim Clyburn probably has more influence on more voters in the Democratic presidential primary than any other one person," said Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and a South Carolinian. South Carolina is one of seven states that hold contests Feb. 3 and the Clyburn endorsement means that, if Gephardt wins the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses, he will be in a strong position to compete for victory in the Palmetto state as well as his home state of Missouri on that day. Within hours of the Clyburn endorsement, advisers to retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark said that he will receive the endorsement of former U.N. ambassador and civil rights leader Andrew Young later this month. Kerry challenged Dean's standing among antiwar Democrats by charging that Dean's position on the Iraq war was not significantly different from that of other Democratic candidates in the fall of 2002, when Congress was debating whether to give President Bush the authority to go to war unilaterally. Kerry said that at the time of the congressional debate, Dean was on record saying then that Saddam Hussein needed to be disarmed and had supported a resolution sponsored by Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) that would have required Bush to report back to Congress if he failed to win international support for the war. Kerry said that resolution would not have stopped Bush from launching military action unilaterally and thus left Dean essentially in the same position as the Democratic candidates like himself who eventually supported a less restrictive resolution. "Howard Dean exercised the exact same judgment that the rest of us exercised, the difference is he didn't have to vote on one particular resolution," Kerry said. "If Al Gore is endorsing the Howard Dean who made the judgment at the same time as the rest of us, then he endorsed the same Howard Dean." Kerry said Dean was "trying to have it both ways" on his position. "If you don't have to vote, you can run around and say a lot of things. But that's not leadership." Dean said Wednesday he had voiced support for Biden-Lugar in October 2002, but said that, had it passed, Bush might not have gone to war. "Biden-Lugar required the president to come back to Congress -- not for a vote," he said according to the Associated Press, "but only to certify that a number of actions were taken, including more diplomacy. Had the president done that, we would not have gone to war, because then he would have been forced to certify with his word . . . all the claims he made that were not true." A Senate Democratic aide involved in the discussions over the competing resolutions said Wednesday that the White House had opposed the initial Biden-Lugar amendment, saying it would tie Bush's hands. Later the White House began negotiating with the sponsors, but those negotiations were undercut when Gephardt cut a deal with the White House to support their preferred resolution. The aide said Biden-Lugar would have added an additional requirement for Bush to satisfy before going to war unilaterally, but added that a president determined to launch military action probably would not have been deterred by the alternate resolution. washingtonpost.com