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

To: LindyBill who wrote (19960)	12/15/2003 12:30:37 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793670

It's down to Dean and Gephardt With Endorsement, Gephardt Turns Focus to South Carolina By RACHEL L. SWARNS SPARTANBURG, S.C., Dec. 13 — Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri took a celebratory jaunt across this state on Saturday, showing off an important endorsement and a campaign increasingly determined to build momentum beyond the state of Iowa. Mr. Gephardt's aides say he must win Iowa to have any hope of capturing the Democratic presidential nomination, and on Saturday he continued to pound away at his chief rival in that state, Howard Dean. But in recent months, he has also been carefully cultivating support elsewhere. Nowhere are those efforts more visible than in South Carolina, which will be the first Southern state to hold a primary next year. This month, Mr. Gephardt started running two television advertisements here, his first outside of Iowa and New Hampshire. On Wednesday, he garnered the endorsement of Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina. Mr. Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus and an influential political figure here, was courted by all nine Democratic candidates. African-Americans are expected to account for about half of the registered voters in the primary here, and Mr. Clyburn has been viewed as a critical ally in rallying those votes. He and Mr. Gephardt stood side by side on Saturday at the University of South Carolina Spartanburg and received a standing ovation from a predominantly black crowd. "We're going to win!" Mr. Gephardt shouted. "We're going to have a new president. It all begins here!" Though Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Gen. Wesley K. Clark of Arkansas have been leading in most local polls, a significant percentage of voters remain undecided, and political experts say the endorsement will give Mr. Gephardt's candidacy a boost. "It is the most valuable endorsement a candidate could get in South Carolina," Donald L. Fowler, a former national Democratic chairman and a South Carolinian, said of Mr. Clyburn's endorsement. But, he added, if Mr. Gephardt is "not in the race because of a poor showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, it won't make a big difference." It was perhaps with Iowa in mind that Mr. Gephardt called on Dr. Dean to release all of the records documenting his dealings with Enron, the collapsed energy concern. He was responding to an article in The Boston Globe that described how, as Vermont's governor in the 1990's, Dr. Dean promoted tax incentives to get some corporations, including Enron, to set up insurance subsidiaries in the state. "While Howard Dean was cutting taxes for companies like Enron and cutting spending on Medicaid, public education and prescription drugs for seniors, Bill Clinton and I proved you can balance the budget a different way," he said. For the second day in a row, Dr. Dean dismissed the criticism from Mr. Gephardt, saying, "The Enron stuff was ridiculous." Flying from Des Moines to Atlanta, he told reporters: "Enron never got any tax breaks from Vermont. That is a joke." The Enron subsidiary was one of hundreds of such "captive" insurance companies lured to Vermont with financial incentives. Dr. Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said in a statement that Dr. Dean had met with business leaders as governor, and that "building a strong economy was one of the things Vermonters elected him to do." As Mr. Gephardt tried to capitalize on Mr. Clyburn's endorsement, Dr. Dean added Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who heads the Congressional Black Caucus, and 17 Georgia lawmakers to a growing list of elected officials endorsing his campaign, buttressing his support among Southern and black politicians. But Mr. Gephardt did not mention Dr. Dean to audiences here. He criticized trade deals with Mexico and China that have been blamed for job losses here and laced his speeches with a strong defense of affirmative action and a description of his life growing up in a poor family. "Jim Clyburn and many of you in this audience came up the same way we did," Mr. Gephardt said in Rock Hill. "We came up the hard way. That's why we fight for affirmative action. That's why we fight for equality of opportunity." Mr. Clyburn said he believed Mr. Gephardt's life story would resonate with voters. nytimes.com