Dean, Under Attack, Revives Feisty Style
By JODI WILGOREN
EABROOK, N.H., Dec. 23 — Swatting away attacks from all corners in the 10 days since the capture of Saddam Hussein, Howard Dean has returned to the combative posture that propelled his insurgent candidacy to the front of the field this fall. Denunciations of "Washington Democrats" once again dominate his speeches, even as he complains that negativity has taken over the primary campaign.
It is a clear contrast from just two weeks ago when Dr. Dean, buoyed by the backing of several major unions, former Vice President Al Gore and a swelling crowd of elected officials, was beginning to change his style. Smiling more than finger-thrusting, he fancied himself a frontrunner above the fray, experimenting — briefly — with a more moderate tone, as he kept one eye on the general electorate.
But the relentless battering has stymied his effort to look long range, forcing him to hunker down in the final month before the first votes.
"Ultimately, if I'm going to be the nominee, I have to broaden the message," Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, said recently in an interview as his van shuttled between town-hall-style meetings on the snowy streets of New Hampshire. "I know that, and I was starting to do it. But you can't do it if every day you know Joe Lieberman is calling you incompetent and John Kerry is whining about something else. There's not much sense in broadening the message if I'm not the nominee."
He plans to spend almost all of January here, where he enjoys a comfortable lead in the polls, or in Iowa, where he remains in a dogfight with Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and a newly emboldened Senator Kerry of Massachusetts. The only other state on the schedule is South Carolina, where he will stop next week.
Dr. Dean has expanded his staff by 125 people, bringing it to nearly 400; hired directors in 13 states, for a total of 24, including Pennsylvania, which is irrelevant in the nominating process but critical in a general election; and more than doubled his Congressional support, to 28 members, gaining on Mr. Gephardt's 34.
As December dawned, Dr. Dean was fielding fewer questions from the public and the press while he was whisked through rope lines to closed meetings and $1,000- or $2,000-a-plate fund-raisers. But in recent days, he has spent mornings taping back-to-back-to-back interviews with radio stations, lingering after events until every hand is shaken, shirt signed and photograph snapped.
Even as he collected endorsements this week from the New Hampshire chapters of the Communication Workers of America and the United Automobile Workers, Dr. Dean said he awoke at night worrying about the details, and was hardly confident of victory.
"If you feel confident 30 days from an election," he said, "you're going to be the one that loses the election. Confidence leads to inattention. If you start to get confident that you're going to win, you start to slip up and make mistakes."
Most recent attacks have capitalized on Dr. Dean's candid comments, like saying Saddam Hussein's capture did not make the United States safer, acknowledging that he would need to "plug a hole" in his résumé with a running mate experienced in foreign policy and calling members of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council Republicans.
Those are not slips of the tongue. They are calculated to appeal to his core constituency of disenchanted Democrats who have proved in the past that the attacks on him only stoke their ardor.
As a former governor of a small state and with scant national name recognition, Dr. Dean began his campaign nearly two years ago as the longest of long shots, never expecting to be, as he now says daily, the front-runner "picking buckshot out of his rear."
Having won five races for governor as the incumbent, Dr. Dean said he was used to being the target and aware of the consequences of a steady barrage of attacks.
"Mike Dukakis showed that if you don't hit back at the very next moment that it can be effective," Dr. Dean said, recalling the 1988 presidential election in which Mr. Dukakis's refusal to respond to negative advertisements helped sink him. "I usually let it go for a couple of days, because people don't like it. But I know I have to answer eventually."
While Mr. Lieberman, of Connecticut, came out swinging within hours of Mr. Hussein's capture and was soon joined by other Democratic hopefuls who issued daily attacks over Dr. Dean's refusal to unseal his papers as governor, his record of helping corporations while governor and his distancing himself from President Bill Clinton's centrist legacy, Dr. Dean stayed mum for five days. Then he hit back, re-emphasizing his antiwar stance and returning to his bashing those Democrats who had supported Mr. Bush's decision to go into Iraq.
"All these guys, they all voted for the war!" Dr. Dean shouted on Friday night at a high school in Davenport, Iowa. "Then all summer long, when all those people were being killed — they were our soldiers, nine in Iowa alone — oh, they were backing and filling, `Well, gee, you know, I meant, blah blah blah, mumble mumble mumble.
"Now that Saddam's been caught, I think one of them said the other day on a talk show, `I'm proud of my vote in Iraq.' Well how come you didn't say so all summer long? We cannot have a Democratic candidate who can beat George Bush if we're afraid of our own shadow."
In a way, the dynamic of the Democratic race in recent days is just an intensified version of the last six months, with Dr. Dean gaining momentum and the others in the pack scratching to emerge as the one to take him on. Dr. Dean helped create the pattern by positioning himself as the outsider running against a group of Washington hands. His opponents have fueled it by making him the prime target in debates, advertisements, mailers and speeches.
"If you wrote the headline `Blank Attacks Dean,' you could fill that in with any number of names," Dr. Dean said in the interview. "I always get the `Dean.' But then they have to rotate their five or six names.
"It certainly isn't helping me in the long run, because Bush will eventually use their criticisms in his ads. But in the short run, I think it makes them look smaller."
On Saturday in Maquoketa, Iowa, Dr. Dean suggested that the Democratic contest needed a "character transplant" because "Dick Gephardt is sending around things saying I'm against Medicare and Social Security that's a total lie."
The next day in Manchester, N.H., he dismissed Mr. Kerry's viability as a candidate, noting that he was "mortgaging his house in order to finance his campaign."
Dr. Dean all but called Gen. Wesley K. Clark dishonest, responding to his contention that Dr. Dean had offered him the No. 2 slot if he became the nominee, by saying, "I can tell you flat out I did not ask him to be my running mate."
Dr. Dean said his constant criticism of "Washington politicians" was different from the barbs directed his way because "I disagree with their positions, and they make their attacks personal."
Some rivals — Dr. Dean often refers to them as "Bush Lite" or says he is tired of Democrats who lack the courage to stand up for what they believe — have said Dr. Dean's comments are pretty personal, too.
"That's this week," Dr. Dean said, "because the gloves have really come off." |
