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To: Lane3 who wrote (23414)	1/7/2004 9:01:20 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793615

N.H. voters eyeing two non-Deans By Scot Lehigh, 1/7/2004 Boston Globe NASHUA, N.H. A SENSE of skittishness about Howard Dean is beginning to stir in New Hampshire. Whether that doubt freshens to a gaffe-driven gust or is merely an evanescent breeze of unease remains to be seen, but creeping disquiet about Dean came up often in conversations with more than three-dozen voters on Friday and Monday. Indeed, those misgivings were a regular reason voters who had been leaning toward Dean cited for coming to campaign events to evaluate US Senator John Kerry and retired General Wesley Clark. Some thought Dean has proved too prone to shoot from the lip. Others worry he has too short a fuse. A few specimens of that rarest of political species -- strategic Democrats -- have become convinced he just couldn't beat George W. Bush. To be sure, the misgivings don't appear strong enough to deprive the former Vermont governor of a Granite State win. But they do raise the prospect of a strong second-place finish for another candidate. The doubts haven't infected Dean's tried and true troops. And no wonder, for Dean is a master at reinforcing his vote. At a Friday event in Concord he labeled his principal rivals "all those Washington Democrats," said he was the only clearly antiwar candidate of the major candidates, and lambasted the others for being too cooperative with President Bush. The only awkward moment for Dean came when Katheleen Belgard, a 17-year-old Concord High School student and Kerry supporter, asked how he could portray himself as so clearly antiwar when he had supported an alternative congressional resolution (known as Biden-Lugar) that would have given the president authority to wage war against Iraq after securing a UN Security Council resolution requiring disarmament or, failing that, upon his declaration that Iraq constituted a grave threat. Dean replied that he had initially supported Biden-Lugar because "I think the president deserves the presumption of right on his side in foreign policy. I wanted to give this president as much leeway as we could." (Imagine what Dean would say if John Kerry or Dick Gephardt had made that statement.) But Dean also noted that he had made a speech on Sept. 21, 2002, setting out his opposition to the war. However, Dean was still expressing support for Biden-Lugar in early October; at about that time, the authors of the resolution decided not to press forward with it. The two candidates voters are looking most closely at as Dean alternatives -- Kerry and Clark -- have very different ideas about how to contest New Hampshire. Kerry believes he can best win a second look from voters here by doing well in Iowa. That's curious logic, particularly since when New Hampshire voters see Kerry face to face, he tends to make a good impression. Certainly he did at a Friday chili feed in Milford. But if Kerry is to have any chance of closing on Dean, he needs to offer an explicit, repeated, energetic, sustained case why he rather than Dean should be the nominee. In Milford Kerry did so only in the most oblique of fashions, hinting that Bush political wizard Karl Rove was hoping for a Democratic candidate without national security credentials and reminding people that if they were going to build a house, they'd want an experienced architect. Indeed, so oblique did Kerry's pitch prove that after the event, Marie Sias, an undecided Hollis independent who plans to vote in the Democratic primary, said she was disappointed not to hear the senator make a clear case about why he would be better than his rivals. Here's the other problem for Kerry: Even should he rebound in New Hampshire, he lacks a persuasive steppingstone through the seven states that hold contests on Feb. 3. Not so with Clark, who can point to strength in most of those states. Right now Clark also has a clearer sense of New Hampshire momentum, drawing large crowds at recent events. But can Clark skip the Iowa caucuses and survive? His camp thinks he can by focusing like a laser on New Hampshire. He's now in the midst of an 11-day stay, and he plans to come back in midmonth and remain through the Jan. 27 primary. On Monday the general offered a tax reform proposal that would hike rates on incomes of a million or more to offer more tax relief to middle-class families with children. Dean may have landed Al Gore and Bill Bradley, the two Democratic hopefuls from 2000, but Clark is the candidate who has taken a page from the Democrats' winning playbook from 1992. And who clearly has the Dean camp worried.

To: Lane3 who wrote (23414)	1/7/2004 11:24:45 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793615

We have been commenting about Dean's wife. Bush's daughters aren't too happy. Book: Bush twins see 'themselves as victims of daddy's job' WASHINGTON (AP) --President Bush's twin daughters have shown little interest in their family's tradition of public service and are unhappy about the limelight they find themselves in, a new book says. Jenna and Barbara Bush "have not campaigned or reined in their adolescent rebellions," Washington Post reporter Ann Gerhart says in the book published this week, "The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush." "They have not appeared engaged in any of the pressing issues their generation will inherit, nor shown empathy for the struggles facing their mother and their father," Gerhart says. "They don't show their faces at the White House often." The Bush daughters turned 22 in November. Barbara Bush attends Yale University, while Jenna Bush is a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The book recalls the twins' run-ins with the law in underage drinking incidents. The girls regard their Secret Service agents as "their chauffeurs, bellhops and valets," the book says. It says "they persist in seeing themselves as victims of daddy's job." Their parents have taken a hands-off approach toward the young women, the author says. "The only lesson they wanted to impart to their children, (their father) said during the presidential campaign, was 'that I love you. I love you more than anything. And therefore you should feel free to fail or succeed, and you can be anything you want in America."' Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for Laura Bush, declined to comment on the book. Find this article at: cnn.com