Iowa rivals back off attacks
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
ROCKWELL CITY, Iowa — Rep. Richard A. Gephardt and Howard Dean ended their negative-ad battle on Iowa television yesterday as both candidates find themselves falling further behind Sen. John Kerry in polls heading into Monday's caucuses.
Mr. Dean stopped airing an ad that blasted his three chief opponents in Iowa — Mr. Gephardt of Missouri and Mr. Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina — as "Washington Democrats" who supported the war in Iraq.
Mr. Gephardt then pulled his ads criticizing Mr. Dean on Medicare and Social Security.
"His negative ad has come down so we took down our ad," Mr. Gephardt told reporters yesterday after meeting with voters at the Rockwell City public library. "We never desired to run ads that made criticism of the issues; we tried to make comparisons, but we're not just going to stand by and watch negative ads out there."
Mr. Kerry has surged past the two men in the latest Zogby-MSNBC-Reuters three-day tracking poll, garnering 24 percent of 502 likely caucus goers.
Mr. Dean and Mr. Gephardt have both fallen to 19 percent, while Mr. Edwards is holding steady at 17 percent. The four are within the poll's margin of error of 4.5 percent.
But polls show a large group of undecided voters. Mr. Gephardt and Mr. Dean wanted to avoid annoying them with a negative campaign in the final days, as both men seek to shore up their campaigns.
The negative ad truce didn't stop Mr. Dean's campaign from appealing to farmers by questioning Mr. Kerry's suggestion eight years ago that the Agriculture Department be eliminated.
Mr. Kerry's spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, said it was "a typical angry attack we've seen from the Dean campaign this year."
"John Kerry takes a back seat to no one to protecting America's farmers," Miss Cutter said.
For Mr. Gephardt, the former Democratic leader in the U.S. House, the falling numbers are particularly a problem since Iowa is seen as a must-win state for him. It borders his home state of Missouri, and his surprise victory in the 1988 presidential caucuses here was supposed have set the stage for victory this year.
Yesterday Mr. Gephardt would not answer questions about whether failing to win would be a death blow to his campaign.
"I'm going to win Iowa and I'm going to win the nomination," he told reporters. "I have the most experience, I have the best and, I think, the most realistic ideas, I have the best chance to beat George Bush, and voters are looking at that here at the end."
Mr. Gephardt's challenge became clear during a focus group of 20 Des Moines-area Democrats, moderated by MSNBC's Frank Luntz Thursday night.
"I thought he had died," said Nancy Trotter, 53, a lawyer, who said she was surprised to hear the congressman was reprising his 1988 run.
"He's been around so long that, in spite of what he says, he's perceived to be part of the problem," said Fred Gilbert, 55, a dean at a community college.
But the congressman's long roots and common touch are attractive to other voters such as Pat Hood, 77, a retired tax auditor who showed up at Mr. Gephardt's rally in Rockwell City.
"He's got time to stop and talk to you. I would say he's a common man's president," Mr. Hood said.
Mr. Gephardt's audience of about 30 was mostly elderly and asked few questions. Most appeared to have already decided to support the congressman.
Still, Thursday's focus group seemed to suggest another weakness — that Mr. Gephardt's campaign organization is not as deep as some had predicted. Of 20 persons asked which campaign had contacted them the most, 13 said Mr. Dean, three said Mr. Kerry, one said Mr. Edwards and two said Mr. Gephardt.
Mr. Luntz said that suggests Mr. Gephardt's organization is "a mile wide, but only an inch deep."
By comparison, Mr. Dean's organization looks dominant based on the contact numbers.
"They're hot, they're out there, they're loud and it's more likely to bring Dean voters out to vote," Mr. Luntz said.
For his part Mr. Dean, the retired governor of Vermont, visited a clutch of towns in the southern part of the state yesterday, toning down his criticism of the other candidates in the race. Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry also campaigned in a handful of towns each.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Wesley Clark, a former Army general, have opted not to campaign in Iowa and are preparing for the Jan. 27 primary in New Hampshire.
The Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio round out the field of eight candidates seeking the party nomination.
Iowa's caucuses are won by gaining commitments from voters one-by-one and then turning those people out on caucus night. Steve Murphy, Mr. Gephardt's campaign manager, said his organization has an advantage because of its union support.
"The trump card we have is the labor union work being done now, on top of the work we've done," he said.
He said the public polls show Mr. Gephardt has the most intense support, which means they are most likely to show up Monday.
And where Mr. Luntz's focus group consisted of voters from Polk County, which is the Des Moines area, Mr. Gephardt has spent much of the past week campaigning in small towns to small crowds.
Asked about that strategy, Mr. Murphy told reporters that almost half of the caucus votes will come from rural counties and towns.
And Mr. Gephardt said they have held their own voters and are poised to turn out new people this year.
"Our base is solid, it has always been solid," he said. "I believe here at the end you will have movement around, but we will get our share of the undecided voters and we are going to win this race." |
