THE COMEBACK
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Kerry camp was sure of upswing ahead
By Patrick Healy,
Boston Globe Staff
1/19/2004
boston.com
DES MOINES -- Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, middle-class tax increases -- as presidential candidate Howard Dean stumbled on such issues and others over the last four weeks, advisers to rival John F. Kerry were telling the Massachusetts senator that a surge was on the horizon.
Kerry, in particular, pounced on Dean's and Representative Richard A. Gephardt's proposals to repeal Republican-backed tax cuts, broadcasting a commercial saying Kerry would not raise taxes while others would. He ran another ad calling for "energy independence" from Middle East oil, which polled well with voters. And he and another candidate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, sought to offer positive-sounding messages on the stump while Dean and Gephardt thrashed each other.
Polls are of limited value in predicting the horse-trading that will take place at tonight's Iowa caucuses. Any of the four leaders -- Kerry, Dean, Edwards, and Gephardt -- could come out on top, and the others could walk away with delegates as well. But there is no denying that Kerry had staged a stunning comeback in public opinion in the closing days of the fight for the Hawkeye State.
The timing and trajectory of Kerry's surge -- in which he has wooed voters from other campaigns and won first-place status in recent polls -- cannot be tied to any one transformative moment, Kerry's advisers and political analysts say, although there were times along the way that portended an upswing. Edwards, by contrast, enjoyed one clear jolt: The Des Moines Register's Jan. 11 endorsement of his ardently optimistic candidacy as "a cut above the others," which within days had translated into larger crowds and greater popularity in voter surveys.
"Kerry was always sort of lurking behind and waiting for Dean to stumble, and Dean managed to do it," said Perevill Squire, a political analyst at the University of Iowa. "Kerry wasn't really a new face like Edwards. He just was a solid alternative to Dean. And he had built the field staff across Iowa that could pounce once Dean was in trouble."
Dean and Gephardt, who had been trading first place in Iowa polls since last summer, suddenly appear vulnerable to Kerry, who has not led since summertime himself, and Edwards, who had set relatively low expectations for himself while hoping for a mighty surge in February's Southern primaries. The recent zigs and zags of the candidates in Iowa, analysts said, have largely been driven by the strident attacks by Dean and Gephardt and the months of quiet, careful work by Kerry's aides to find savvy precinct captains, organize veterans and female voters into hard-core blocs of support, and enlarge voter lists in all 99 counties.
Gephardt, preoccupied last week with out-of-state campaigning and fund-raising trips, flew to Iowa for a Wednesday morning speech aimed at salvaging his candidacy from a possible fourth place in the caucuses.
Dean, meanwhile, pounced on Gephardt, Kerry, and Edwards over their support in 2002 for military action in Iraq -- and took perhaps a greater risk than he expected, analysts say. Iowa Democrats have a strong antiwar tradition, and the war has been unpopular with party activists, yet negative television ads are even more loathed among many Democrats. Kerry has stuck to direct mailings to criticize Dean and others, and voters say they tend to become less angry about pamphlets because they read like letters to the editor or fact-laden essays.
Dean stepped up his attacks last week on Kerry, Gephardt, and Edwards as "Washington politicians" -- at the same time Iowa voters were hearing Kerry and Edwards both refraining from such criticisms and promising to "fight for working families" and "fight for every vote" in Iowa. The greatest transformation has been for Kerry, who reorganized his campaign in the fall. His two Iowa campaign leaders, John Norris and Jerry Crawford, cited the senator's performance at Iowa's Jefferson-Jackson dinner on Nov. 15 as a turning point. Coming at the end of one of Kerry's toughest weeks in 2003, when he fired his campaign manager and committed to a spending race with Dean outside the federal campaign finance system, Kerry gave a strong speech at the dinner and drew more than 1,000 supporters to a rally after it.
"All of the energy at the dinner that night belonged to Howard Dean and John Kerry," said Crawford, Kerry's Iowa chairman. "Although our poll numbers hadn't moved yet, our field staff had kept people interested in Kerry, and he was drawing some new attention."
For many in the campaign, the actual surge began on Jan. 4, when 250 Iowans turned out in a snowstorm to hear Kerry speak at an American Legion post in Indianola. When Kerry, feeling pumped by the crowd size, made his typical request for fellow veterans in the room to raise their hands, he illuminated the moment as he hadn't before: asking the two dozen to stand and be recognized. The crowd roared from their folding chairs, and campaign aides took note that veterans were a voting bloc to cultivate. At the same event was the state's attorney general, Tom Miller, who rode on the campaign bus that night to talk with Kerry; Miller endorsed him on Jan. 9, which the campaign welcomed as a signal to the voters that important politicians were on board.
"That was a real signal for me that there was a lot of interest in this campaign, and also signaled the number of veterans who are out there for us," Norris said. "And it added emotion, real emotion, to the night."
Since then, Kerry has enjoyed two days of huge rallies with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, including one yesterday where Kennedy touted Kerry's heroism as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam when he rescued a former Green Beret, James Rassmann, from a river. "Two great heroes -- on your feet!" Kennedy bellowed at a Waterloo rally before about 850 Iowans as Kerry and Rassmann stood shoulder to shoulder.
Whatever the reason for Kerry's surge, the campaign was worried about inflating expectations. Kerry perhaps said it best when he was introduced yesterday on the ABC news program "This Week" as the new Iowa "front-runner."
"Oh, don't do that to me," Kerry replied.
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Globe staff member Rick Klein contributed to this article. Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.
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