Democrats Spar in N.H. After Iowa Jolt Tuesday, 20-Jan-2004 12:50PM Story from AP / RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer
Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press
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Their campaigns jolted by upsets in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidates sparred over each others' experience and electability Tuesday in a race suddenly lacking a front-runner or form.
"I am an underdog in New Hampshire," John Kerry said in words echoed by Howard Dean as the race moved eastward. A day earlier in Iowa, Kerry and John Edwards blew the campaign wide open with a one-two caucus finish, stripping a humbled Dean of his front-runner's mantle.
As Rep. Dick Gephardt exited the race, his fourth-place finish a political death knell, the remaining five major candidates adjusted their strategies for a weeklong sprint to New Hampshire's Jan. 27 primary and a seven-state contest seven days later.
"I used to be the front-runner when I went out to Iowa, but I'm not the front-runner any more," Dean said at Portsmouth, N.H., after making the traditional overnight flight from Iowa to the Granite State. "But New Hampshire has a great tradition of supporting the underdog. So guess what? Let's go get them."
The topsy-turvy results raised smiles at the White House, where advisers hoped for a long, nasty race that would produce a damaged nominee and divided Democratic Party. President Bush stole the spotlight from Democrats with the annual State of the Union address, a dressed-up version of his campaign agenda.
"They have 17 contests over the next five weeks," White House communications director Dan Bartlett said without a hint of regret. "So it looks like the roller coaster is just beginning,"
After New Hampshire, where polls show the race tightening, the next twist comes Feb. 3 when seven states hold contests, including Gephardt's home state of Missouri. The state, now up for grabs, has 74 pledged delegates at stake, more than Iowa and New Hampshire combined.
It will cost upward of $1 million a week to air ads in every Feb. 3 television market, not to mention the cost of travel. The price tag should be within reach of Dean and Clark, the party's best fund-raisers, though there are questions about how fast the former Vermont governor has been spending his money.
Kerry dipped into his family fortune to keep his race afloat. He and Edwards hope to raise money off their Iowa surprise.
Edwards will briefly leave New Hampshire this week to visit South Carolina, a state he must win to remain viable. Kerry and others are considering trips to some of the other Feb. 3 states, which include Arizona, Delaware, New Mexico, Oklahoma and North Dakota.
In South Carolina and elsewhere, Democrats were questioning Dean's political judgment after a bombastic election-night speech.
"He must not be thinking. He's heading to New Hampshire and those people are serious-minded. They're going to be thinking, 'Who's that cat?'" said Waring Howe Jr., a Charleston, S.C., lawyer and member of the Democratic National Committee.
Dean said he was simply firing up his supporters. New Hampshire is a critical test of Dean's ability to persuade Democrats that he is back on track and capable of filling what polls show is their greatest desire: Beating Bush.
"He gets third place in New Hampshire and he'll be flipping pancakes with Dick Gephardt somewhere," said Howe, who has yet to endorse.
Seeking answers in Monday's results, Dean's advisers said they concluded that voters craved change but failed to see their candidate as the agent of reform. Thus, they sought to return Dean to his political roots, focusing on his record as five-term governor of Vermont to cast himself as a reformer with results.
"I am the only person in this race that's ever balanced a budget, which we sorely need in Washington," Dean said as the candidates made the rounds of television news shows. "I am the only person that's ever delivered health insurance to anybody."
Bush adopted a similar strategy after Arizona Sen. John McCain upset him in the 2000 New Hampshire primary.
Kerry, the four-term Massachusetts senator, said he brings "a full package" to the table -- foreign policy that Dean lacks and domestic policy largely absent from Clark's resume.
His advisers reviewed their stockpile of ads comparing Kerry's record to his rivals, with officials predicting that one more of them will air this week. Kerry said he ran no negative ads in Iowa, but noted, "there are real differences between all of us in this race."
As for each of the candidates, Kerry's strategy was still in motion Tuesday because the campaign was caught off guard by his strong showing in Iowa.
"We hadn't factored in this whole winning-the-thing outright," said Michael Meehan, strategist for the Massachusetts lawmaker who defeated Edwards by 6 percentage points and Dean by 20.
The senator himself said he can beat Dean in New Hampshire. "Well, obviously, we proved that in Iowa," he said.
Edwards claimed momentum from Iowa and pledged to stick with a positive message that attracted Iowa Democrats fed up with bickering by Dean and Gephardt. Still, he took a swipe at Kerry when asked who was more qualified to bring change to the nation.
"The question is whether that change can be brought by somebody who spent most of their life in politics and in Washington," said Edwards, a first-term North Carolina senator who made his fortune as a trial lawyer.
Dean faulted Kerry for papering voters with negative mail. "If you had seen what was going into the mailboxes in Iowa, perhaps he wouldn't have looked quite as positive," he said.
Clark, a political novice who is new to the Democratic Party, surged in New Hampshire polls while his rivals tangled in Iowa. At his campaign headquarters in Manchester, N.H., the Arkansan said he'd be a better candidate than Edwards in the South.
"I'm a product of the South," said Clark, who was born in Chicago but grew up in Arkansas.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, like Clark, skipped Iowa for an early
stand in New Hampshire. |
