Sunday, September 07, 2003

By Maeve Reston, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

HANOVER, N.H. -- It was all but inevitable that a candidate like former Vermont Gov. Howard B. Dean, who burst into the field of Democratic presidential contenders banging on podiums and denouncing George W. Bush with an in-his-face attitude, would open himself up to searing criticism from Republicans.

But Dean's rapid ascent from unknown to apparent Democratic front-runner over the summer took many Democrats by surprise and turned Dean into a target for many in his own party. Political analysts expect the sniping to sharpen as the eight other major candidates try to claw their way to the top.

As early as May, long before Dean had taken the lead in momentum and the pace of fundraising, members of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, which helped drive former President Bill Clinton to the White House, warned that certain Democratic hopefuls --ahem, Howard Dean --were in danger of moving the party too far left with their strident criticism of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration.

The prevailing opinion among a number of leading Democrats continues to be that parts of Dean's platform -- his ardent opposition to the war, his call to repeal all of the Bush tax cuts and his support for civil unions between gay partners in Vermont -- would make him a prime target for Republican strategists. It was even reported in The Washington Post that Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was watching Dean at a parade when he was overheard saying, "That's the one we want."

"One of the raps against Dean is precisely the idea that he is considered too liberal to win in a general election," said William G. Mayer, a political science professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "I think he could have gotten away with his criticism of the war, but he's made some statements, [such as] how a decline in American power is inevitable ... that's one that will really come back to haunt him. ...There's a lot of things there that I suspect the Democrats are worried about."

Another likely line of attack for Republicans is Dean's change of position on some issues. He used to oppose the death penalty, for example, but now supports it in certain cases. He also is being accused of having advocated raising the age at which people would be eligible for Social Security retirement payments, a position he now opposes.

Prominent Democrats continue to fret over whether Dean could be painted by Republicans as an unelectable leftie, much like the 1972 and 1984 Democratic presidential nominees, George S. McGovern and Walter F. Mondale. In early August, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, another Democratic presidential candidate, said in remarks at the National Press Club in Washington that nominating Dean would be a "ticket to nowhere." This past week, Republicans chimed in.

In response to Dean's comments that Attorney General John Ashcroft wasn't "a patriot," Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas called Dean a "cruel, loudmouth extremist." If Dean is "the cream of the Democrat crop," DeLay said, "next November's going to make the 1984 election look like a squeaker," a reference to former President Ronald W. Reagan's stunning 1984 defeat of Mondale in 49 states.

There weren't many kind words for Dean coming from within his own party, either. Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry took a decidedly more aggressive posture toward Dean this past week as he officially announced his run for the presidency in a four-state tour.

Earlier this summer, Dean and Kerry had been locked in a tight race for the top spots in key primary states, and Kerry had been widely considered the most likely Democratic nominee. But after Dean surpassed expectations by leading other Democratic candidates in fundraising in the second quarter of the year and had his picture splashed on the covers of national magazines, Dean charged ahead in New Hampshire and Iowa polls.

By late August, Dean led Kerry by 21 points in a Zogby International poll of likely primary voters in New Hampshire.

During his campaign launch this past week, Kerry criticized Dean's opposition to the war in Iraq as "wrong" and argued on NBC's "Meet The Press" last Sunday that Dean had "zero experience in international affairs." He said Dean's plan to repeal all of Bush's tax cuts would hurt the middle class.

Thursday night, in the first of six debates organized by the Democratic Party, Lieberman, who is still struggling to get his own campaign off the ground in key primary states, took Dean to task on everything from the cost of his health plan to what Lieberman perceived as the former governor's shifting position on international trade.

Not surprisingly, given that Dean's bravado has attracted supporters who wear buttons saying, "Give 'em hell, Howard," Dean Campaign Manager Joe Trippi invited the other candidates to keep the criticism coming. "It just gets our folks more energized," he said.

"I actually think what the Republicans are doing is very smart," Trippi said. "With the [Democratic Leadership Council] attacks and the potential for friction within the party, all they're trying to do is pour gasoline and hope other Democrats light the matches so we have one of those big self-inflicted donnybrooks with people fighting each other instead of focusing on George Bush."

Dean supporter Alexander Johnston of Queechee, Vt., who attended one of Dean's patented "meetups" in New Hampshire last week, said he believes the backlash against Dean is strengthening the campaign, in part, he says, because Dean is leading a movement against Washington politicians and "the political machine."

"There's a certain number of people who are going to say, 'They're turning him into a target. I don't trust them; they've lied to me before. Let me look at Dean even harder now,' " Johnston said.

At the same time, the criticism does seem to have compelled Dean to make more overtures to moderate voters and independents and to highlight his relatively centrist record as governor of Vermont.

When asked about the economy in the debates Thursday night, Dean spoke of the need to help small businesses. He made it clear that despite his opposition to the war in Iraq, he supported sending troops anywhere in the world when Americans are in danger. He pointed out that he supported the 1991 Persian Gulf War -- because Iraq had invaded a U.S. ally -- as well as the invasion of Afghanistan.

At a house party in Portsmouth, N.H. in late August, speaking to a group of entrepreneurs and members of the business community, Dean said he planned to win the general election by reaching beyond core Democratic supporters to build a coalition with "independent, middle-class people who have given up on the process." He called such people the "fuel" for his campaign. He also touted his success balancing the budget during his 10 years as governor of Vermont and lambasted Bush for operating a "credit card presidency."

Al From, chief executive officer and founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, wrote the May memo urging candidates to "seize the vital center." He said he welcomed a more moderate-sounding Howard Dean.

But Dean's message has clearly been most effective with left-of-center Democrats, and From still believes Dean and other candidates must appeal to moderate voters for the Democratic Party to have any hope of winning back the White House.

July polling for the Leadership Council showed the party is in its weakest position since the 1930s. Close to half of voters identified themselves as Democrats in the 1950s; that number now hovers near 30 percent.

"Of course everyone wants to win your core supporters," From said. "But when both parties run about 30 percent or 32 percent of the electorate, it means there is a plurality of voters that aren't affiliated with either party, and if you can't reach in to them, you're not going to win. ... To win the White House, you just can't depend on the support of people that just hate George Bush."

Political analysts acknowledge that with five months before the first state primary in New Hampshire on Jan. 27, the campaigns still have plenty of time to fine-tune their strategies. And the political savvy of the Dean campaign so far suggests it will be ready for Republican attacks next year if Dean becomes the Democratic nominee, said David Kusnet, author of "Speaking American: How the Democrats Can Win in the Nineties" and a former speechwriter for Mondale, former Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis and Clinton.

"Outside Dean's opposition to war in Iraq ... his record before was relatively moderate in the context of Vermont," Kusnet said. "They'll try to do it, but they'll have hard time presenting him as wild-eyed left-winger."

Republican political consultant David M. Carney, who ran Bob Dole's 1996 New Hampshire campaign and was White House political director in the presidential administration of George H.W. Bush, said Dean is a candidate "our party needs to take seriously.

"I think Howard Dean is our biggest threat," Carney said, adding that Senate and House members running for the Democratic nomination could be more "target rich" because they have cast hundreds of votes on controversial issues that could be used against them.

"He's a governor who for 11 years balanced budgets; there are a lot of businesses in Vermont who considered him a pro-business governor; he's got a 100 percent rating with the [National Rifle Association]," Carney said. "There's a passion there that's really scary. He could ignite people who haven't participated in the process. ... He's certainly beatable on his positions, but I don't think many people think it's a slam dunk. I don't know anyone lately [who] thinks that."

Maeve Reston can be reached at mreston@post-gazette.com.

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