The Road to the White House

Sunday, January 18, 2004

By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Tomorrow night, Iowa Democrats will head out to nearly 2,000 fire halls, school basements and private homes to sound a note of clarity in the so-far cacophonous argument over the Democratic presidential nomination.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., is mobbed by television cameras and supporters yesterday outside his campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa It starts tomorrow in Iowa The Iowa Caucuses: Here's how it all works Rendell pushing for early 2008 presidential primary for Pennsylvania Profiles of the candidates who set out for the Democratic presidential nomination

The next evening, President Bush will make his way to the well of the House in Washington to deliver the State of the Union message and an implicit argument for a second term.

The back-to-back events mark the symbolic start of a presidential election that will determine who gives that speech next January and steers the course of the nation for the next four years.

The voting in Iowa tomorrow is the starting block for an intense opening sprint in the Democratic race, with eight contests for delegates following within the next 15 days. By all indications, four candidates are within striking distance of the lead.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard B. Dean, Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina and Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri have been tightly bunched in recent tracking polls. Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is neutral in the race, said in an interview last week that his sense of the contest matches the trend of the published polls. "I get information anecdotally from various camps; and it's consistent; this is a very tight race between four candidates," he said.

Offering a snapshot of the race, he added, "Gephardt has a great organization; Dean, if there is a lead, has it; Kerry and Edwards have the momentum."

Dean has built his appeal on his early opposition to the war in Iraq and on an Internet-abetted outreach to new voters and those estranged from the traditional political establishments.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, listens to Ako Abdul-Samad yesterday in Des Moines, where the school board member and community activist endorsed Kerry for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Edwards, a first-term senator, also has portrayed himself as a populist, arguing that he has stood up against corporations and entrenched interests in his successful career as a trial lawyer. The telegenic senator has floated largely above the increasingly acrimonious tone of the pre-caucus campaigning, a fact often cited to explain his recent uptick in support, and contends that he is uniquely qualified to challenge Bush for electoral votes in the South.

While embracing a traditional Democratic agenda, Kerry and Gephardt are marketing different shades of experience.

Gephardt has sought to distinguish himself from the other leaders by trumpeting his consistent skepticism over unfettered free trade agreements. In the face of Dean's jibes about Washington insiders, he paints his long career in Congress as a strength, promising that he has the political savvy to enact his health care proposal, perhaps the most ambitious of those offered by the Democrats.

Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, argues that in the post-9/11 world, he has the military and congressional credentials to stand up to Bush on national security and foreign policy issues.

Ret. Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who has chosen to sit out the caucus competition to focus on New Hampshire and other states, makes a similar case based on his military and diplomatic experience. The former NATO commander has been particularly scathing in charging that Bush misled the public about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Megan Klabunde, 7 months, doesn't look like she is quite sure about Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., during an event at Grant's Great Hall in Nevada, Iowa.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., who also made the tactical decision to skip Iowa, has taken some of the more centrist positions in the Democratic field. He is the most unambiguous supporter of the Iraq war, and he has remained wedded to the free-trade posture that characterized the Clinton administration.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has offered an articulate wit and a voice for his African-American constituency in the Democrats' seemingly endless series of debates. But he is seen as having no organization and little support in Iowa.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, a liberal stalwart on the war, health care and other issues, is seen as having pockets of support in Iowa, but no serious chance to contend for the nomination.

The insurgent Dean, who until recent days appeared the clear front-runner in Iowa and even more so in New Hampshire, has been the target of most of the other contenders. They contend his sharp anti-Bush tone may appeal to many committed Democrats but will drive away swing voters in the general election.

For various, overlapping reasons, the other leading Democrats insist that they would best make the party's case to moderate voters in swing states -- with Pennsylvania prominent among them -- whose electoral votes are up for grabs between the two parties. Kerry and Gephardt, in particular, have argued in recent days that Dean's appeal is based on anger, providing an insubstantial foundation for a general election victory.

A test for the incumbent

An election involving an incumbent, however, is almost always a referendum on the incumbent's record rather than a blank slate comparison between two candidates. In contrast to the swing-voter argument, Dean partisans say the most effective nominee would be the candidate who makes the most aggressive case against Bush.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean enjoys signing autographs after his speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

In deference to the tradition-steeped occasion of a State of the Union address Tuesday night, Bush may mute partisan rhetoric, but he will be making an unmistakable case for his re-election.

He will portray himself a resolute commander in the war against terror, arguing that the world is a safer, though still dangerous, place because of his decision to go to war. Bush is also expected to tout a recovering economy, even though economic statistics provide debating points for both parties.

The relatively brief recession that accompanied the dot-com bust began just after Bush took office and officially ended in November 2001, almost exactly three years before this year's election. An initially slow recovery has accelerated in the past year with stock market gains, increases in productivity and the gross domestic product, and low inflation -- all plausible bragging points for the administration.

But job creation has lagged. U.S. firms employ 2.3 million fewer workers today than they did when President Clinton left office. Democratic candidates blister Bush with the characterization that he has presided over the worst net job losses of any president since Herbert Hoover.

Bush will ask for a second term from a public with rising anxiety over the cost of health care, a fact reflected in polls and the platforms of all of the Democratic candidates. Bush, however, can point to the Medicare drug bill that passed the Congress late last year.

Democrats have criticized the measure as ineffective and riddled with giveaways to drug companies and other special interests. Bush and the Republicans claim that the bill, even if not perfect, represents the first progress on an issue that had been stalled in the Washington for decades.

That debate will continue. But its most important implication for presidential politics may be that there is a debate at all. Medicare traditionally has been an issue owned by the Democrats. This year Bush can contend on that policy ground.

Bush adviser Karl Rove maintained before the 2000 election that Bush's emphasis on education was a political plus whether or not voters ended up agreeing with his position over that of former Vice President Al Gore. The very fact that there was an argument over education was a tactical advance for Republicans over a long-standing perception that only the other party cared about the issue. Now, Republicans believe they have captured a similar political advantage on the previously Democratic terrain of health care.

The Bush campaign also enters the election year with enormous logistical advantages. In addition to the ability to dominate the news enjoyed by an incumbent, Bush has a campaign warchest that dwarfs any of the Democrats, including Dean, who has attracted so much attention with his financial mining of the Internet.

But outside events, more than money or tactics or rhetoric, are likely to be the strongest determinants of this race. If, as Treasury Secretary John Snow and other Republicans predict, jobs start to catch up with the nation's productivity gains, it will take the sting out of the Democrats' economic rhetoric. If, however, employment continues to lag, Bush will be vulnerable.

A major new terrorist attack also could alter the election calculus -- either provoking a loss of confidence in the administration or bolstering it with the same kind of rally-round-the-flag dynamic that followed 9/11.

A successful transition to Iraqi sovereignty in Baghdad could provide a bright light at the end of that tunnel. A grinding continuation of American casualties could erode the relatively high confidence numbers that Bush has enjoyed, particularly since the capture of Saddam Hussein.

2 senators gaining

Which Democrat will get to carry the standard against Bush? The tangible inklings of an answer to that question are just hours away.

Tracking polls have shown a clear move up for the two senators competing in Iowa, Kerry and Edwards, over the past week. According to the Zogby poll, Edwards was at 12 percent six days ago; on Friday, he stood at 17. Kerry, once all but written off here, had moved into first place with 24 percent, compared to 16 percent last week.

Gephardt slipped from 23 percent to 19 percent and Dean, whose front-runner status had made him the common target of his rivals in recent months, dropped from 26 percent to 21 percent. Dean, once the prohibitive favorite in New Hampshire, also has slipped in polling there, to the delight of his competitors.

"The same precipitous drop you see in Iowa, you see in New Hampshire," crowed Bill Carrick, national media advisor for the Gephardt campaign. "It's coming to a town near you soon."

Pollsters and analysts emphasize, however, that pre-caucus polling is a treacherous enterprise. Any political poll faces the challenge of identifying those most likely to vote. That's particularly true for a process where the participation levels are low, but volatile. Only 10 percent of registered Democrats, about 61,000, showed up at the 2000 caucuses.

Chet Culver, Iowa's secretary of state, predicted Thursday that tomorrow's turnout could be twice that, surpassing the record of 125,000 set in 1988, the last year that the Democratic field was large and competitive.

Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, doesn't dispute the poll numbers that show a tightening race. He contends, however, that the governor's campaign has generated support that may elude traditional polling, which uses, among other things, past political participation as one screen to identify likely voters. Citing data from door-to-door precinct canvassing, Trippi said he believes pollsters, even Dean's own, miss some of the new Dean partisans.

"We know they are there, but when our pollster tries to open up the screen, we can't find them," Trippi said. "We think that the [support] number is higher; we don't know how high."

A report in Friday's Des Moines Register could lend credence to Trippi's thesis. The paper reported increased voter registration, particularly in university communities thought to be fertile ground for Dean.

At one point, any reasonably strong showing in Iowa would have been seen as a boost for Dean. But expectations giveth and they taketh away. Now, after his surge to the top of the polls, a second- or third-place showing would raise questions about the strength of the early front-runner. Such a showing would bruise Dean and make a win in New Hampshire even more crucial for him, but with the best-funded campaign in the field, he would still be able to carry on.

That's not true of Gephardt.

Gephardt's campaign, with an extensive but more traditional organization dominated by experienced union operatives, also contends it will generate a caucus night turnout that exceeds the expectations of the polls. And Gephardt has said his strategy this year is less "Iowa-centric," than it was in 1988, when he won the caucuses but soon ran out of money and support as the campaign moved across the nation. But even supporters acknowledge that a loss in Iowa would doom his chances of carrying on to the Boston convention.

A strong showing by Edwards would lend his campaign the credibility needed to carry his campaign beyond New Hampshire and on to what he hopes will be the more welcoming ground of his neighboring state of South Carolina, the most closely watched of the Feb. 3 Democratic contests.

Like Gephardt's, Kerry's campaign is also seen as the beneficiary of experienced caucus quarterbacks, and he's benefited from an apparent surge in support that defied earlier expectations.

"I've always said there are three tickets out of Iowa, and I'm looking for one of them," Kerry said last week.

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