"He called me on the
phone and said he'd like to worship with me,"
President Carter
explained. "I did not invite him, but I'm
glad he came."
"I made an announcement
in advance that I'm not going to endorse any
particular candidate, but I have been particularly
grateful at the courageous and outspoken posture
and position that Governor Dean has taken from the
very beginning,"
President Carter said
"'I'm going to tell you
how tight this is,'
Iowa Gov. Tom
Vilsack (D) said in an interview Friday evening.
'Ever been to Pella, Iowa? There are eight
Democrats in Pella, on a good day. But Dean was
there [Monday]. I drove through there today, and
Gephardt's bus was there. If those guys are
scouring the hills in Pella, Iowa, for Democrats,
this thing is close. Anybody who tells you how
this is going to turn out -- they're crazy.'"
"We're losing millions of
jobs that are going overseas," he said. "When I'm
president, we'll either get good trade deals or no
trade deals,"
said Dick Gephardt.
"For those who may be
wondering, my name is Judy Dean,"
she began.
"I wanted to come here today and to say thank you
to the people of Iowa for being so kind and
gracious to my husband, Howard Dean."
"I wish I could reach out
and grab you and take you" to a caucus,”
John Edwards
said.
"You're not just picking
a president of the United States,"
John Kerry says.
"You're choosing a leader of the free world."
"You are not meant to be
the servants of big corporations and businesses…
The government is supposed to work for us,"
Howard Dean
said.
"On Jan. 20, 2005, it's
not me that's going to the White House… It's YOU
that's going to the White House,"
Howard Dean
said.
"Let me say something in
language that everyone will understand,"
John Edwards
said. "This democracy, your government, it
does not belong to that crowd of insiders in
Washington, D.C. We should restore the power of
this democracy to you."
The political process in
Iowa sometimes feels less like choosing a
Democratic nominee than creating some superior
species of human that's resistant to hand-shaking
germs, immune to hypothermia and can survive weeks
at a time with no sleep.
-- writes Ken
Fusion of the Des Moines Register.
Republican
Chairman Ed Gillespie called John Edwards
"a very smooth-talking trial lawyer and a handsome
devil, I've got to say."
"In a perfect world,
caucuses would be a very good way of figuring out
which of the candidates has been persuasive,"
former Sen. Gary
Hart said. "But what started out as a
person-to-person, humanized event has gotten to be
very organized and professionalized. The
deliberative aspect of it — getting together in a
rural Iowa farmhouse to debate the candidates'
merits — is the ideal, and I think we've strayed
very far from that."
The final hours
There are charter planes in Des
Moines, Iowa, about to be fueled and ready to go
tonight so they can land at about 3 am in New
Hampshire where there will be rallies for the
candidates continuing on there. Those rallies will
move the Presidential dateline to the Granite
state on Tuesday. The question is, what kind of a
tail wind will they be taking out of Iowa and into
the rest of the race for President? The answer to
that question happens tonight as the nation -- and
the world -- waits to see who shows up at the Iowa
caucuses in a contest that depends on the
dedication and sophistication of the candidates’
organizations to harness turnout.
Demographics appear to be
breaking along age and sex in the Iowa Caucuses.
Men are stronger supporters of Howard Dean and
Rep. Dick Gephardt. Women are more likely
supporters of Senators John Kerry and John
Edwards. Young voters are the important factor in
the Dean campaign. Rural voters are likely to
break more favorably for Edwards and Gephardt.
Gephardt’s first campaign commercial in Iowa
nearly nine months ago was directed at farmers.
The bulk of Iowa’s unions are split between the
service unions for Dean and the industrial unions
for Gephardt.
A quote in an
LA Times story covering the tightness of the
race spells out the demographic slicing of the
Iowa Caucus attendees:
"One
way or another, all four are connecting with an
element of the electorate," said Stuart
Rothenberg, a Washington campaign analyst. "At the
moment, each of those slices of the electorate are
roughly the same size."
The lead lines in the story that
can be written ahead of time are:
* The
once ‘last gasp’ of the Kerry campaign has been
transformed into a viable campaign, capable of
living to fight another day and on into at least
the Feb. 3rd round of states.
*
Edwards finally did get traction and nice guys can
have a place in American politics. He must win S.
Carolina and nearly every other Southern state. He
needs to do this in order to keep his regional
appeal and his claim he can beat Bush because he
can deliver five Southern states alive.
*
Dean’s coronation is on hold, but he is still the
most likely candidate to pull the Arthurian sword
from the stone and become the presumptive nominee
to do battle against President Bush. This is
because of organization and money. We all need to
see what happens with Dean’s fundraising following
Iowa.
* This
will be the last time that Dennis ‘Get the U.N. in
and the U.S. out’ Kucinich will be given any
serious consideration by serious political
organizations and media. That is except for when
it comes to gathering in stray delegates to win
the nomination for the Presidency. His voice will
still be heard as representing the liberal wing of
the liberal Democratic Party.
Story lines that must wait are:
* Is
Gephardt still alive and desperate for money, or
is he out of the race?
* How
badly was Dean hurt by the bunching of the
candidates in their finishes on Caucus night, and
how badly is his shoot from the lip on Carter
going to hurt him? (Dean is quoted as saying
Carter invited him and Carter is quoted as saying
Dean invited himself and why don’t the other
candidates come on down, too.)
Whatever the outcome, Iowa has
been witness to a new level of campaigning that
will transform all future campaigns for President.
The attacks have been mean and have caused those
who promulgated them -- Dean and Gephardt -- to go
down in the standings and move a disproportionate
number of the uncommitted women to the other two
candidates (Kerry and Edwards) in the top tier of
the field.
As for the Iowa caucuses,
everything remains up for grabs and the question
is: Who is going to show up -- and how many. If
the number of caucus goers rises above 125,000
attendance, it will not be good for Gephardt, who
is looking to turnout about 35,000. Caucus goers
who could change their candidate support are at 47
percent in the poll numbers. And there is an
uncalculated number of folks who can’t even be
polled.
John Kerry
Sen. John Kerry received another
boost from the latest Iowa Poll showing him still
in the lead with 26 percent of likely caucus
attendees. He is currently fending off questions
about whether he wants to dismantle the Department
of Agriculture. His message is that he wants to
fight for the small farmer against large
conglomerates that are unfairly taking the
majority of the nation's farm subsidies.
He also fired away at President
Bush stating, "I think this administration has run
the most reckless, arrogant, inept, and
ideological foreign policy in modern history.
When a woman in an audience
asked why he would make a better president than
Edwards, Kerry brought up the age question and
stated that when he returned from a tour of duty
in Vietnam in 1969, “I’m not sure that John
Edwards was out of diapers.”
Edwards’ response to that was,
"I honor his service in Vietnam," Edwards said.
"In 1969, I was sitting around the kitchen table
with my parents trying to figure out how we would
pay for college like so many Iowans do. ... And
that is a difference between me and Senator
Kerry."
Howard Dean
Howard Dean, who was at 20
percent in the latest poll, brought the heat back
up on his attacks of President Bush, calling
Bush's term in the White House the
"borrow-and-spend, credit-card presidency," Dean
once again accused the president of being beholden
to big corporations and special interests. Dean
also came back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
saying that as commander in chief of the U.S.
military, he would never send troops into a
foreign country without first telling Americans
the truth.
Dean traveled to Plaines,
Georgia, where he received the closest thing to an
endorsement that President Jimmy Carter is likely
to give prior to a candidate winning the
nomination.
The two men joined worshippers
at the 131-member Marantha Baptist Church, where
Carter teaches Sunday school most weeks, and
afterward the former president introduced Dean as
"my friend, our visitor and a fellow Christian."
"I made an announcement in
advance that I'm not going to endorse any
particular candidate, but I have been particularly
grateful at the courageous and outspoken posture
and position that Governor Dean has taken from the
very beginning," Carter said during their
eight-minute appearance together after the Sunday
services.
The big surprise was Judy Dean
on the campaign trail, at Davenport, Cedar Rapids,
and Iowa City.
"For those who may be wondering,
my name is Judy Dean," she began. "I wanted to
come here today and to say thank you to the people
of Iowa for being so kind and gracious to my
husband, Howard Dean," Judy said while campaigning
in Iowa for her husband.
The
Boston Globe does the best write up on Judy’s
appearance in Iowa.
Dick Gephardt
Rep. Dick Gephardt, who was at
18 percent in the most recent poll, gave a speech
focused largely on Bush administration policies,
but Gephardt also criticized Kerry and Dean for
their support of the North American Free Trade
Agreement. Gephardt continues to claim he will win
and that he will continue to fight for the
nomination. Tuesday, we will know if Gephardt’s
claim is a reality or not.
John Edwards
Sen. John Edwards, who was at 23
percent in the most recent poll, kept pushing his
comprehensive plans to help the working Americans
and hit the theme of electability and the need to
win Southern states.
"The South is not George Bush's
back yard," Edwards said, "it's my back yard. I
will beat George Bush for president in my back
yard." Another constant quote on the trail was,
"It's time to do away with the two-class system,"
he said. "There are the privileged and powerful,
and the America for everyone else."
Kerry’s latest endorsement
In New Hampshire the
Concord Monitor has endorsed Sen. John Kerry:
Kerry's two decades in the U.S. Senate and his
service on the Foreign Relations Committee have
made him a statesman. He has traveled widely and
met with most of the world's leaders. He has been
heavily involved in seeking peace in the Middle
East and an end to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. In
Congress he proved that he has the ability to work
with Republicans to break logjams and keep the
nation's business moving.
People
trust Kerry when he speaks because he has thought
things through and knows where he stands. He does
not advocate one policy one week, another the
next. And he strongly believes in what the nation
is sorely missing, an open, accountable
government.
Clark
Wesley Clark has been keeping
some interesting company in New Hampshire. Roger
Moore the liberal film producer of such movies as
‘Bowling for Columbine’ offered that Clark was the
most progressive candidate except for Dennis
Kucinich. However, Clark’s comments were even more
damning with faint praise of Moore, "I am very
grateful for the people he [Moore] has brought
over to us. I think he is a man of conscience, he
is a man of courage and a tremendously talented
person who has done a lot for this country... I've
heard those charges, I don't know if they're
established or not, he was never prosecuted for
it. And the issue in this election is can we bring
a higher standard of leadership to America?"
Clark also received the
endorsement of 1972 Democrat presidential
candidate George McGovern. McGovern only carried
Massachusetts in his campaign against Richard
Nixon.
So, why McGovern? The
Boston Globe can explain it for you:
Just
as opponents have started renewing questions about
his opposition to the Iraq war and his Democratic
credentials, retired Army General Wesley K. Clark
has been collecting endorsements from some of the
most partisan, antiwar Democrats in the book.
Clark fares best among older
voters in the latest SurveyUSA poll, which asked
only people who were certain they'd vote in the
New Hampshire primary. Clark garnered 28 percent
of voters in the 55-and-older age group, while he
garnered only 21 percent among voters younger than
35, the poll said. In contrast, 40 percent of
primary voters younger than 35 backed former
Howard Dean, the poll said. So, the age factor is
beginning to show up in New Hampshire as well.
There is also a story in the
NY Times regarding Clark’s “black ops”
communication staff, Chris Lehane. Lehane
practiced his black arts defending Bill Clinton
and worked in Gore’s campaign:
"He
can spread both joy and pain," said Donna Brazile,
who managed Mr. Gore's campaign and calls herself
a fan of Mr. Lehane. "It's important to know what
side you're on when Chris Lehane is coming at
you."
Clark once again demonstrated
that he needs a guy like Lehane. Clark said
Saturday that one reason New Hampshire property
taxes are high is the state has no income or
general sales tax... In a brief interview after
his appearance, Clark said he did not intend his
remarks as criticism of New Hampshire's tax
system, which he said is the responsibility of the
state's lawmakers and voters.
Use of Internet
The
Des Moines Register reports that last week’s
poll shows 39 percent of those planning to take
part in tonight's Democratic presidential caucuses
have used the Internet to seek out or receive
information from candidates or political
organizations. They report that Kerry’s supporters
lead in the use of the Internet:
Kerry,
a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, leads among
those Internet users, receiving the support of 29
percent. Dean, a former Vermont governor, ties
North Carolina Sen. John Edwards for second with
21 percent each.
Slipping
President Bush slipped to 45
percent among independent voters down from 62
percent in December. In the poll, 43 percent of
all those polled said the war in Iraq was worth
the costs and 51 percent said it was not. Bush’s
overall job rating by all voters was at 50
percent. In addition to the changing attitudes on
Iraq Bush’s new proposals on immigration and going
to the Moon received unfavorable ratings by the
public as well.
Tuesday night the President will
deliver his State of the Union Address. It will be
interesting to see if he gets the usual boost
following the speech. In his address to Congress
and the nation Tuesday night, Bush plans to
announce at least $120 million in grants,
administered by the Labor Department to enhance
work force training programs at community
colleges. He is also reportedly going to encourage
nanotechnology.
Cheney unholstered
Vice President Dick Cheney’s gun
is coming out of the holster and getting into the
fight. The
LA Times
