2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

In the 1920's, South Africa's Communist Party campaigned under the slogan "Workers of the world unite for a white South Africa!" This wasn't quite as incongruous as it sounds: the political movement that eventually imposed apartheid had strong populist, even socialist roots. It was sincerely concerned with improving the economic status of the Afrikaner worker, and protecting him from the depredations of international capital. Unfortunately, the movement improved the lot of white labor mainly by preventing capitalists from offering industrial jobs to nonwhites, whose intense poverty made them willing to work for less.

The U.S. labor movement is not as brutally direct in its slogans. Probably its leaders don't even admit to themselves that their increasingly vociferous opposition to imports is, in effect, an effort to improve the condition of American workers by denying opportunity to workers in the rest of the world. But ...

Still, Kerry actually overtaking Gephardt seems improbable ...

Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean held a shrinking three-point lead and John Kerry moved into a dead heat with Richard Gephardt for second place in Iowa five days before the state's caucuses, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released Wednesday.

In a shifting race for the Democratic campaign's first big prize, Dean dropped four percentage points to 24 percent in the rolling three-day tracking poll and Kerry gained four points to tie Gephardt in second place at 21 percent.

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards gained one percentage point to 15 percent, setting up a tight race to the finish among the four top contenders in Monday's caucuses.

Surging: Herald poll: Clark soars, Kerry fades in N.H.
By David R. Guarino
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark has surged to within striking range of Howard Dean in the New Hampshire primary, narrowing Dean's once-gaping lead to nine points as the race enters its home stretch, a new Boston Herald poll shows.

Buoyed by strong support among moderates and men who favor his Army resume and tempered views over Dean's ideological bombast, Clark has outpaced Sen. John F. Kerry as Dean's chief New Hampshire hurdle.

``Clark is the one candidate that really seems to have some momentum now,'' said Herald pollster R. Kelly Myers.

Relentless attacks on Dean by Kerry and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman have hurt the former Vermont governor, pulling him down to 29 percent with Clark at 20 percent in the poll.

But the critics themselves haven't been helped by their sniping - Kerry (D-Mass.,) slipping to third place with 15 percent.

Lieberman (D-Conn.) and U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) trail with 7 percent and 5 percent respectively, with 19 percent still undecided.

The Herald poll of 408 likely Democratic primary voters, taken by RKM Research and Communications on Jan. 11 and 12, has a plus or minus 4.9 percent margin of error.

Clark's sudden rise has cut the New Hampshire race to single digits for the first time since Dean took hold of the Granite State from Kerry this summer.

The Arkansas native has clearly gained by focusing solely on New Hampshire while Dean has been forced to fend off a strong Iowa challenge by U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) before the first-in-the-nation caucuses on Monday.

``By not going to Iowa and focusing only on New Hampshire, Clark's strategy seems to be paying off,'' Myers said.

Overall, Clark is now more popular than Dean - with just 12 percent viewing him unfavorably compared to 22 percent for the front-runner.

While Dean remains the strong favorite among liberals, Clark pulls ahead among self-professed moderate Democrats and independents - beating Dean 26 percent to 20 percent.

Carol Moseley Braun plans to end her White House bid Thursday, leaving an all-male field for the presidency and giving her support to Democratic front-runner Howard Dean.

Braun was to officially endorse the former Vermont governor Thursday afternoon during an appearance at Carroll High School in Carroll, Iowa, said Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi.

"She's a principled person. We just hit it off. I like her a lot," Dean told reporters at a hotel in Fort Dodge, where he was spending the night after starting a statewide bus tour. "It's going to be a big help to us,"...

Trippi said Braun approached Dean after a recent debate and told him she was considering leaving the race and backing him.

Braun jumped to Dean's defense in a debate last Sunday when Al Sharpton, the other black candidate in the Democratic field, accused the former governor of trivializing race issues.

[Dean told] Matthews, "the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran."

Before teaching Bush about defense, might Dean brush up on his geopolitics? The Soviet Union went out of existence in 1991.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, meanwhile, reclaimed some media attention with a speech accusing Bush and his aides of a "sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates." Kerry said he feared that Bush was going to follow what he called "a cut-and-run strategy."

One of Kerry's advisers said he "would not rule out the possibility" of sending additional U.S. troops to Iraq if they were needed.

It was a noteworthy shift by a candidate who:

Voted for the congressional war resolution on Iraq last October.

Complained in March that even despite that vote, Bush had still not earned "the legitimacy and consent of the American people."

Warned in September that "the worst thing" would be to send more U.S. troops to Iraq,

And finally voted in October against the $87 billion Bush sought to sustain military operations in Iraq.

Questions occurred: Had Kerry written off the anti-Iraq war voters, conceding them to Dean and to Rep. Dennis Kucinich? Were there enough Iraq hawks among Democratic primary voters to lift Kerry to victory? Would voters see a thread of logic in Kerry's statements and votes on Iraq?

You think maybe Clark is regreting skipping Iowa now?

Dean's Trooper

What Did He Know About Abuse Allegations; When Did He Know It?
By Brian Ross, Chris Vlasto and Rhonda Schwartz

FLASH** 1/14/04 20:21:03 ET** Dean's campaign managers threatened to kick ABC-TV off the Dean Campaign plane if ABCNEWS ran the affidavit story on tonight's WORLD NEWS, insiders tell DRUDGE... Dean Manager Joe Trippi said: "Im gonna come after you." News editors made the Dean/affidavit story fifth in the news wheel....

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX WED JAN 15, 2004 11:28:25 ET XXXXX

WES CLARK MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR BEFORE CONGRESS; TRANSCRIPT REVEALED

**World Exclusive**

Two months ago Democratic hopeful Wesley Clark declared in a debate that he has always been firmly against the current Iraq War.

"I've been very consistent... I've been against this war from the beginning," the former general said in Detroit on October 26.

"I was against it last summer, I was against it in the fall, I was against it in the winter, I was against it in the spring. And I'm against it now."

But just six month prior in an op-ed in the LONDON TIMES Clark offered praise for the courage of President Bush's action.

"President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt," Clark wrote on April 10, 2003. "Can anything be more moving than the joyous throngs swarming the streets of Baghdad? Memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Milosevic in Belgrade flood back. Statues and images of Saddam are smashed and defiled."

MORE

Even the most ardent Clark supporter will question if Clark's current and past stand on the Iraq war -- is confusion or deception, after the DRUDGE REPORT reveals:

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CONGRESS PASSED THE IRAQ CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION WESLEY CLARK MADE THE CASE FOR WAR; TESTIFIED THAT SADDAM HAD 'CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS'

Less than 18 months ago, Wesley Clark offered his testimony before the Committee On Armed Services at the U.S. House Of Representatives.

"There's no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self defense," Clark told Congress on September 26, 2002.

"Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He's done so without multilateral support if necessary. He's done so in advance of conflict if necessary. In my experience, I was the commander of the European forces in NATO. When we took action in Kosovo, we did not have United Nations approval to do this and we did so in a way that was designed to preempt Serb ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization there. There were some people who didn' t agree with that decision. The United Nations was not able to agree to support it with a resolution."

Clark continued: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we."

More Clark: "And, I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that's longstanding. It's been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this."

Clark explained: "I think there's no question that, even though we may not have the evidence as Richard [Perle] says, that there have been such contacts [between Iraq and al Qaeda]. It' s normal. It's natural. These are a lot of bad actors in the same region together. They are going to bump into each other. They are going to exchange information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I think it's clear that regardless of whether or not such evidence is produced of these connections that Saddam Hussein is a threat."

END

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Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
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