The Circular Firing Squad

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CVIII

WaPo reports today on yesterday's "debate" in Des Moines (ellipsis in original).

Sharing the stage together for the last time before Iowa's caucuses, the Democratic presidential candidates Sunday night competed in appealing to African American and Hispanic voters -- at a forum that placed front-runner Howard Dean on the defensive about his record in hiring minorities while he was governor of Vermont.

The debate, sponsored by MSNBC and dubbed the "Black and Brown Forum," was designed to give emphasis to the concerns of minorities -- a small percentage of the electorate here though among the most loyal Democratic constituencies nationwide. Dean said the "biggest challenge" facing minorities "is to help white audiences understand the plight of minority populations when it comes to race."

Al Sharpton, who with former senator Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.)was one of two blacks on the stage, said Dean's comments made his own history fair game. Citing news articles and a study by an advocacy group, Sharpton charged that in Dean's administration "not one black or brown held a senior policy position, not one."

Dean dissented, saying he had a "senior member of my staff on my fifth floor." But he acknowledged under persistent questioning from Sharpton that he had no minorities in his Cabinet, in a small, northern state that is overwhelmingly white.

Later, Dean defended his record, saying, "I will take a back seat to no one in my commitment to civil rights in the United States of America."

Although the evening was generally free of invective or personal attacks, several candidates were plainly hoping to trip up Dean on some issues, including his commitment to Hispanic immigrants.

Dean hedged on whether he would support giving automatic citizenship to immigrants who serve in the U.S. armed forces, saying he supports the idea in principle but would need to ensure that such a policy did not encourage a flood of people enlisting only for citizenship.

"You have to be a little bit careful about how you do that, because otherwise you will have a disproportionate number of people who are Hispanic joining the Army simply to do that," he said.

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.)pounced, saying he "disagreed completely with what Howard Dean said about the military." Noting that there are 37,000 legal immigrants in the armed services, Kerry said that "anybody who serves the United States of America, who is a legal immigrant, ought to get automatic citizenship immediately -- period, end of issue."

Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), who is fighting hard to wrest a victory from Dean in the Jan. 19 caucuses to save a candidacy that has shown little energy in other states, issued his own challenge to the Vermonter on tax cuts and Social Security.

Dean said early in the debate that he was interested in a payroll tax cut, although not before the federal budget is balanced. But Gephardt, who has repeatedly pressed Dean on where he stands on Medicare and Social Security, saw another opportunity to challenge him on a core Democratic program, arguing that cutting payroll taxes could jeopardize the finances of the Social Security system.

This prompted Dean to promise that "under no circumstances will we take the money to cut payroll taxes out of the Social Security trust fund. That would be absurd." Instead, he added, the payroll cut would come from general revenue.

Beyond the gamesmanship of the debate, the evening underscored a genuine question facing Dean if he retains his early lead in polls and fundraising, and becomes the nominee: Can a Democrat who has little history working African American constituencies, and whose campaign to date has been powered far more by college-educated whites, generate the enthusiasm necessary to bring out the base Democratic vote?

Dean shrugged off the barbs from Sharpton and others, saying, "I believe I have more endorsements from both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus than any other candidate on this stage."

Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) called racism a defining issue in America, and said his own upbringing in the South gave him special appreciation of the issue.

Sharpton, meanwhile, drew criticism of his own from Braun, who said he was too prone to create racial conflict. "I think it's time for us to talk about, what are you going to do to bring people together?" she said. "People cannot afford a racial screaming match. We have to come together -- we have to come together as one nation to get past these problems."

After months of hard campaigning, the gambits of some candidates seemed to fall flat tonight. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), in a portion of the debate in which candidates were allowed to pose a question to the rival of their choosing, instead gave a monologue asking his colleagues to join him in signing a letter to President Bush urging new funds to implement the bipartisan election law passed last year. Co-moderator Lester Holt seemed puzzled about where Lieberman was going.

Then Kerry, apparently trying to connect in an empathetic way with the audience in a style reminiscent of former president Bill Clinton, walked off the lighted portion of the stage into the darkness. Finally, Dean tried to direct a question not to a rival candidate but to a supporter in the audience. Holt, puzzled anew, told him that was against the rules.

The evening's top applause line went to Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio), who was asked about Bush's plan to return to the moon and eventually send a human to Mars. "I've been wondering why the president would, while we're still in Iraq, talk about going to the moon and going to Mars," he said. "Maybe he's looking for the weapons of mass destruction still."

The last debate featured eight of the nine Democratic candidates, with retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark absent. Clark and Lieberman are not competing in the Iowa caucuses. The debate came at the beginning of the final week of campaigning in what remains a fluid and hard-fought contest. Recent polls show Dean and Gephardt in a close race for first place, with Kerry and Edwards battling for third.

Before the debate, the candidates spent the day wooing undecided Iowa voters and pleading with supporters to reach out to friends and neighbors before the caucuses.

In the most dramatic pre-debate moment of the day, Dean squared off in an appearance at Oelwein with retiree Dale Ungerer, a Bush supporter, who told the former Vermont governor that Democrats should tone down their criticism of the president. When Ungerer said Democrats had lost sight of their need to be "a good neighbor," Dean bristled and thundered back, "George Bush is not my neighbor."

When Ungerer began to offer his own response, Dean said, "You've had your say and now I'm going to have mine." He continued: "George Bush has done more to harm this community right here with unfunded mandates, standing up for corporations that have taken over farmers' land, making it impossible for middle-class people to make a living, sending our kids into Iraq without telling us the truth. . . ." The rest of the sentence was drowned out by applause.

Gephardt, campaigning around Des Moines, questioned Dean's fitness to lead the Democratic Party against Bush.

"I don't think you can take on and beat George Bush as well as I can if you've got to issue clarifying statements every day of some statements you made the day before," he said after a morning event in Winterset, birthplace of actor John Wayne.

Edwards was buoyed by the endorsement of the Des Moines Register, the state's largest newspaper, which he said gave him a much-needed stamp of credibility. He told an afternoon rally he was best equipped to defeat Bush in November because he could run in all regions of the country. "You give me a shot at George Bush, and I will give you the White House," he said.

Kerry picked up the backing of the Burlington Herald, his third newspaper endorsement in three days, and dismissed questions about poll numbers that show him falling in New Hampshire. He predicted on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he would surprise people with his finish in Iowa.

"I'm fighting for every vote," he said. "The one thing people know about me is I'm tenacious. I'm a fighter. I've got great energy out here in Iowa. I am very, very confident about what we're doing."

Before heading to Iowa for the debate, Lieberman gathered with supporters in his Manchester, N.H., headquarters and announced the endorsement of more than 275 independent Granite State voters.

"Independents are going to play a critically important, and maybe decisive, role in this primary," said Lieberman. He also announced the formation of a "Independents for Joe" committee to be led by former New Hampshire attorney general Greg Smith and Leonard Arkerson, who was a county chair on the successful 2000 New Hampshire primary campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Clark began the day in North Dakota, where on Saturday night he spoke at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Democratic dinner in Bismarck. The crowd stood and applauded when he chided Bush for invading Iraq, a "war we should never have gone into."

Later in New Hampshire, Clark repeated his criticisms of Bush, saying that the president used the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to justify the invasion of Iraq when he should have gone after Osama bin Laden. He said new statements by former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill that the administration had been planning to remove Hussein before the attacks "just confirms my worst suspicions," adding that Congress should "investigate fully why this country had to fight a war it didn't have to fight."

Staff writers Lois Romano, Paul Schwartzman, Vanessa Williams and Jonathan Finer contributed to this report.

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/12/04 08:26:43 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.