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Another update:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2004Jan26.html
| quote: |
In New Hampshire, A Testy Primary Eve
Crossfire Marks Last Day of Campaigning
By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2004; Page A01
MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 26 -- On the threshold of the nation's first primary, the Democratic presidential candidates raced across the frigid New Hampshire landscape Monday, offering closing arguments to large and attentive crowds and undermining their rivals with barbed exchanges on issues from abortion rights to the Iraq war.
Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), who is hoping to match his come-from-behind victory last week in the Iowa caucuses with a stay-on-top victory Tuesday, ignited one of several closing-hour skirmishes Monday morning with his assertion that he is "the only candidate running for president who has not played games, fudged around" on the issue of abortion rights.
"I laughed when I heard that," scoffed former Vermont governor Howard Dean. In a television interview, Dean said Kerry has equivocated and "couldn't give a straight answer" on the issue of parental notification when minors seek abortions. |
Okay, I have to stop the quote here, because I literally laughed out loud, so hard that I woke my dog. 
| quote: | That snappish exchange between the front-runner and the man who polls indicate is most closely on his heels was typical of the crossfire for all the candidates in a crowded field that is likely to become less so soon after Granite State voters weigh in. They all faced the same delicate assignment -- to draw meaningful contrasts with rivals without crossing the line into personal invective of the kind Democratic voters have shown little appetite for this year, and which could easily damage the accuser as much as the accused.
Dean repeated his refrain that he has been the most consistent in his opposition to the Iraq war, emphasizing that Kerry in particular had held an erratic trail of positions that included an October 2002 vote authorizing Bush's use of force. Other candidates, including retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), emphasized their humble personal origins.
"Unlike all the rest of the people in this race, I did grow up poor," Clark told voters at a diner in Keene. "I didn't go to Yale. My parents couldn't have afforded to send me there."
Kerry, Dean and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) all attended Yale. Clark, who as a young man won a commission to West Point, later amended his comment after reporters noted that Edwards, too, grew up amid modest circumstances.
For his part, Edwards offered his version of an outsider's message. Appealing for change in Washington, the first-term senator asked, "Do you believe somebody that's been in politics all of their life, or in Washington for decades, will bring that change?"
New Hampshire voting officials have forecast that Tuesday's voting may well bring record turnout for a Democratic primary, surpassing the 162,000 total in 1992. Most of the candidates were playing to packed houses, with the crowds liberally sprinkled with voters who say they have yet to make up their minds. Veteran observers here say this reflects the zeal with which Democratic voters are searching for the candidate best poised to defeat President Bush. It also reflects the natural interest generated by an old-fashioned political drama, playing out in a state small enough that the candidates can be seen in the flesh by anyone with interest, and not simply as television images.
While the final hours seemed to suggest a clear pattern -- Kerry plainly ahead, according to various tracking polls, with Dean behind by totals that varied among different surveys, and a fight for third -- it was hard to put faith in appearances. This is especially true given New Hampshire's historically volatile electorate, prone to dramatic shifts of opinion in the final hours. Moreover, almost half of Tuesday's Democratic primary voters are likely to be independents, according to the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey. The recent poll found that the vast majority of these independents share the liberal tilt of the registered Democrats on such issues as tolerance for gays and opposition to the Iraq war, although about 50 percent of the likely independent voters have a favorable view of Bush, while this is true of only a third of the Democrats.
After days of furious campaigning here -- a culmination of nearly two years of visits for many of the contenders -- several of the candidates were looking bleary-eyed as they sprinted through schedules that typically included a half-dozen stops each. Clark was ending the day at midnight in the small town of Dixville Notch, just as its residents were to cast the first votes in the primary.
Monday evening at the Derry Town Hall, Kerry was joined by his two daughters, and greeted the crowd with both fists pumping in the air. "I'm counting on New Hampshire," he roared. "I'm counting on your independence. I'm counting that you really want to live free or die."
"It's close and it's closing fast," Dean repeated at rallies during the day. "I need your help because we have every intention of winning the New Hampshire primary."
He appeared with his wife, Judy Steinberg Dean, at most stops Monday. Though Dean's spouse, a physician, had been reluctant previously to join the campaign trail, the candidate said she called her scheduled patients over the weekend to ask whether they would mind rescheduling.
A generally upbeat day had a persistently testy undertone. After the day's exchanges over abortion rights and Iraq, Kerry's campaign released a statement saying, "Howard Dean is ending this New Hampshire campaign the same way he started it, by angrily tearing down his opponents rather than offering any positive vision of his own. . . . The American people deserve leadership that offers a steady hand, not a clenched fist."
Dean, meanwhile, vented his grievances about campaign tactics. At an appearance in Nashua, and later riding the bus with reporters, he cried "dirty tricks," but did not specify what was being done or which campaign he thought was responsible. Later in the afternoon, campaign aides distributed documents alleging that voters had received harassing phone calls, phony e-mails and faxes that purported to be from the Dean campaign, but contained bigoted or offensive language. "The American people don't approve of that kind of stuff and will respond accordingly," Dean said.
No matter if Kerry retains his lead, questions remain: Does Dean perform credibly enough to demonstrate that he has halted the slide that produced his distant third-place finish in Iowa? Who wins the battle for third place, apparently a battle between Clark and Edwards, both of whom would be facing serious questions about their long-term viability with a fourth-place finish. Lieberman, who like Clark did not compete in Iowa, is registering fourth or fifth in most polls here and is already facing versions of these questions.
Come what may, Lieberman said, he planned to continue his campaign beyond Tuesday: "I've got a plane waiting for me in Manchester, and I'm going to Delaware, South Carolina and Arizona." His mood was sunny, even though his crowds were a fraction of those greeting most of the other major candidates, as he campaigned with his wife, Hadassah, and daughter, Rebecca. He predicted that his appeal with conservative Democrats and independents would yield him a result "better than expected."
Edwards, though his crowds were large and enthusiastic, may be hard-pressed in New Hampshire to replicate the late surge that gave him a strong second-place finish in Iowa, according to various polls. "It's harder to tell here, but . . . it feels very similar to what it felt like in Iowa," he told reporters after a morning drop-by with diners at Mary Ann's restaurant in Derry. "On the ground it feels similar, but it's harder to tell because there's a bigger field here and the polls are kind of all over the place," he said.
Many voters and pundits in New Hampshire have begun to talk about a Kerry-Edwards ticket, but the North Carolina senator said he was not interested in the number two spot on the Democratic ticket. "I'm not interested in being vice president," he said, then asked, "Did they tell you whether Kerry wants to be vice president?"
Staff writers Jonathan Finer, Ceci Connolly, Paul Farhi, Vanessa Williams and Paul Schwartzman contributed to this report. |
Clark and Edwards seem to be battling back and forth to connect with the "people" of the United States. I'm getting the distinct impression of a battle to prove who was more unfortunate during their lives. Don't get me wrong, I like Clark, but this is getting a bit irritating.
I sincerely hope that Dean is forced to resign from campaigning after N.H. 
I'm starting to flip between Kerry and Clark.
___________________
aka Tits McGee
aka Chesty LaRue
aka Busty St. Claire
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) with his atrociites and um... "emotional" speeches... 
