SHARING THE DIRT
For all the talk about Wesley Clark staying out of
Iowa, he sure had a hand in the derailment there of Vermont Gov.
Howie Dean. According to several sources in the
John Kerry and John Edwards
campaigns, much of the opposition research on Dean that flooded the
caucus landscape came from people connected to the Clark
campaign.
“It wasn’t just Clark, though,” says a Kerry staffer. “We know
of at least two different stories that came from people currently
on staff with the DNC, who fed the material to reporters.”
According to the staffer, those stories involved furthering the
already mushrooming Dean controversy over his accepting speaking
fees from drug companies, as well documents that revealed Dean’s
deliberations as governor on healthcare issues.
“These are folks who worked for Clinton back in ‘92 and ‘96 and
in the administration, who are helping their friends in the Clark
camp,” says the Edwards staffer. “We know who they are, and while
we’re not helping them, we’re not trying to stop them either.”
So it is possible that the DNC opposition research machine is
actually working against one of its own? Perhaps, though a number
of pundits have pointed to Clark adviser Chris
Lehane as a likely source of dirt on Dean given that, as a
former senior adviser to Sen. John Kerry’s
campaign last year, and Kerry’s early opposition research forays to
Vermont, Lehane would have had access to and knowledge of the most
damaging Dean material.
But outwardly Clark’s campaign, and Lehane in particular, spent
much of last week beating on Kerry in an attempt to tamp down the
growing momentum the Massachusetts senator was building in Iowa and
taking into the New Hampshire primary.
“Some of the Dean stuff may have been coming from a campaign,
but it didn’t have the feel of primary opposition research,” says a
Sen. Joe Lieberman staffer. “From what I was
seeing and hearing, this was material that was being doled out by
party types and Clinton allies looking to shoot down Dean and
elevate Clark, but with no Clark campaign fingerprints.”
AFTER THE DELUGE
Now that Rep. Dick Gephardt is out, the race is on
for his labor support — mostly manufacturing unions attached to
the AFL-CIO. At this juncture, it doesn’t appear that Howie
Dean’s campaign has the juice or momentum to peel many off
for his own campaign. Rather, many of the unions appeared to be
looking at John Edwards as an alternative to
support.
The unions up for grabs, everyone from plumbers to construction
to steelworkers, proved to be less than critical to Gephardt’s
sinking campaign in Iowa, but could be extremely helpful to a
campaign like Edwards’ both in providing money and in building
support in South Carolina and throughout the South, where the
manufacturing industry believes itself to have been a victim of
pro-free trade policies.
As well, should the unions now free of a candidate solidify
behind one candidate, particularly Kerry or Edwards, it would
clarify the potential candidate the overall AFL-CIO would seek to
endorse.
The best indicator — not necessarily a confirmation, of course
— that Edwards appeared to be the favorite to pick up Gephardt’s
organized labor support came on Tuesday morning during a final
Gephardt staff meeting on the ground in Iowa. There, state campaign
manager John Lapp told staff and volunteers, many
of them on loan to the campaign from labor, that Edwards was his
candidate of choice for them to support down the road.
Gephardt’s national campaign was quick to distance itself from
that suggestion, though a number of senior campaign staffers,
particularly in South Carolina and in the rust belt, are now
looking to Edwards for possible jobs.
IT’S TOO LATE, PERIOD
Clearly Former Vermont Gov. Howie Dean isn’t
spending his campaign fund on anger management courses or dress for
success instruction. He has raised more than $40 million, probably
has about $25 million banked after Iowa, so why all the
cheap-looking TV ads?
That’s what many of his supporters in New Hampshire are
wondering, after seeing the quality of the material the candidate
aired in Iowa and so far in New Hampshire. Dean’s top advisers are
now said to be looking to bring on board at least one more national
firm to develop TV spots for the candidate, though it may be too
late in New Hampshire, and that might be too late for his
campaign.
“There was a broad-based opinion inside the campaign that we
didn’t need the splashy ads that other candidates were airing,”
says a Dean adviser in Iowa. “It went against the core values of
the campaign we were trying to convey to the voters. But at this
point, we may have to just surrender and spend the money. That’s
why we raised it.”
RANK PULLER
Is Wesley Clark one tantrum away from a Dean
meltdown? John Kerry staffers believe so, after
watching Clark throw hissy fits on television when commentators and
interviewers attempted to make the case that Kerry had a similar
military career to Clark’s. Clark has stated on several occasions
of late that while he stayed with the U.S. Army through the Vietnam
War, Kerry left military service to become a war critic. On other
occasions, Clark has belittled Kerry’s rank, saying he was merely
“a lieutenant” compared to his rank of four-star general and
pointing out in a fit of pique that unlike other candidates,
including President Bush, “I won a war.”
“He may have been a debating champion at the Academy, but he
seems to lose his cool in an odd way,” says a Kerry staffer. “It’s
similar to Clinton, who would belittle you or be dismissive of you
if he was pissed off at you. Maybe Clinton sees that in Clark and
admires it.”
