SHOW HIM
Former Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan likes a
winner even if the man she’s supporting helped make her a loser.
Later this week Carnahan will endorse Sen. John
Kerry, who in 2002 declined to campaign for her and failed
to financially support her campaign to win a full term in the
Senate.
Carnahan’s decision to back Kerry in her state February 3
primary is based in part on Kerry’s consistent use of attorney
general John Ashcroft as an applause line in his
campaign. Carnahan’s husband Mel succeeded Ashcroft as governor of
Missouri and defeated Ashcroft in the 2000 Senate race in Missouri
despite his death in a plane crash three weeks before the
election.
Mel Carnahan and Ashcroft disliked each other, but the 2000
campaign furthered the bitterness after it became clear that
Carnahan had won due to widespread voter fraud. The final insult
came when Jean Carnahan was appointed to the seat of her dead
husband.
Kerry, who now leads in most of the polls for the February 3
primaries, had targeted Missouri as a state to make some inroads
when it appeared that South Carolina was out of his league.
Former Vermont Gov. Howie Dean had reached out
to Carnahan for support but was rebuked.
Carnahan was apparently influenced by the decision of St. Louis
mayor Francis Slay, who also has announced his
intention to endorse Kerry. That endorsement ensures that much of
the Democratic establishment in the Missouri’s urban centers will
support Kerry.
DESERTER LINES
Apparently tired of being challenged on supporter Michael
Moore’s assertion that President Bush was a “deserter,”
Wesley Clark’s campaign is considering hiring a
private investigator to look into Bush’s activities in Texas and
Alabama during his National Guard service way back when.
At least one other campaign is said to be considering sending
opposition researchers down south to look into Bush’s record.
In the past, campaign staffers for both Clinton and Gore had
tried to make hay of the rumors that Bush had somehow taken
advantage of his family name during that period. Despite of months
of effort, they failed to develop anything substantive.
“We have former Clinton staffers on board who say there’s
nothing to this,” says a Kerry staffer, “but we know it’s going to
come up again and since nobody has a clear sense of the story right
now we have to at least look into it.”
CALL YOUR BROKER
With most every poll showing Howie Dean trailing
John Kerry leading into next week’s primaries —
in some cases, Dean is running third or fourth behind John
Edwards and Wesley Clark — his campaign
is looking at what he would have to do to grab enough delegate
support to play a role in a brokered Democratic convention.
“If we can’t be the clear-cut winner, we want at least a hand in
who that winner will be,” says a Dean adviser in Washington. “We’re
not just going to let guys like Kerry or Edwards have it easy after
[Super Tuesday] March 2.”
Given the lack of a clear-cut frontrunner, talk of a brokered
convention has begun in Washington. Should Edwards and Clark win
primaries next week, that talk will only intensify.
