 |
|
The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
The tale of the tape
Videotape shows Dean bashing caucuses
By John Mercurio and Steve Turnham
CNN Political Unit
 |
A videotape surfaced Thursday night that shows Iowa front-runner Howard Dean bashing Iowa caucuses.
Story Tools
| ON CNN TV |
Watch an interview with Howard Dean -- and Bill Schneider's Play of the Week on "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics" at 3:30 p.m. EST on Friday.
|
VIDEO
|
A U.S. electorate divided during the 2000 election continues to be polarized.
CNN's Kelli Wallace takes a look at some of the Democratic presidential candidates' celebrity endorsements (January 8)
The controversial 'butterfly ballot' of Florida's 2000 presidential election is now a museum piece.
|
SPECIAL REPORT
|
|
|
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Apparently even Joe Trippi can't control everything. Especially when there's a videotape.
Fallout from Iowa-gate has only begun this morning. But what's already clear is that the story of Howard Dean bashing the first-caucus state, reported last night on NBC News, couldn't come at a worse time for the Democratic front-runner, who had hoped this weekend's focus would be Al Gore's debut on the '04 retail campaign trail.
But then, at least we won't be talking (as much) about Dean's out-of-state volunteers and the collapse of Trippi's friendship with Steve Murphy.
The tape, from a Canadian television broadcast, shows Dean saying four years ago that the Iowa caucuses are "dominated by special interests" and "don't represent the centrist tendencies of the American people. They represent the extremes."
"Say I'm a guy who's got to work for a living, and I've got kids," he said on January 15, 2000. "On a Saturday, is it easy for me to go cast a ballot and spend 15 minutes doing it, or do I have to sit in a caucus for eight hours?"
"I can't stand there and listen to everyone else's opinion for eight hours about how to fix the world," Dean added.
Oh, but wait, there's more. Unable to focus his criticism on just Iowans, Dean later cuddled up to George W. Bush. He said the president, whom he now describes as the "most radical right-wing president in my lifetime" is "in his soul, a moderate." Dean said many Democrats believed Bush would be a one-term president, and "that is going to be a mistake."
Dean made 90 appearances between 1996 to 2002 on "The Editors," a round table of journalists and politicians broadcast in Canada and on PBS stations.
While his '04 rivals piled on, Dean issued a statement late Thursday that highlighted his commitment to Iowa and its first-in-the-nation status. Dean didn't deny he had made the statements or claim they were taken out of context.
"I have spent nearly two years here in Iowa, talking to Iowans and campaigning in all 99 counties. I believe it's time to stand together, in common purpose, to take our country back -- and the Iowa caucus is where it all begins. I support the Iowa caucus and I have already promised Gordon Fischer that if elected, the Iowa caucus will be first again in 2008."
Kerry expects 'major' nod today in the Hawkeye state
Meanwhile, some of us are still curious to find out which Iowa bigwig is endorsing John Kerry today.
It's not a Harkin, a Vilsack, a Boswell, or even a Culver. Still, we're told, John Kerry will receive a "major" endorsement this afternoon in Iowa that will turn the caucus contest on its head.
Which candidate emerges on top in that upended race, of course, remains to be seen. The Iowa contest seems more fluid by the hour, with Kerry and John Edwards making apparent gains on Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt. And with Kerry's campaign placing a tight seal on the endorsement story last night, the Grind scratched its collective head trying to imagine which other Hawkeye pol could carry such weight with caucusgoers.
David Nagle, perhaps? Nah.
Surely, Kerry aides pondered the fact that their highly touted announcement at 2 p.m. EST would coincide with the arrival of Al Gore, who'll be in Iowa today to stump for Dean. Gore's visit, of course, marks his first day of retail politicking in the '04 cycle. He'll be in Des Moines and West Des Moines on Friday. Tomorrow, Gore will make appearances in Burlington, Davenport, Dubuque and Mason City.
Is Dean a drag?
Elsewhere, there's fresh evidence today that Dean could be a drag on downticket races, should he win the nomination.
A sneak peek at Stuart Rothenberg's upcoming Senate outlook has the Democrats losing one to three seats. In a year like this a net loss of one seat would be cause for a mild celebration. But Rothenberg sees other trouble looming.
"Bush's approval and the probability that Howard Dean will be the nominee poses some risks [for the Democrats]," says Rothenberg. "If you look at the places where Democrats think they have a really good chance they are all Republican, with the exception of Illinois, and they can only be expected to get more Republican if it's Bush vs. Dean."
We also read with interest the Roll Call story about the TV ad South Carolina GOP Senate candidate Charlie Condon is running claiming that "the Howard Dean Democrats oppose America taking the fight to Saddam Hussein and terrorist havens overseas. They're just wrong."
Clearly, Condon is hoping Dean will hurt the Democrats' Senate candidate, Inez Tennebaum. Some Democratic centrists fear Dean at the top of the ticket will prove to be a serious drag on red state Democrats. And while parochial issues may well dominate many races, you can bet the GOP will continue to test the proposition that Dean's a drag.
Katherine Harris mulls Senate run
Now to our nominee for best dramatic performance by a potential Senate candidate, Katherine Harris of Florida.
Her meetings with party big-wigs are happening as we write, and insiders are gradually resigning themselves to the fact that she wants to run and might just do it. They're having no trouble curbing their enthusiasm.
Speaking on background, one senior Republican Senate aide put the party's dilemma this way: "I just don't know if she can win, she needs a little more time to settle in as a congresswoman." That said, "I can see her going for it," said the aide, "and she probably does have some appeal outside of the base. The question is can she get past what happened in 2000."
True enough, but open Senate seats don't come up all the time, and running this year would be a lot easier than, say, taking on incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson the next time around.
Democrats see dollar signs. "Katherine Harris will stir the blood of every Democrat and every fair-minded person in America, much less in the state of Florida, and in the final analysis we'll be able to raise a whole lot of money on her," said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse. "The best I can say is 'Cha-Ching!' "
Democrats could sure use the money. When the numbers come out later this month the Republican campaign committee is expected to have a decisive cash-on-hand advantage, although senior Republicans note that a few big Hillary Clinton events could fix that in a hurry.
As usual, the National Republican Senatorial Committee's relative fund-raising success means it will likely be a player in the last couple months of the campaign, when independent 527 groups are forced off the air. Organizations formed under Section 527 of the federal tax code can produce "issue ads" that advocate points of view without directly funding or targeting specific candidates or parties. But the GOP will still have to target its races carefully, and that means candidates who aren't competing well are likely to get cut out.
* One editor's note: We inadvertently neglected to mention yesterday that reports of new voter irregularities in Broward County were reported by the Miami Herald's Erika Bolstad.
