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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
A new landscape in the early light of dawn
No mo' Joe. Wither Wes? Howard who?
By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
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And then there were two? Kerry and Edwards had strong showings in Tuesday's races, prompting some to proclaim a two-man race.
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CNN's William Schneider says Sen. John Kerry is gaining support from Dems of all types.
CNN's Jeff Greenfield says Howard Dean is looking to stage a comeback.
Sights and sounds from Tuesday night's seven contests
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SPECIAL REPORT
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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- For the first time since Iowa, Howard Dean is not the post-election story. And after the results of yesterday's seven-state contest, he's not even the sidebar.
That could change, of course, after his news conference this morning in Seattle, where he'll launch his last-stand bids for Michigan, Washington and Maine. (Dean says he'll keep going even if he loses all three this weekend. Yeah, so do Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich.)
Dean also will make headlines tomorrow when he tries to warm the cold feet of union bigs during a face-to-face sitdown in Michigan.
But because headlines should eventually be about winners, we move beyond the Iowa scream, the New Hampshire meltdown and Joe Trippi's departure. We move past "No mo' Joe" Lieberman to focus on the next big story. Today, it's John and John (Edwards and Kerry), who should just flip a coin and decide which of them will run for which job on the '04 Dem ticket.
Kerry won five states last night, from Delaware to New Mexico, all of them by big, manly margins. He trounced Edwards 2-to-1 in Missouri and sailed past Wesley Clark by 16 points in Arizona.
He heads to Michigan with a 4-to-1 lead over Dean in polls, even more mo', and an increasingly strong union base. Today, sources say Kerry will receive the nod of the 1.3 million-member American Federation of Teachers.
But Edwards won South Carolina so convincingly (he beat Kerry here among veterans by double digits, exit polls show) and basically tied Clark in Oklahoma, thereby blunting Kerry's potential blowout. Assuming Dean continues his free-fall through this weekend, Edwards will move squarely into the role as Kerry's most viable challenger. Edwards is sure to play that role much differently than Dean, who, unlike Edwards, would never be caught dead on a ticket with Kerry.
Notably, despite all the two-man race headlines in today's papers, Kerry and Edwards will sidestep each other in the five states holding races between now and next Tuesday. While he leads in polls everywhere, Kerry is focusing on Michigan and Washington state, while Edwards will spend most of his time and money in Tennessee and Virginia.
Wesley Clark
The sidebar here is Clark, who marches out of Tuesday night, but with a slight limp. He narrowly won Oklahoma (certification pending), but only after spending almost twice as much as Edwards on TV ads -- and by far the most time and energy in the state. Clark also spent the most on ads in Arizona ($2.2 million) and South Carolina ($1.2 million), taking second and fourth place in those states, respectively.
CNN will wait for the Oklahoma state elections board to certify last night's vote, which will take place February 10 -- while Clark is distracted with Virginia and Tennessee. According to the elections board, all absentee ballots have already been counted, and are reflected in the results.
Howard Dean
Dean made clear last night that he's in the race to stay, emphasizing that the nomination is about delegates, not individual primary wins (and here, we thought the race was about "taking our country back").
"Here is why we're going to keep going and going and going and going and going, just like the Energizer bunny," Dean told a group of raucous supporters in Seattle last night. "We're going to pick up some delegates tonight, and this is all about who gets the most delegates in Boston in July. And it's going to be us."
To be sure, Dean still holds the second-largest number of delegates. As of this morning, Kerry leads with 203 delegates, Dean has 117, Edwards has 100. Clark has 55, Lieberman has 25. Sharpton has five delegates; Kucinich has two. Last night, Kerry picked up 88 delegates, Edwards gained 59 and Clark won 24. Dean received three, Sharpton one. (Where things stand: A delegates scorecard)
No matter, said Dean's new campaign chief. This race is just beginning.
"After tonight's election results come in, only 10 percent of the delegates for the Democratic nomination will be chosen," Roy Neel wrote yesterday in an e-mail to supporters ... and to the Grind.
"The voices of millions of Americans in states like Wisconsin, Washington, California, New York and Florida, have yet to be heard," Neel wrote. "We always knew fighting the powerful special interests would be tough," he added. "That is why we have prepared ourselves to continue the fight to change America's politics and change Washington."
