Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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More Gore?

Friday August 1, 2003

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Let's say you're Howard Dean. You came out of nowhere. That's not exactly true; your candidacy came out of nowhere. You came out of Vermont. Your campaign is doing well enough:

So well that you actually won the second quarter money race with $7.6 million (which is real money for any candidate);
So well that you are running neck-and-neck with all the other major candidates in the race. According to Deborah Orin's NY Post report "Dean is either ahead or tied for the lead in Iowa" and "tops the last few public polls in New Hampshire over Kerry by as many as three percentage points - but private polls are said to show a much bigger lead."
So well that real, no-kidding-around sniping has begun by Republicans. The chairman of the Vermont GOP, Jim Barnett, is calling upon Dean to open his "sealed" gubernatorial papers about which, according to the AP, Dean "negotiated a deal with the state archives before he left office to seal most of his records for 10 years." The two previous Vermont Govs sealed their papers for only six years.
So well that the sniping from WITHIN the Democratic party has begun to be reported - even in the NY Times: "[I]n a critique clearly aimed at Dr. Dean, the [Centrist Democratic Leadership Council] warned that the party was in danger of embracing 'far left' policies that would ensure its defeat next year."

This intra-party squabbling is not limited to the DLC versus Howard Dean; The candidates are zeroing in on one another, according to Mark Z. Barabak of the LA Times:

"Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is assailing Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt's health- care plan. Gephardt is criticizing Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry on trade. Kerry faults former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean for his lack of defense and foreign policy experience."

None of that is the problem for Howard Dean or for the rest of the current field of Democratic candidates. The problem for the current field of Democratic candidates is: Many Democrats want the current field of Democratic candidates to be expanded. By at least one. And maybe two.

Her Majesty the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham is not, not, not, not, not, not, not running for President in 2004. A Quinnipiac University Poll released earlier this week showed Joe Lieberman was the frontrunner among national Democratic voters with 21 percent (tied with Don't Know) followed by Gephardt (16), Kerry (13) and Dean (10).

BUT when the pollsters asked, "Suppose NY Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton" decided to run she got the support of 48 percent of the respondents, followed by Lieberman (11); Kerry (7); Gephardt (7); and Dean (4 percent).

Then, yesterday, another drumbeat began - this for none other than Al Gore. Although Kiki McLean (a worthy and frequent opponent during the Clinton scandal days) was quoted as saying that Gore "is not a candidate for president, he's made his position known and he has no intention of changing his mind."

Insiders point out, however, that many of Gore's most important fundraisers during the 2000 campaign "are basically keeping their wallets shut and more importantly not asking their friends [and] colleagues to help with an '04 candidate."

No one. No one I have spoken to anywhere in the country expects Hillary to get into this race. That's because no one I have spoken to anywhere in the country expects President Bush to lose in 2004.

President Bush, however, is not Dean's problem right now. Or Kerry's or Lieberman's, Gephardt's or Edwards'. Their problem isn't even each other.

The problem of the Democratic candidates for President is the tantalizing specter of someone else getting into the contest.

Chasing a phantom is the most difficult race of all.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the news articles noted in the column, a pretty good Mullfoto and a GREAT Catchy Caption of the Day.

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