Dean Assails Kerry on Special Interests

TUCSON, Ariz.(AP) - Howard Dean looked to gain an edge over Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry (news - web sites) on Saturday by labeling the Massachusetts senator the "hand maiden of special interests."

Dean, a one-time front-runner, has been stepping up his criticism of Kerry ever since the senator won the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. With his original plan to campaign as the front-runner spoiled by the losses, Dean is trying to position himself as Kerry's chief rival, according to a strategy outlined by his campaign chief.

"Our goal for the next two and a half weeks is simple — become the last-standing alternative to John Kerry after the Wisconsin primary on February 17," Roy Neel wrote in a memo Friday night.

In a speech at the outdoor Georges Demester Performance Center, Dean cited a study by the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan political research group in Washington, which said Kerry raised nearly $640,000 from lobbyists over the past 15 years, more than any other senator.

"We are not going to beat George Bush with somebody who has his hands as deeply in the lobbyists' pockets as George W. Bush's," Dean said. "We need somebody from outside Washington to clean up Washington and not another special interest senator."

"These charges are coming from a man who is fighting to keep the public from seeing 145 boxes of files because he's afraid of the consequences," said spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "This is treacherous ground that Howard Dean is treading on."

Dean himself is drawing heavy financial support from two large labor unions. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees' political action committee has spent more than $1.7 million on polling, ads and get-out-the-vote efforts. A Service Employees International Union PAC has spent close to $1 million.

Arizona voters select their favorite Democratic candidate on Tuesday along with voters in South Carolina, Missouri, Delaware, New Mexico, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Dean has said he doesn't need to win any of them, but just get enough votes to win delegates and stay in the race.

Neel's memo outlines the risky and untested strategy. He predicted at least one of Dean's opponents will be eliminated from the race next week, while the media and party insiders will declare Kerry the winner. But he said the Massachusetts senator will probably have less than one-third of the delegates he needs to win the nomination.

The presidential nominee will be selected this summer with 2,162 delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Democratic delegates are awarded proportionately based on the popular vote cast within individual congressional districts as well as a state as a whole. Dean hopes to gain delegates with at least 15 percent of the popular vote in most or all the congressional districts in the states voting Tuesday.

Neel said Wisconsin is the right place for Dean to turn the campaign around because he has strong support there and it kicks off a two-week campaign for more than 1,100 delegates on March 2, also known as Super Tuesday.

Still, if Kerry is able to win several contests, he could have so much momentum that Dean will be unable to stop him. And other candidates could post victories that bring them to the front of the pack.

On Friday, Dean said Kerry "hasn't accomplished much in the Senate," with only nine of the bills that he's sponsored being passed into law. His Saturday argument was that Kerry would be beholden to Washington interests instead of ordinary people.

"We are not going to beat George Bush by nominating somebody who is the hand maiden of the special interests," Dean said.

"We want our country back for ordinary people," he said. "We're not going to do that by nominating just another inside-the-beltway guy who's played the game for 15 years."

I'm beginning to really like Nedra Pickler, one of the only decent correspondents working for AP. Again and again she reports stuff briskly and honestly and gives readers news that all her co-workers resolutely suppress.

I can't seem to find the picture of her that I posted here a few weeks ago, but a Google search reveals that there's now an admiring website devoted to her work:

http://whatapickler.typepad.com/

She's not what I'd call a conservative columnist, but she does seem to be a sharp and honest reporter, which is something of a miracle these days.

Funny this comes out the same week Dean hires Top Telecom Lobbyist Roy Neel, but then Dean was bitchin about Cheney's Secret Energy Task Force when he had one himself that he won't release records. Dean also gave Corporate Tax Breaks to Enron for their captive insurance business.

These people just run against their own lives all the time

Howie, my boy....better take that stethescope and check the pulse on your campaign.......it looks pretty lifeless from here....

6 posted on 07/27/2004 6:16:12 PM PDT by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos)

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