The race for the Democratic presidential nomination turned largely leaderless Tuesday as the candidates arrived here before dawn to hunt for votes in an increasingly unpredictable contest.
Still slightly ahead in the Granite State, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said that after his third-place thrashing in Iowa, he was no longer the front-runner but an “underdog.” He noted that New Hampshire loves underdogs.
As opinion polls here indicated his once-solid support in danger of further erosion, Dean sought to revitalize his campaign by emphasizing broader domestic concerns more than the anti-war sentiment that had once endeared him to the party’s primary electorate.
“What’s happening in New Hampshire is the same phenomenon as in Iowa, which is a re-evaluation of Howard Dean as a candidate,” said Andy Smith, the University of New Hampshire pollster. “They’re wondering if this guy is really presidential material, is he presidential timber, does he have the kind of stature one looks for in a president.”
Meanwhile, voters here must decide if they are willing to give Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses, a second chance to prove himself. Though he began his campaign as the favorite son in New Hampshire, Kerry’s fortunes quickly soured as he failed to connect with voters. Kerry has moved up in the polls, but he still lags behind Dean.
“I really do believe the people of New Hampshire will give him a second look,” said William Shaheen, Kerry’s state chairman. “He proved in Iowa he’s not just a regional candidate.”
All of the candidates are embarking on an intensive schedule to meet as many voters as possible before the Jan. 27 primary, although Dean heads back to Vermont for a night at home on Wednesday. At the same time, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who achieved a second-place showing in Iowa, announced plans to shuttle between New Hampshire and South Carolina, site of a critical Feb. 3 primary.
The field is certain to narrow over the next few weeks, but for now, the race is steeped in uncertainty as the contenders try to prove they are best-suited to challenge President Bush.
“I just think this thing is wide open. It’s wild,” said Kathy Sullivan, the New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman, who is not taking sides.
Even before Iowans upended the Democratic race, opinion surveys in New Hampshire indicated voters were having second thoughts about Dean. A daily tracking poll by the University of New Hampshire, released late Tuesday, showed the margin between Dean and Kerry had closed to about 10 percent, with retired Gen. Wesley Clark narrowly behind. Clark did not compete in Iowa.
And in the final week of the New Hampshire campaign, the poll said, half of the voters conceded they were willing to change their minds.
`Washing machine’ week
“This whole process is like a washing machine, but there’s no washing machine like the next eight days,” said Paul Maslin, the pollster for the Dean campaign, as he traveled to New Hampshire from Iowa. “Anything can happen.”
With Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri leaving the race Tuesday, several of the candidates sought to pick up what little support he had in New Hampshire. Each of his former rivals praised the longtime House Democratic leader after he formally withdrew.
“For every American who works the late shift or the early shift, for every American who builds our cars or fixes our roads, for every American who takes care of the sick and educates our young people, Dick Gephardt has been your champion,” Edwards said.
Kerry unveiled a list of 25 Democratic activists who had quickly shifted their allegiance to him from Gephardt. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut scooped up four endorsements and Edwards won the backing of state Rep. Peter Burling, the House Democratic leader.
Clark’s fortunes unclear
Still unclear are the fortunes of Clark, who experienced a surge of interest in New Hampshire at the beginning of the month. Polls, however, indicate that his rise has slowed; his national chairman, Eli Segal, described the situation as “less of a stall than a pause.”
As the candidates arrived from Iowa, Kerry and Dean in particular seemed to have been physically battered by the race there. Kerry was coughing and hoarse, while Dean was eager to take a day off.
Whether by design or due to exhaustion, Dean’s appearances Tuesday were relatively low-key, especially compared to the remarkable show of red-faced screaming that he put on at the rally ending his Iowa campaign Monday night.
“Those of you who came here intending to be lifted by . . . a lot of red-meat rhetoric are going to be a little disappointed,” Dean told a several hundred people Tuesday at a Manchester hotel.
Later in the day, a Dean rally at New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord was disrupted by a shouting group of people carrying Confederate flags. Dean called for security when he saw a struggle break out in the crowd.
One of the protesters was pushed, shoved and knocked to the ground by members of the audience. It was unclear whether any Dean staffers were involved in the ruckus, although the protester claimed that they had “repeatedly assaulted me.”
“I came here to protest Howard Dean’s racist comments,” the protester said as he left the hotel, referring to a past Dean comment that he also wanted to appeal to Southern white men who have Confederate flags on their pickup trucks.
Near the end of Dean’s speech, two women carrying another Confederate flag were shoved outside the gymnasium. Dean tried to drown them out by leading the crowd in “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Kerry said his approach in New Hampshire is likely to mirror the tack he took in Iowa, where he sought to portray himself as the outsider in the race.
“I’m an underdog in New Hampshire. I intend to fight for every single vote . . . exactly the way I did out in Iowa,” he said.
With Edwards’ surprise second-place finish in Iowa, his New Hampshire campaign changed overnight.
Although the Manchester public library auditorium holds several hundred people, Edwards drew such a big crowd that some had to stand outside in the cold, with the doors propped open so they could hear his speech. People clapped to the beat of Edwards’ theme song: John Mellencamp’s “I Was Born in a Small Town.”
Lieberman, who skipped the Iowa caucuses, continued his pursuit of undeclared and undecided voters, announcing that “it’s a brand new ballgame here in New Hampshire.”
Lieberman has had a difficult time firing up voters here. He has been in single digits in recent polls. But Lieberman staffers said the upset victory by Kerry and the strong performance by Edwards in Iowa vividly illustrate the fallibility of opinion polls.
In fact, Lieberman got a front page endorsement Tuesday from Manchester’s Union Leader, the state’s largest newspaper and one that traditionally leans Republican.
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