With two wins in his column, John Kerry basked in the front-runner’s glow Wednesday with new money and support from leading Democrats, while rival Howard Dean ousted his campaign manager and took other steps to rescue his candidacy.
The senator from Massachusetts, fresh off strong victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, sought to stake his claim in delegate-rich Missouri as he worked to quickly build a muscular effort in six other states hosting primaries and caucuses Feb. 3. Although Kerry arrived in St. Louis in a long motorcade, he vowed to campaign “with the same underdog mentality” that revived his quest.
“The test of running for president is a long one and it’s a tough one,” said Kerry, whose rivals had all but written him off one month ago. “I expect it to be tough all the way.”
Here in Missouri and in six other states, Kerry began filling the airwaves with biographical commercials, hoping to introduce himself to a new audience of voters. Kerry’s fundraising boom gives him a key advantage compared to a month ago, when he mortgaged his home to keep his campaign alive.
Donations to Kerry up 40%
The week before the Iowa caucuses, contributions to Kerry climbed 40 percent, compared to an average week in December. And in the week between the caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, a campaign spokeswoman said, he raised $1.1 million through the Internet.
As the Democratic candidates dispersed across the country Wednesday, searching for support in South Carolina and Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, Dean retreated to Vermont to reassess his candidacy. By day’s end, he had moved aside campaign manager Joe Trippi, who created the vaunted grass-roots Dean for America movement that failed to deliver in the first two contests of the 2004 campaign and now is struggling financially.
“We are having to husband our resources,” said Dean, who raised more money last year than any Democratic presidential candidate in history. “We are worried about money. We want to be careful about money. But we are not broke.”
In a conference call with reporters Wednesday evening, Dean announced that he had replaced Trippi with Roy Neel, a former adviser to Al Gore. The former Vermont governor also said he asked his staff to suspend their salaries for two weeks so more money could be devoted to the upcoming crush of primaries.
The decision to remove Trippi signaled deep concern about the health of Dean’s candidacy. Leading Democrats and labor union officials who endorsed Dean demanded a change in strategy, sources said, after he finished third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire even though he devoted nearly two years to campaigning there.
The questions focused on the organization of Dean’s self-billed “people-powered” campaign, which had been built on an insurgent, outsider theme and a fervent opposition to the war in Iraq. But the move to tap Neel, a former telecommunications lobbyist, represents a shift to a consummate Washington power broker.
The abrupt campaign switch didn’t sit well with some of Dean’s core supporters who were quick to weigh in on the campaign’s blog.
“I’m really concerned with this,” a Georgia supporter wrote on the Web site. “This new guy [Al Gore’s former chief of staff] is a lobbyist and the very definition of a Washington insider. What gives?”
On Wednesday evening, Dean said: “We had really geared up for what we thought was going to be a front-runner’s campaign, and it’s not going to be a front-runner’s campaign. But it’s going to be a long, long war of attrition, and we’re now preparing for that.”
In his own posting on the campaign Web site, Trippi wrote: “I may be out of the campaign but I’m not out of the fight. Don’t give up — stay with Howard Dean’s cause to change America.”
Dean showed little concern about whether he wins any of the seven contests at stake Tuesday, saying his campaign was girding for a long fight, but his rivals barnstormed across the South and the Midwest on Wednesday in hopes of keeping their campaigns alive.
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina traveled from South Carolina to Oklahoma to Missouri, visiting college campuses and a Baptist church. Edwards believes he must win South Carolina to stay in the race, but his campaign also wants to make a respectable showing in the other big electoral prizes Tuesday and keep Kerry from achieving a clean sweep.
Running on what his campaign calls “the Iowa boomlet,” he has raised more than $500,000 over the Internet since placing second in the Iowa caucuses last week, aides said. Previously, Internet fundraising had been the chief domain of Dean.
Edwards embarked on his three-state journey Wednesday at a “Bringing It Home” tour at South Carolina State University, a mostly black college in Orangeburg.
Before the event, Edwards got some disappointing news: South Carolina’s most powerful black politician, Rep. James Clyburn, endorsed Kerry. Clyburn, who initially backed Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, is considered an important prize on the road to winning the Palmetto State.
Kerry also picked up endorsements in St. Louis from former Missouri Sens. Jean Carnahan and Thomas Eagleton, and St. Louis Mayor Frances Slay. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and his wife, Christie, flew in for the event too, with the governor officially signing off on Kerry’s candidacy after remaining neutral during the Iowa caucuses.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who made four campaign stops in three states Wednesday, attempted to cast his statistical tie for third in New Hampshire as a resounding victory for a first-time candidate. Because he won several hundred more votes than Edwards, Clark told supporters that he had “won the non-New England, non-favorite son part of that race.”
“Those people in New Hampshire are good to their neighbors,” said Clark, an Arkansas native, referring to the first- and second-place finishes by Kerry and Dean. “Well, I’m glad to be back in my neighborhood.”
Clark alters stump speech
Clark, who has long said he would show the strongest in the South, had changed his stump speech that had become familiar during a month of campaigning in New Hampshire. Attempting to shore up support among Southern voters and veterans, he emphasized religion, particularly in two stops in Oklahoma, in the heart of the Bible Belt.
“I took the Lord as my Savior,” said Clark, going on to explain how, when he was 9, he shifted from his mother’s Methodist church to a Baptist one that he found on his own.
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Democratic debate
The Democratic presidential candidates will debate Thursday night in Greenville, S.C. The 90-minute forum will be shown live at 6 p.m. CST on MSNBC. The event will showcase the contenders before the South Carolina primary on Tuesday.
All seven Democratic candidates are expected to participate in the debate, which is sponsored by Furman University and the Young Democrats of South Carolina. Tom Brokaw of NBC News will serve as moderator.
