RALEIGH — In Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Sen. John Kerry pretty much finished the presidential campaign of Gov. Howard Dean. I’d say he (with a little help from Sen. John Edwards) also finished the presidential campaign of Gen. Wesley Clark, except that there was never a serious campaign there to begin with, in my opinion.
Reacting to these events, I wrote my Daily Journal column on the next round of presidential contests on February 3. This “Mini-Tuesday” drama — starring Delaware, South Carolina, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico — will almost certainly decide the outcome of the race. On Wednesday morning, I expanded my analysis a bit for National Review to include some new polling information and observations about the field. Illustrating the rapidly changing nature of the political campaign, I must now update the analysis again based on what the candidates, media, and polls have revealed in the past 24 hours.
First, Dean’ campaign was already pretty much kaput, I think, but its death rattles have generated some attention. The governor fired his longtime campaign manager and hired a former Al Gore aide who serves as a Washington lobbyist. Dean now says he will refocus his campaign to emphasize that he is not a Washington insider. Uh huh. And, he adds, he really will skip all the Feb. 3 contests and live to fight another day. Uh, right. Oh, and he’s suspending his staff’s pay in order to conserve money, but continues to roll in Internet-based donations. Yep.
Back to the living. John Kerry has had some good news but also personally generated some bad news. A new poll in pivotal Missouri has Kerry up to 41 percent, an excellent showing in a state that hasn’t really seen any attention until the past few days because of the previous assumption that Dick Gephardt would own it on Feb. 3. Edwards was second, but back at 17 percent. Closing the gap enough to win could be difficult for Edwards without big bucks to spend. Still, he could certainly close it enough to score some delegates and make the overall story of the night better.
Kerry’s bad news came when he remarked that a Democrat could, too, win the presidential election in November without scoring victories in the Southern states. Neither South Carolinians nor Oklahomans will like the sound of that. The other candidates immediately pounced, as well they should have, regardless of whether Kerry is right on the merits of the political-science problem. In a Thursday night debate in South Carolina, Kerry worked to downplay his previous comment and assert his competitiveness in the South.
Meanwhile, Wesley Clark made a big deal earlier this week about his plans to compete in South Carolina and Missouri — two of the big prizes next Tuesday. Now it seems that he won’t spend any real money in Missouri, and Fox News reports that he won’t target South Carolina, either. He’s focusing on Oklahoma (which the Arkansan says is his “next-door” neighbor), Arizona (where he has family), and New Mexico (where he “vacations a lot”). Avoiding South Carolina is actually not a bad strategy: whatever chance Clark has of beating Kerry would be boosted a bit if Edwards held off any Kerry surge in South Carolina.
Edwards is spending his Feb. 3 dollars in South Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. I still think he must at least one other state besides South Carolina, likely Oklahoma. He is also going ahead and buying TV ads in two neighborhood states with primaries on Feb. 10: Tennessee and Virginia. If he makes it that far, he could well have a good night. But his problem is that the field remains a bit too large for comfort: both Clark and Lieberman could play spoiler roles for him in Oklahoma. If Clark narrowly wins Oklahoma, Edwards South Carolina, and Kerry everywhere else next Tuesday, I think that the dollars dry up for the challengers and things get wrapped up pretty quickly. Kerry’s momentum has to be blunted more than that.
Lieberman isn’t among the political living, either, but he got another endorsement from another conservative-leaning newspaper in a primary state. This time it was the Arizona Republic, who like the Manchester Union Leader recognized the classiest act in the field. Too bad for Lieberman that the Democratic Party he joined years ago is not the one he’s trying to rally behind him now.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.