SACRAMENTO, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- The race for the Democratic presidential nomination could be the shortest in history as the schedule has been ridiculously front-loaded to quickly pick a nominee, quite possibly before March 1. It starts officially with the Iowa caucuses Monday, followed by the earliest-ever New Hampshire primary on Jan. 27.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is strongly favored in New Hampshire and will be at least a close second in Iowa. Due to his superior fundraising and grass-roots organizing, he is also well-positioned to win a majority of the 50 percent or so of all Democratic delegates who will be chosen by March 2. If Dean does in fact do so, he'll be like a football team that gets so far ahead in the first half that they can't be caught as the clock runs.
In order to stop Dean from acquiring such momentum, his main opponents -- Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt; retired Gen. Wesley Clark; and Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.; John Kerry, D-Mass.; and John Edwards, D-N.C. -- will have to win Iowa 19 or South Carolina on Feb. 3. Ironically, Dean's Establishment rivals will need assistance from the ultimate "outsider candidates" -- Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich -- Sharpton to prevent Dean from consolidating the minority vote and Kucinich to divert a few white liberals from Dean. If the early primaries and caucuses are split between various candidates, the contest will go South and West after March 2 with Dean still favored, but only mildly.
Michigan and a string of smaller moderate-to-conservative states in February (like South Carolina and Oklahoma) come next after New Hampshire and then "Super Tuesday" on March 3 -- also the earliest ever -- when New York, Ohio and California and seven other states, vote.
Basing his campaign on the anger of grass-roots Democrats toward the Bush administration, particularly over the war in Iraq (and lingering resentments from the Florida recount in 2000), Dean won the "invisible primary" of garnering momentum in 2003. Dean has raised far more than the rest of the field and taken a big early lead in New Hampshire. Dean is also running neck-and-neck with Gephardt in Iowa.
Since the primary system was instituted by Democratic Party reforms in 1972, no one who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire has been denied a nomination. If Dean wins both, he'll be on his way. So Howard Dean is basically one good week away from being the next Democratic nominee.
In December, Howard Fineman on MSNBC called the Democratic contest "Dean and a player to be named later." Dean is no sure thing yet -- someone will step up to challenge him. The question is who?
Last spring, I postulated that the Democratic race would become a series of intramural contests: Dean and Kerry would battle for liberal loyalties in the Northeast. Sharpton would compete for the minority vote. North Carolina's Edwards and Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., would target the South. Meanwhile, Gephardt and Lieberman would hope to become the alternative of the Democratic center.
Graham dropped out in October and his place was taken over by Clark. Gephardt appeared to have successfully consolidated the Midwestern labor and farm vote, while Dean has opened a big lead over Kerry in New Hampshire. Dean has even led Kerry in several recent polls in Massachusetts -- Kerry's home state. Tracking polls in New Hampshire show Clark passing Kerry for second place there.
Think of the early primaries as the NFL's divisional playoffs with the winners advancing to the conference finals on "Super Tuesday" (almost certainly against Dean) with the opportunity to play in the Super Bowl against President Bush in November.
In the Democratic primaries outside the South, the Democrats are re-running a show that has gone on for nearly four decades now: economically liberal blue collar workers vs. socially liberal (but often economically conservative) college-educated voters. As Bill Schneider of CNN has pointed out, Democratic primaries have seen this rivalry repeatedly since the 1960s between labor (hardhats) and white liberals (intellectuals). Labor voters tend to be populist on economic issues and moderate-to-conservative on social issues like gay rights, foreign policy and abortion. By contrast, most college-educated Democrats are liberal on social issues but fiscally conservative.
This year, Dean has clearly emerged as the champion of the activist white liberals. In 2003, Dean used Kerry's support for the Iraq War to pry liberal support from the Massachusetts senator. Polls have consistently shown that Dean does better as voters move up the education/income scale.
Gephardt will have the first chance to be the main rival to Dean as he is assembling a labor-based organization and running on traditional economic issues like jobs and universal healthcare. He recently began attacking Dean for allegedly supporting cuts in Medicare during the last decade.
Gephardt won the Iowa caucuses in 1988. A Gephardt loss in Iowa would likely be fatal this year. If he wins there again Monday, the congressman will likely concede New Hampshire to Dean. Even with writing off New Hampshire, Gephardt still will have a surprisingly good chance to win the nomination if he can win February and March contests in the smaller Southern and Midwestern states. (Dean has a solid lead over Gephardt in California, New York and Massachusetts.)
Dean can be expected to do best in majority white-collar states in New England and the Pacific Northwest and in college towns like Berkeley, Calif., Ann Arbor, Mich., Madison, Wis., Cambridge, Mass., and Stony Brook, N.Y. His campaign manager, Joe Trippi, worked in Silicon Valley in the late '90s high-tech boom years, and adapted the techniques of selling goods via the Internet to raising money and support for Dean. Hence, the Dean "meet-ups" where supporters pool ideas and resources.
Trippi's computer networking was so effective that Dean has raised double the federal spending limit for the primaries. Therefore, the Dean campaign will break the spending cap and forego federal matching funds without any money problems.
Regardless of whether he wins, Dean's innovative use of the Internet will be a model for future campaigns. For example, both the New Hampshire primary and the Michigan caucuses allow early voting. Dean may have already banked thousands of votes that could provide his margin of victory in a tight race there. This year, the Michigan caucuses and Arizona primary are experimenting with allowing voting via the Internet one month before the official date. Since Dean's organization has been based on well-educated activists, they are much more likely to take advantage of this option than potential Gephardt or Clark supporters. Advantage Dean.
If it becomes a two-way race between Dean and Gephardt as the campaign turns south and west, the minority vote could tip the balance. With the exodus of so many white Southerners out of Democratic primaries, blacks and Hispanic are roughly half of all Democrats in the Sun Belt. (Only Florida among Southern states still has a large white Democratic electorate.)
With white liberals supporting Dean and white moderates going for Gephardt, blacks will likely hold the balance of power in South Carolina, Georgia and other southern states. One advantage Gephardt has is the support of many House Black Caucus members, particularly Rep. James Clyburn in South Carolina. Watch the black vote in the South: If Dean carries that constituency, he'll have an easy road to the nomination.
Last Tuesday, the majority-black District of Columbia had a non-binding primary. Dean defeated Al Sharpton by 43 percent to 34 percent with Carol Mosley Braun getting 12 percent. In 1984 and 1988, Jesse Jackson easily won Washington's primary with more than 67 percent both times. As of now, it appears that Sharpton does not have the same strong appeal to black voters as Jackson did and therefore, the black vote will be up for grabs in 2004.
Labor often has had great influence in the black and Hispanic communities, but it's divided this year. Dean has the support of service unions, while traditional industrial unions like the steelworkers and machinists are backing Gephardt.
If Gephardt loses Iowa, he'll probably be eliminated as a serious contender and Dean's moderate rival would likely emerge as Clark, Edwards or Lieberman. Clark is currently second to Dean in the national Gallup Poll of Democrats, but may lack a secure base in the early states on the schedule. For Clark or Edwards to step up as the anti-Dean alternative, they would have to win South Carolina on Feb. 3.
If Gephardt fades after Iowa, Edwards and Clark will battle in Tennessee and Virginia on Feb. 10. The winner there (if it's not Dean himself) will have one last chance to derail Dean in the March Southern primaries.
A former NATO commander and Vietnam vet, Clark appears to have gained much from the fade of Kerry among moderates. He also has some remnants of Bill Clinton's Southern allies like former White House adviser Bruce Lindsay working for him.
His skill on television could make him a formidable rival to Dean if he can win a contest in February (Clark is skipping Iowa and will likely lose New Hampshire to Dean). If Clark can make a stand in South Carolina, he'll have enough money ($10 million) to compete on television with Dean in March. Obviously, if Edwards win in South Carolina (the state of his birth), he'll be a player in March as the South will have one-fourth of all delegates.
Dean has built a solid base among white liberals that can carry him to about 30 percent of the primary vote. And he has already broken into the white labor vote. If he can add black votes (roughly 25 percent of the Democratic electorate) and/or Hispanic votes (about 10 percent of Democrats), he'll be the nominee.
If Dean can't expand his base, he'll still have an advantage against a three- or four-person field because his support seems to be so intense. That is why the Dean camp is semi-secretly hoping that Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt and Clark stay in the race as long as possible. The oldest political rule in the world has to be "happiness is a divided opposition." To get back to the NFL analogy, Dean's strong start and base in New England has given him a bye to the Democratic finals.
Every presidential season, there is speculation over a possible "brokered" convention. The primary system is deliberately designed to avoid that prospect. For it to happen in 2004, every candidate will hold their own turf all through June: Dean must keep the liberals, Gephardt the labor vote, Clark or Edwards the South and Sharpton the black vote. The chances of all that happening for the full primary season are less than 1 in 100.
Watch Iowa on Monday, and then South Carolina and Arizona on Feb. 3: They will give clues as to how minority and moderate to conservative white Democrats see Howard Dean.
--
(Patrick Reddy serves as a consultant to California's Assembly Democrats.)
