JOHN KERRY'S RECORD ON DEFENSE

There's been a lot of talk about how the Republicans are supposedly going to use John Kerry's voting record on defense against him, and an article by Fred Kaplan in Slate (which has hardly been a bastion of pro-Kerry sentiment) nicely illustrates how a lot of what the Republicans are peddling is bunk. I find this paragraph particularly illuminating:

Another bit of dishonesty is RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie's claim, at a news conference today, that in 1995, Kerry voted to cut $1.5 billion from the intelligence budget. John Pike, who runs the invaluable globalsecurity.org Web site, told me what that cut was about: The Air Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money—not to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his colleagues.

Some may object that this is exactly the sort of "nuance" that could hobble Kerry's candidacy by requiring him to get bogged down in details in order to explain his positions, but I don't think that's necessarily true. In fact, a smart strategy might be to let the Republicans try this sort of attack and then turn it back at them. For example, show a few seconds of the inevitable GOP ad making this charge, then cut in with, "Stop: The Republicans are distorting John Kerry's record. John Kerry never voted to reduce intelligence funding. He voted, along with the majority of the Republican-controlled Senate, to refund unused money from a program the Air Force itself had decided not to implement." Then over to Kerry himself: "I have a long record on national security and I'm proud to stand by it. It's time for the President to stop these deceptive tactics and engage in a real discussion about how to keep our country safe."

(Okay, so maybe I'm not going to get hired to write political ads any time soon. Still, I think that the right kind of campaign can not only rebut this sort of attack but use the dishonesty itself to hit back -- and yes, all in the space of a 30-second TV spot.)

THREE MORE WINS FOR KERRY

The results from Idaho, Utah, and Hawaii confirmed what I suspected would happen after Wisconsin: the race has gone into a sort of holding pattern with Kerry having the support of a little over half of Democrats and Edwards a distant but respectable second. The only exception is in Hawaii, where Dennis Kucinich managed a second-place finish and picked up some delegates, perhaps because he was the only candidate to campaign there. I haven't yet been able to find definitive numbers for Hawaii -- CNN says Kerry 46%, Kucinich 30, Edwards 13 with 99% reporting, and the Washington Post says Kerry 50, Kucinich 26, Edwards 14 with 97% reporting -- but if you assume that Hawaii Democrats would have otherwise followed the national pattern, Kucinich appears to have taken slightly more potential support from Edwards than from Kerry. Meanwhile, at least some of Howard Dean's supporters are heeding his call to vote for him even though he's not really in the race any more. His numbers -- 9% in Hawaii, 11% in Idaho, and 4% in Utah -- are, as far as I know, higher than those posted by Gephardt, Clark, or Lieberman in any of the primaries following their withdrawals from the race, but still not enough to win delegates.

Anyway, I'll update the Scorecard later tonight, at which point hopefully the Hawaii results will be finalized.

BRIEF BLURB ON THE RHODE ISLAND KERRY CAMPAIGN

With only thirteen delegates at stake and nine other states voting on Super Tuesday, it's no surprise that the Rhode Island Kerry Campaign is pretty low-key so far...which still puts us ahead of the Rhode Island Edwards Campaign, which is completely nonexistent as far as anyone can tell. It doesn't seem like anyone thinks the outcome here is in doubt: barring a complete implosion during the next seven days, the only question is how large of a delegate majority Kerry will win. Nonetheless, this is good news for us, if nothing else because it ought to boost turnout:

Rhode Island Veterans United Behind Kerry
02/24/2004 13:36:02

(Cranston, RI) -- Rhode Island veterans say they want to send a fellow vet to the White House. Veterans from across Rhode Island met today with members of the Veterans for Kerry national steering committee at the Nelson-Mack VFW Post in Cranston to united behind Massachusetts Senator John Kerry's bid for president. Tom Suprock, a Vietnam helicopter pilot and co-chair of Rhode Island Veterans for Kerry says Kerry understands veterans issues and has been fighting on their behalf for years, and will continue the fight as president. There are as many as 100 thousand veterans living in Rhode Island and Suprock says they can be a vital voting block. Rhode Islanders will cast their ballots for a Democratic nominee on March 2nd, also known as Super Tuesday.

It would appear that Edwards is planning to make his stand primarily in Georgia, New York, and Ohio (in fact, he's not even on the Vermont ballot -- he and several other Dems apparently decided not to file there back when it seemed like Dean would be indestructible). Results from today's primaries will trickle in late (especially Hawaii), but assuming Edwards doesn't somehow pull off an upset in one of them, I stand by my prediction that they're not going to impact the direction of the race.

WINTER SOLDIERS TESTIMONY ONLINE

As pointed out over at Counterspin, the evidence from the "Winter Soldiers" investigation (which was part of the basis for John Kerry's testimony to Congress in 1971) is online here.

HEH-HEH-HEH, THEY SAID "ASS"

Excerpt from a recent entry in Ryan Lizza's Campaign Journal at the New Republic website:

ONE WORD: Another poll shows George W. Bush's job approval rating dropping. The Pew Research Center finds that it has sunk to an all-time low of 48 percent. That confirms the trend we've been seeing in other polls this month, but even more alarming for the White House has to be the fact that Bush's personal favorability rating has dropped from 73 percent after the fall of Baghdad last spring to 53 percent today. And here's the most stunning line from Pew's report on the new poll:

"The most frequently used negative word to describe Bush is "liar," which did not come up in the May 2003 survey."

Back in May, when asked for one word descriptions of Bush, 52 percent of those surveyed used positive words like "honest," "leader," and "good." That number has fallen to 36 percent, which is the same percentage of registered voters whose most frequent words to describe Bush--in addition to "liar"--are now "arrogant," "stupid," "incompetent," "dishonest," "idiot," and "ass."

THE PLOT THICKENS

Well, my hit counter has gone through the roof (relatively speaking) since the "Monkeys and Keyboards" post of two days ago, apparently all due to people typing "www.url98u.com" into their search engines. If anyone cares to use the comment feature -- how come so many people are looking for that site? Are other people getting the same bizarre spams that I am? (Three more have arrived since I last posted, BTW, all with equally random nonsense at the bottom.)

MONKEYS AND KEYBOARDS

I don't usually bother to read spam, so maybe this is normal, but I couldn't help but notice the rather odd addendum to this little missive I received yesterday:

"B U Y Y O U R M E D S H E R E:
http://www.url98u.com/

In my opinion, program delights David Coulthard's Buddha, mumbo-jumbo gazeno atypical erection.Well, favours sleeps with of bookshop which attacks other homosexual Rainbow Ride.
It's true to say that give birth to expansion judgemental and rhinos pictorial fingers.It seems that facets was of Panther Clipper which uses other homosexual xenophobic."

I must say that the advertising appeal of a paragraph of gobbledygook eludes me.

WISCONSIN POSTGAME WRAP-UP

Well, I have to give John Edwards credit: the polls showed him nowhere near John Kerry a couple of days ago, and yet he managed to make this one a real race. If the exit polls are right, his close second-place finish can be attributed to the two factors that arguably may still be of some concern to those of us in the Kerry camp: (1) Edwards seems to run better among Independents and Republicans voting in these primaries; and (2) Edwards does better among those who say their votes are based on the issues, while Kerry's greatest strength comes from those voting based on the fuzzy notion of "electability." It's difficult to tell what any of this really means -- the crossover voters would conceivably still be satisfied with Kerry as the nominee, and one could imagine that they may just tend to vote contrary to whatever the current trend in the race happens to be. (And no, I don't think this is a case of organized sabotage by Republicans.) As for the electability vs. issues question, I would observe that presumably those who vote for Kerry because he's "electable" probably find him credible on the issues, and in any case the two of them don't seem to have any strong policy disagreements aside from NAFTA. Still, this race is clearly not over, and Kerry's campaign would do well to figure out why he isn't connecting with these voting blocs as well as Edwards seems to be.

That said, a win is still a win, and there are a number of reasons why this result may not be quite the harbinger of hope for Edwards as it may seem. Kerry is still the one candidate who's really run a national campaign thus far and has the resources to continue doing so, whereas Edwards basically ignored several of the other February primaries and, if I heard correctly on the news last night, actually outspent Kerry in Wisconsin. I also think the media may have been a factor in a couple of different ways. First, the pundits had basically told the voters of Wisconsin that giving Kerry another blowout victory would end the race, so it may be that some were motivated not so much by specifically anti-Kerry or even pro-Edwards sentiment, but rather by a feeling that they weren't ready to declare the race over just yet. Second, as I watched the TV coverage unfold, I couldn't help but think that the Edwards-oriented tone was shaped partly by the very earliest returns, which showed the two of them dead even and Edwards slightly ahead at times. If the first numbers had shown Kerry ahead, say, 42-32%, and then the gap had closed to 40-34 later, they probably wouldn't have hyped Edwards quite as much. And there's also the X-factor to consider, namely the (now thoroughly debunked) infidelity rumor about Kerry -- granted, it didn't seem to hurt him in Nevada or D.C., but it's impossible to say how many people heard it and how seriously they took it since, as far as I know, there wasn't a question about it in the exit polling.

It should be interesting to see what kind of strategy Kerry and Edwards pursue for the next two weeks. Next up are Hawaii, Idaho, and Utah -- three states which neither send many delegates to the convention nor are particularly symbolic of anything (Hawaii will vote for the Democrat in November barring a political earthquake or a Bush landslide; conversely, if the Democrats make inroads in the West, it won't be in Idaho or Utah). It's probably safe to assume that neither of them will go to Hawaii for logistical reasons if nothing else, and they'll probably want to concentrate on the Super Tuesday states anyway. On the other hand, Edwards could consider attempting a version of the "Kerry in Iowa" strategy (i.e. making a splash by winning where you're perceived to have no obvious organizational or demographic advantage) in these three states, but it could drain his resources if it didn't work.

Regarding those Super Tuesday states, Edwards' calendar lists events this week in Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, and Ohio, while Kerry's seems yet to be determined aside from one event in Columbus. Edwards may well write off the four New England states voting on March 2 (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont) -- it's Kerry's backyard, and there aren't enough delegates to be won to make much of a difference. I heard someone on MSNBC last night say that he might ignore California as well, but with the field narrowing, he may be able to do that and still pick up some delegates. My guess is that he's not expecting to win an outright majority of delegates on Super Tuesday, but is hoping to do well enough to have a chance at reversing the race's momentum in the four Southern states that vote on March 9. Kerry will try to avert that scenario by not only winning on Super Tuesday but winning big (we've already been told that we're shooting for a clean sweep of the delegates in Massachusetts and Rhode Island), hoping that limiting Edwards to, say, two wins or fewer in the next couple weeks would be enough to wrap things up.

As for the other candidates, the word right now is that Howard Dean will announce that he's not dropping out but will suspend active campaigning, which I think is a good move: the Democratic primary voters have sent a message at this point that they want a Kerry vs. Edwards race, and it's tough to see how Dean can mount a comeback when he only managed 18% in a state where he's spent almost all of his resources lately. He deserves a lot of credit for helping the Democratic Party find its voice when the other candidates seemed to be playing it safe, his campaign was certainly one of the most innovative that we've seen in a while, and, yes, some of the media coverage he received was unfair. Unfortunately for him, this may simply be a case where the people who started a revolution won't get to finish it. Hopefully, he'll do what a number of people seem to be suggesting, which is to convert his campaign into an ongoing progressive grassroots network that would operate within the Democratic Party.

Sharpton and Kucinich, meanwhile, will no doubt stay around as long as anyone's still paying attention. While I'm mostly indifferent to both of them at this point, I will say that the next debate ought to be Kerry and Edwards only (and that Kerry should agree to such a proposal on principle, even though it's probably to his advantage to have Sharpton and Kucinich there).

THE LITTLE SCANDAL THAT COULDN'T

I'm reluctant to give this any space at all, but for those of you who come here for my latest ramblings on the Kerry campaign and are wondering -- yes, I've heard the rumors circulated via the Drudge Report, and after a couple of days I am convinced that there's almost certainly nothing to this story. Obviously I'm biased, but after reading a couple of accounts that actually name names (including one from a reportedly less-than-reputable British tabloid) and still acknowledge that there's no evidence of an affair, I really think that, at the most, someone perhaps misinterpreted his intentions in offering a young woman a job on his '02 Senate campaign. (And I can verify first-hand that, while some might find it "sleazy" on the surface for a 60-year-old Senator to be offering a job to a twentysomething woman, political campaigns are largely staffed and run by young people, and obviously on a Democratic campaign they will often be disproportionately female.)

I have no idea whatsoever why Drudge thinks that this woman "fled the country" at Kerry's urging -- if I'm reading these other stories correctly, she's a professional journalist who currently happens to be in Africa with her fiancé. And as for Clark's bizarre off-the-record comment about Kerry's impending "implosion" over an "intern issue" (if he did indeed say that), one can imagine that he heard the rumor himself, shot his mouth off, and now wishes he hadn't. After all, why would he drop out and endorse Kerry if he really thought Kerry's candidacy was about to go down in flames?

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about this unless anything more comes out. In a way, I suppose it's a relief that the attacks against Kerry so far have been either trivial (e.g. speaking fees) or just completely unsubstantiated garbage.

Back to more serious matters, I think the Wisconsin primary will be the only real event to watch between now and Super Tuesday -- the Nevada and DC caucuses tonight won't have much impact on the race, nor will the votes in Idaho, Utah, and Hawaii on February 24.

AND THEN THERE WERE FIVE

While John Kerry's first two Southern primary wins are certainly welcome news for his supporters, he'll no doubt be sharing headlines with Wesley Clark, who will reportedly announce his withdrawal from the race tomorrow. Clark never demonstrated (at least not to me) that he was 100% ready for the campaign or for the job itself, and after nearly losing Oklahoma to Edwards and failing to win any of the Southern primaries, it's difficult to see how he could have kept his candidacy gong much longer. Still, the voice of an antiwar four-star general is a valuable one for the Democratic Party, and I would certainly welcome his presence on the campaign trail, particularly as a spokesperson on military or foreign policy issues. (Of course, a Vice Presidential nomination is not out of the question either.)

Based on resumés alone, Clark's supporters might theoretically flock to any of the remaining three major candidates: those who want a candidate with military experience could go over to Kerry, those who want a Southern moderate have an obvious choice in Edwards, and those who want a Washington outsider might conceivably join the Dean camp. I would tend to agree with the pundits, however, that this benefits Edwards most, if nothing else because he can now position himself as the single serious alternative to Kerry assuming Dean continues to slide. Barring a major Dean resurgence in Wisconsin, which looks increasingly unlikely, I think we'll see a Kerry vs. Edwards showdown on Super Tuesday, with the nomination being settled either then or one week later when four more states vote.

I've updated the Scorecard, adding in the Virginia and Tennessee totals, as well as what I have so far from Maine (where they have apparently STILL not finished counting).

MORE NUMBERS

I've revamped the Scorecard, relying now on the Washington Post's Election 2004 website and adding the totals for Gephardt, Moseley Braun, LaRouche (snicker), Uncommitted, and "Other" into the mix. I haven't yet added in the Maine totals, since it appears that, as of about 11 a.m. this morning, they still aren't anywhere near finished counting, though it looks like Kerry, Dean, and Kucinich have a lock on first, second, and third. (Interestingly, Kucinich is at 15% so far, meaning he could pick up a few pledged delegates unless Maine's rules are somehow different.)

American Research Group and Zogby are predicting wins for Kerry in Virginia and Tennessee on Wednesday. ARG's numbers are first, Zogby's second:

Tennessee

Kerry 32/45
Edwards 21/21
Clark 20/19
Dean 8/5
Sharpton 1/2
Kucinich 1/0.1
Undecided 17/*

* Zogby counts "leaners" as supporters in this poll and reports 12% undecided without the leaners.

Virginia

Kerry 35/47
Edwards 22/24
Clark 17/11
Dean 9/10
Sharpton 1/3
Kucinich 1/2
Undecided 17/*

* Again, Zogby counted leaners as supporters. In this case they report 13% undecided without the leaners.

The big discrepancy, obviously, is that Kerry's numbers are much higher according to Zogby. A couple of factors might account for this: (1) Zogby conducted their polling a couple days after ARG, and perhaps Kerry picked up some ground in the interim; (2) The undecided "leaners" who were counted as supporters might be leaning mostly towards Kerry, meaning that he's sitting at about 30-35% strong support with roughly another 10-12% soft/potential support in each state. (Or maybe some combination of both.)

It's worth noting, however, that Zogby underestimated Edwards by 9 points in South Carolina, 10 in Missouri, and 4 in Oklahoma. Anyway, we'll see what happens tomorrow.

SOME ODDS AND ENDS

Just a few plugs:

- Missouri Democrats continue to show their good sense: Gephardt to Endorse Kerry.

- My friend Jenn has a good article on Kerry's chances in the South in Thursday's Brown Daily Herald.

- The Green Papers site may have done me one better as far as keeping the raw vote totals in the primary (they factor in the totals for Gephardt, Braun, and others in calculating the percentages), though their counts seem to be a little lower than mine for some reason -- they either haven't added one or more states to their total, or else I just messed up (I'll double-check my numbers next time I update).

- Finally, if you're in or around Providence, be sure to come by the Live For Liberia concert on Saturday.

NOW FOR SOME PROPER LONG-WINDED BLATHERING

So I'm back to ramble some more about the Feb. 3 primary results. As I said, I think the only possible downside for Kerry is that South Carolina wasn't a closer race. For reasons I discussed previously, I think he actually benefits from having Edwards and Clark hang around a little longer, but a photo finish with Edwards would have made an even stronger case that he's viable in the South. Still, 30% isn't bad for somebody who was absolutely nowhere in South Carolina only a month ago, and CNN's exit polling from SC indicates that 80% of primary voters said they'd be satisfied with him as a candidate. Delaware was the only state where he took all the available delegates, but he posted impressive margins in Missouri (clearly we Missouri Democrats know what we're doing (g)), Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota as well, and he finished close behind Edwards and Clark in Oklahoma.

Of the others, Edwards probably comes out of this best -- he won South Carolina, came very close in Oklahoma, and picked up delegates in Missouri. Clark is running stronger than Dean, but I'm predicting at this point that he'll be next to drop out. As a pundit was saying recently, when the fundamental assumptions underlying your campaign are proven wrong, you've lost. In a sense, this has happened to Dean, but he's done his best to change those assumptions by recasting his campaign as that of a long-shot outsider looking to pick up some delegates in February and mount a big comeback on Super Tuesday. It probably won't work, and he could end up running out of money in the meantime, but it's impossible to say definitively that his new strategy has failed when it hasn't played out yet.

In contrast, the reasons for Clark's candidacy are looking increasingly weak. His selling points are military and foreign policy experience, Southern roots, and status as a Washington outsider. On the latter two counts, Edwards and Dean, respectively, have struck those poses a little more distinctly and persuasively, and Dean's decline indicates that Democratic primary voters may not be all that intent on nominating a Washington outsider anyway. And while he might have the best foreign policy resumé, voters seem to have decided that Kerry's is, at the very least, good enough, especially given that it's complemented by thorough experience with domestic issues and lifelong commitment to the Democratic Party, two qualities to which Clark cannot lay claim. Right now, I'd say there's at least a 50-50 chance that he'll end up bowing out before Super Tuesday, leaving it primarily a Kerry vs. Edwards race with Dean as a possible wild card.

I briefly mentioned this yesterday, but I have to give Joe Lieberman props for calling it quits when he did. I'm not a big fan of his rhetoric or his relatively conservative stances, but I do believe he's a sincere and honest guy who believes what he says, and he backed up his claims to integrity by realizing that he was in a hopeless fight and getting out rather than damage the other candidates and the party's chances in November.

Since nobody else seems to be doing it, I've decided to put together the Democratic Primary Scorecard, where, using CNN's information, I track the raw vote totals for each candidate in addition to the number of states and candidates that each has won. I've added it to the list of links on the side and will update it as often as I get the chance (probably at least every few days).

QUICK NOTE ON THE FINAL RESULTS

I'll be back sometime within the next 24 hours to say more, but in general it looks like things are moving along nicely for Kerry with five wins out of seven. About the only thing his supporters might have hoped for but didn't get was a closer finish in South Carolina, where Edwards won by double digits. Anyway, looks like I was six for seven on the predictions (since I'd called New Mexico for Dean).

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

With 67% counted, Edwards has just pulled ahead of Clark in Oklahoma -- hadn't seen that one coming. Meanwhile, New Mexico looks like a three-way race between Kerry, Dean, and Clark. Still no numbers from Arizona or North Dakota, but I'll assume the professionals know what they're doing in calling both for Kerry.

MSNBC CALLS TWO MORE; LIEBERMAN TO DROP OUT

I'm watching MSNBC, and the ever-audible Chris Matthews has announced that they've called Arizona and North Dakota for Kerry as well (though I've yet to find any numbers at all for either of them). I think the Arizona win is important for Kerry, particularly if he doesn't win Oklahoma (where he's still in a close 3rd place according to the latest numbers rolling in), in that it shows he can gather support in a traditionally Republican state. Missouri was also "red" in 2000, of course, but historically it's been a swing state.

Meanwhile, MSNBC is also reporting that Joe Lieberman will drop out of the race. I've had plenty of critical things to say about Lieberman, whom I'd come to view as a detriment to the race and generally an irritating presence, but I give him credit for realizing that he's not going to win and that he'd only be hurting the party's chances by continuing his run.

On an unrelated note, I seem to have accidentally deleted my "Voices From The Campaign Trail" post. Oh well.

Needless to say, I'll be back again before the night's over.

AND...THEY'RE OFF!

Well, the first results of the night are in, and no big surprises so far: Kerry wins in Missouri and Delaware, and Edwards wins in South Carolina (as I expected, though I must admit I was hoping Kerry would be closer). Right now, it looks like Oklahoma may take a while to figure out, showing Clark and Edwards in a dead heat so far with Kerry not too far behind. Nothing yet from the North Dakota caucuses, and Arizona and New Mexico are still voting.

If you want to do the "reload" thing and watch the results as they're updated, CNN has all seven states here. You can also track the Oklahoma results here.

South Carolina and Delaware appear to be on pace to finish counting first. It appears a distinct possibility that no one but Kerry will win delegates in DE, with Lieberman, Edwards, Dean, and Clark all bunched around 10-11% right now.

I'll probably be back before too long with more on this. :)