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Looking Toward the 2004 Elections

Pick a Name. Any Name. L. Sandy Maisel Colby College

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Pick a Name. Any Name. Abstract Professor Maisel identifies the Democratic presidential candidates with the best prospects and explains what each must do to win the nomination. He evaluates the candidates based on four aspects of the campaign: fundraising, geographic constituency, name recognition and ideological constituency. The unusually heavy frontloaded nomination process gives candidates with the strongest finances and organization better odds than ever to be the Democratic nominee.

Maisel: Pick a Name. Any Name.

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I recently had the opportunity to observe a focus group in Washington. Republican and Democratic political consultants— general strategists, pollsters, fundraisers, direct mail experts, opposition researchers—met for two hours to discuss various aspects of how campaigns were run during the 2002 elections. As the group was breaking up, the leader asked puckishly, “Okay, now one more question. The one we really want to know the answer to. Who will be the Democratic nominee in 2004?” Silence—and obvious deep thought. I awaited the received wisdom. After all, these people really knew what was happening. And then it came. “Kerry.” “Lieberman.” “Edwards.” “Gore.” “Gore?” “Gore!” “Hillary Rodham Clinton,” followed by laughter and then more silence and thinking. “Dean.” “I liked Graham before the heart incident, and I still like him.” “I have absolutely no idea!” Full disclosure. I have not seen the transcript for the focus group. I might have the names in the wrong order. And others might have been mentioned. But the point was made. Everyone knows the scenario. We have a popular Republican President who has just led the nation to the successful completion of a war that was controversial when it began. His positive poll numbers are exceptional. A large group of Democrats are out there beating the hustings. No obvious frontrunner has emerged. No giant of the party is ready to take on this popular President—even if such a giant existed. And Iowa and New Hampshire loom just nine months away. And everyone knows the punch line: 1991, not 2003. Will 2003 be like 1991? Will Bush 43 drop precipitously in the polls as his father did? Will a Bill Clinton emerge from the pack to lead the Democrats to victory? Will the Bushes come to share another distinction with the Adams, not only of being the only father-son duos to share the White House but also of failing to be popular enough to return for a second term? The consultant who answered, “I have absolutely no idea” was an honest man. Too much is still unknown to answer that question. But political scientists should at least be able to provide a roadmap for others to follow as they observe this nominating season. Elsewhere in this edition, William Mayer examines the nominating process in great detail. I do not intend to repeat that analysis. My concern is with the candidates, the strategies they will or will not follow, and what one can see from a strategic perspective. The Candidates First, let’s set the stage with the candidates. You cannot tell the players without a program. Ten men and one woman have either announced their intension to run for the Democratic nomination or are pursuing that option. Four of those are sitting United

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States senators—John Edwards of North Carolina, Bob Graham of Florida, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut; two are members of the House of Representatives—former Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. The other five do not currently hold elective office; one is a former governor, Howard Dean of Vermont; two, former United States senators, Gary Hart of Colorado and Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois; two, retired general Wesley Clark and community activist Al Sharpton, have never held elective office. And one should add that former Vice President and presidential nominee Al Gore, who has said he is not running, looms large in the background. (I do not add Senator Clinton, despite the fact that she was mentioned in the focus group. But I did spend a lot of time thinking about her potential candidacy. It does not seem much more far-fetched and follows a similar scenario to that of Gore, discussed below.) All of these individuals cannot be serious candidates for a presidential nomination. At the risk of oversimplifying, I consider them in two tiers—the serious candidates and those waiting for lightning to strike. In that second category I include Moseley-Braun, Kucinich, Sharpton, Clark, Hart, and, of course, Gore (and Clinton). It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which any of these will get the nomination. However, a number of these candidates could impact on the final result. As an example, the Democrats are desperate to get Sharpton out of the field. He is outspoken and contentious; Democratic power brokers worry that he will convey a non-winning image for the party. And he has no hesitancy in attacking the other candidates, doing the kind of dirty work the Republicans would just as soon have done for them. One political columnist recently quipped that he would like to see Sharpton’s list of donors, because it would have Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over it. Similarly it is difficult to paint a scenario in which Gary Hart re-emerges to lead the party. But it was hard to see a scenario in which George McGovern got the nomination in 1972—and Hart pulled that off. And it was difficult to envision Hart seriously challenging Walter Mondale in 1984—but for a while he had the Mondale campaign on the ropes. Hart, with a newly minted D.Phil. from Oxford, is back on the stump, touting his somewhat offbeat vision of the party, and he continues to draw crowds on college campuses. To me it seems like nostalgia, not a serious run for the nomination. Wes Clark is all over CNN, and he is quite impressive. Would the party turn to a retired general who has been critical of the war effort? That scenario might have been more likely if the war had been protracted and even more costly in terms of American casualties. One gets the impression that Clark is really running for the vice presidential nomination—and that too would be a surprise. Moseley-Braun and Kucinich have hardly raised blips on the campaign radar screen. They are not likely to do so. And Al Gore? He still thinks he was elected President in 2000. He still thinks he should be President and would be the best President. And maybe he is right. But he also recognized that he is not going to be elected President. And the party will only turn to him if it is deeply divided going into the convention; a similar scenario could lead to the emergence of other candidates, like Senator Clinton. Now all political scientists and political journalists yearn for a divided convention that really makes a decision. Perhaps Bill Mayer can paint that scenario, given the frontloading of the process and the number of candidates in the race. But I will leave that fantasizing and any Gore opportunity to others.

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Strategies of the Top Tier What can we know about the chances of the top tier of candidates at this point? We cannot know how the world situation or the nation’s economy will be transformed in the months ahead, but we can examine what each candidate needs to do to be positioned to respond to various changes. This kind of analysis does tell us more than one might imagine about how the nomination battle might unfold, about who will survive and who will drop out, and about what to look for in the months ahead. Howard Dean. When Howard Dean announced his candidacy, most followers of presidential politics yawned. Now they are paying attention. The Dean candidacy has some real strengths and real weaknesses. Dean, a medical doctor and former governor of a small state, paints himself as an unconventional candidate. Despite some centrist elements in his background, like continuously balancing the budget in the only one in the nation that does not constitutionally mandate a balanced budget, Dean's image is at the far left of the candidate pool. He became the darling of the liberal wing of the party as a result of his outspoken stance against our intervention into Iraq and his challenge to party leaders on that issue. His image is cemented by popular perceptions of Vermont politics—greener than green, the only state to permit civil unions of gay couples, the state that elected and re-elects Bernie Sanders, the former socialist mayor of Burlington, to the House of Representatives. Dean’s electoral weaknesses are that he is virtually unknown in the nation, has no logical base from which to raise the roughly $50 million that might be necessary to see the nomination battle through to its conclusion, and he is from the small and electorally insignificant state of Vermont. In addition to claiming an ideological niche among the party faithful, Dean’s electoral strengths are that he is not a Washington insider, that he is extremely well organized and seems to be using the Internet more effectively as a fundraising tool than any of the other candidates, and he is from Vermont. Dean has already overcome one hurdle. Political journalists are taking him seriously. He is getting play in the press, especially in New England and in Iowa, to which he has returned over and over. His early fundraising shows that he might become the McCain-like Internet candidate of the 2004 season, but he still has a long way to go. And no one should forget that Vermont is next to New Hampshire. Howard Dean is not unknown in New Hampshire, and early polls show him running well there. Three more quick points need to be made about Dean. First, whatever chance he has for the nomination, in most ways he is least well positioned to win a general election. He is perceived of as the most liberal candidate in a nation that is not moving to the left. Second, given that, he is probably more realistically looking at the vice presidential nomination, but it is unclear whose ticket he would help. And third, and most important, his candidacy is a serious threat to that of John Kerry, who does not want to lose New Hampshire to someone perceived to be of much less national stature. John Kerry. John Kerry is in the enviable or unenviable position of having been identified as the frontrunner. He has some real strengths as a candidate. He is relatively well known. He is perceived as a liberal senator with anti-war leanings, but he is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. Through his wife, Teresa, the widow for the late Republican senator from Pennsylvania, John Heinz, he has access to great personal wealth, and he has the ability to raise enough money to see the nomination campaign


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through to its conclusion. He seems to have the ability to mount a national organization of political heavyweights. And he has a natural base in New England; his Massachusetts home is right next to New Hampshire. To this point in the pre-campaign, Kerry has successfully weathered many of the storms that have upset frontrunners in other years. The image he has portrayed and his own performance as a potential nominee have added to the common perceptions of the strength of his candidacy. But Kerry also has some potential weaknesses. He has a long record that he must defend—and that record has not always been consistent. While many can find something to like in Kerry’s record, almost everyone can find something not to like. And surely his opponents will highlight those aspects of his record likely to cause him most distress. Further, he must win in New Hampshire or face the “Ed Muskie problem.” How can someone win nationally if he cannot win among his friends and neighbors? Thus, the Dean candidacy is a real threat that Kerry must counter immediately. In addition, while Kerry not made any egregious errors in the early campaigning, he has not caught fire in the early goings. His organization seems in something of disarray. A frontrunner must build on that status. Time has not run out on Kerry in this regard, but it is slipping away. John Edwards and Bob Graham. It seems that there can be only one southern alternative. Edwards was everyone’s darling, until he started campaigning. He has enormous potential to raise money, although much of that money will come from trial lawyers and he is already under attack because of the percentage of money in his first filing that came from trial lawyers, not the most popular professionals among Americans, and their families. Large sums of money, however raised, will serve Edwards well, but only if he can convey a message. The early hopes were that he would convey the message of a southern moderate who was willing to take on the administration on important issues. Because he had been a trial lawyer, the assumption was that he would be a spellbinding stump speaker, the young telegenic candidate the Democrats needed. One appearance on Meet the Press diffused that image. Like Ted Kennedy’s interview with Roger Mudd in 1980, Edwards’s appearance with Tim Russert has influenced far more people than actually viewed it. Edwards bombed—and he has done nothing on the stump since that time to diffuse that bomb. It is not too late certainly, but Edwards has to get on track. He has to build an organization in New England—and nationally because of the frontloading of the process. To do that, he has to have a message. What distinguishes him as the candidate who can beat George W. Bush is not yet clear. Enter Bob Graham. All Bob Graham does is win. He does not excite people the way Edwards does. He does not have the obvious network to raise the millions needed for the campaign. And he does have that heart problem. We as a nation seem comfortable with a Vice President whose heart is less than healthy, but a President? Graham will have some convincing to do. Graham’s strengths are the same as Edwards’s. They start with image and constituency. He is a southerner who is not afraid to confront the White House. He appears moderate, but he can reach to the left of the democratic constituency. He is experienced, as a governor and a senator. But he is largely unknown, does not have proven fundraising abilities on the scale needed to wage a national campaign in a few short months, and he has not separated himself from John Edwards. Edwards and



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Graham are going after the same share of the Democratic vote, ideologically and geographically. Because the rules call for proportional representation and so many primaries are to be held so early, if both candidates remain in the race through the summer and fall and into the post-New Hampshire voting season, they could in fact split that vote—to the benefit of other candidates. But in all likelihood, one of them will fall away before that time. Dick Gephardt. Gephardt must be included in the top tier of candidates for two reasons. First, he has been mentioned as a strong competitor for his party's nomination for more than a decade; second, he has strong backing of organized labor, one of the most potent forces in the Democratic coalition. Thus, Gephardt should have organizational strength provided by labor. Those same ties can help him to raise money. He is the only candidate from the Midwest. He has name recognition among party activists to rival that of all of the other candidates, save perhaps Joe Lieberman. But Gephardt's weaknesses seem to overwhelm his strengths. Here is a confession. I forgot to include Gephardt in the first draft of this article. Not only that, but five of the six people I showed the draft to did not pick up on the omission. Gephardt seems like a tired old politician. Like others before him, the time was never quite right for his candidacy. He yearns for the prize, but he is seen as a candidate of the past, not one likely to lead the party to a bright future. Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman ran a terrific campaign as Al Gore’s vice presidential candidate, answering definitively the question of whether a Jew could run for national office in the affirmative. He continued to show the integrity for which he is universally praised when he did not enter the presidential race until after Al Gore had declined to do so, thus keeping his word to his former running mate. He has a national following, a good organization, and the ability to raise enough money to see the nomination campaign through to the end. These are all very positive signs for Lieberman. But the picture is not all rosy. When Lieberman announced, he said he was going to be a “different kind of Democrat.” Some quipped, “Yeah, a Republican.” To be sure, Lieberman is a Democrat, but he is the most moderate of those running. His strong advocacy of the war in Iraq rankled many of the Democratic rank-and-file. The irony is that Lieberman may well be the Democrat who appeals most to the general election population, but least to those most likely to vote in primaries. In interesting ways the Lieberman candidacy parallels that of Jimmy Carter in 1976. He can position himself differently from the other candidates. In a field of liberals, he is the only moderate. In a field in which religiosity does not get much mention, he touts how his religion defines who he is. In a field in which most candidates opposed the war in Iraq, he supported President Bush. He distinguishes himself from the White House on many issues—and he will highlight those—but not on the war issue. He has the financial wherewithal to go the distance. Just as Jimmy Carter kept picking up some delegates in every primary because of the Democratic Party rules calling for proportional representation of presidential preference, so too may Lieberman win delegates, even if not winning primaries. It is unclear whether a moderate Democrat can beat a field of liberals when one believes those who vote in primaries tend to be the most liberal of the Democrats, but Jimmy Carter did it in 1976 and some think Bill Clinton


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pulled off the same feat in 1992. I do not know if Lieberman can do the same thing, it does seem likely to me that he will be around at the end, when many of the others are not. Strategies to Look For I believe there are four elements at which one should look at this stage in a presidential nominating process. We can evaluate where each candidate is now on each of these—and then observe over the months ahead how they move. I think that amateur analysts and professional political journalists alike would do well to keep these in mind, while avoiding the tendency to follow the pack in accepting the instant interpretation of events in an evolving process. Fundraising. It will take something in the neighborhood of $50 million to wage a successful nominating campaign in 2004. Kerry and Lieberman have the ability to reach that goal; Edwards might; I suppose Gephardt might as well. Dean can only do so if he does become the 2004 version of John McCain, using the Internet to raise money. Graham is unproven. Geographic constituency. What is interesting here is the extent to which huge sections of the country have produced no candidate. Kerry needs New England; Dean needs it even more. Edwards and Graham both have southern bases, but sharing will do neither any good. Gephardt can lay claims to the industrial parts of the Midwest. Lieberman seems to have the most national constituency—and the least to lose in the early primaries. But the geographic factor seems most likely to shake candidates out, not to bring others in. There is no Western candidate, nor a heartland candidate. Democrats across huge expanses of the country are looking for a candidate that can take their state from the Bush column, but who that might be is far from obvious. Name recognition. Kerry and Lieberman have a significant lead over the others in this regard. Dean has made remarkable strides in a few short months, but his is hardly a household name. Gephardt, Edwards, and Graham are well known among the party professionals and political junkies. But go down to Main Street and watch the blank stares. In point of fact, as the first spring buds come on the trees, I think you would get blank stares in response to all of these names, except for Lieberman’s. Ideological constituency. Dean seems to have grabbed the left. Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt, and Graham are fighting over the bulk of traditional Democrats who vote in primaries, liberals but not those on the party’s extreme. Lieberman has a solid grasp on the more moderate, some might even say conservative, Democrats. The logical conclusion from this is that Lieberman would have the broadest appeal to the general election voters; Dean, the least; and the others would have to redefine some of their message were they to be the nominee. How these groups split their votes and how delegates are awarded in primaries that allocate delegates by proportional representation will be important to observe.



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Conclusion The tendency in watching the development of the nominating campaign is to go from story to story, to see who gains and who loses. There are some key indicators— especially the ability to show strength at the early fundraising reporting dates. The tendency is also to watch each successive presidential nominating campaign in terms of the way the last one was run. But the rules and therefore the strategies are changing. That is why the Humphrey strategy of 1968 did not work for Muskie in 1972. The Democratic nomination process this time around is more frontloaded than it has ever been in the past. Candidates must have the finances and the organization in place to run a campaign throughout practically the entire nation by the time the first votes are cast in Iowa and New Hampshire. But they still must avoid getting eliminated in those early states, lest they be perceived as losers a few short weeks later when the bulk of delegates will be chosen. Getting to the first primaries will be as critical in 2004 as it was in the Republican primaries in 2000. Getting through the first primaries without an electoral disaster will also remain critically important—and someone can benefit from a good showing early, if he or she has the finances and organization in place to take advantage of that good showing. But after that time, many primaries are grouped on the same days, and the vast majority of them happen—and the majority of convention delegates are chosen—in a short period of time. Candidates will pick and choose where to put their emphasis. I believe they will do so based on the factors I have outlined above—and the winner will be the candidate who moves the factors on which he is weak into his direction most successfully.

Sandy Maisel is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Colby College. He is the author of From Obscurity to Oblivion: Running in the Congressional Primary, Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, and Two Parties -- Or More? The American Party System, with John Bibby.
