IF NEW HAMPSHIRE still matters, then which of the three New Englanders is best positioned to come out on top? They share certain similarities: all three attended Yale. All three — even Lieberman, who is Jewish — have a certain sober, New England quality. All three, finally, possess overlapping fundraising and political networks.
Among the three, the early money is on Kerry, who raised almost $4 million in 2001, the most of any of the potential presidential candidates. For his part, Dean raised only $111,000. But beyond the early handicapping, each of the three can make an argument for his winning New Hampshire.
Kerry’s strategy for New Hampshire most clearly mirrors the Dukakis model. Kerry routinely gets television and radio airplay that can be received in the Massachusetts-like population bases of Nashua and Manchester. And, like Kennedy before him, Kerry boasts friends in New Hampshire’s Democratic structure. Kerry is scheduled to appear at a New Hampshire Democratic State Party fundraiser on March 2.
Beyond the advantages Kerry can look to as a senator from a neighboring state, he also possesses something else. His allies call it "electability." They will point to his heroic military record as a Naval officer — including his Silver Star for service in Vietnam — and to his having chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, and argue that he alone among the Democrats has the foreign-policy and military credentials to go up against President George W. Bush. This electability, for lack of a better word, allows Kerry to raise money around the country, including in California. Kerry is also aided by his commitment to environmentalism — a touchstone he emphasized when he delivered a speech on energy security to the Center for National Policy last month.
Kerry, in short, will campaign heavily on his policy strengths: terrorism, international affairs, and the environment. And while his style on the stump was at one time somewhat aloof, he has developed a common touch. Whether cajoling white-headed World War II veterans or schmoozing with rock stars, Kerry can turn on the charm when he wants to. Again and again, you hear people say how his manner strikes them as presidential — no matter what the Boston reporters like to say.
Like Kerry, Lieberman, who says he will bow to Gore should the former vice-president run, has proximity to New Hampshire on his side. Unlike Kerry, however, Lieberman has to fight through the airwaves of another state to reach New Hampshire voters. Things aren’t as bad in this regard for him as they might have been five or 10 years ago. Today, thanks to New England Cable News, which has bureaus in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, Granite State political junkies can see him frequently. On January 25, for example, Lieberman, who was initiating a Senate inquiry into the Enron scandal, gave an extensive interview to the regional cable news network that was replayed repeatedly throughout the day. While most political analysts assume he can’t reach into New Hampshire from Connecticut, NECN provides him more access to state voters than people think.
Lieberman might also be helped if his fellow senator and frequent partner in legislation, John McCain of Arizona, decides not to challenge Bush in 2004. Both McCain and Lieberman — who entered the halls of Congress together for Bush’s State of the Union address in January — occupy the center of American politics, with McCain at the left of the GOP and Lieberman at the right of the Democratic Party. Because New Hampshire, like Massachusetts, has an "open primary" — meaning independents can select which ballot, Democratic or Republican, they will take on Election Day — Lieberman can hope that independents will go to the polls and vote for him. While he undoubtedly sustained damage within his base for moving left in order to run with Gore in 2000, he has successfully staked out the right-leaning-moderate ideological ground within the Democratic Party.
Lieberman comes to the race with a long-standing commitment to moral rigor. He has been an outspoken critic of Hollywood and was a lone Democratic voice chastising President Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. His style on the stump is somewhat professorial, but his gravitas draws few complaints. Still, New Hampshire voters tend to look for a little more warmth in their presidential candidates.
Although Kerry’s Vietnam-era war record far outshines anything Lieberman did during that period, the latter has taken bolder policy positions — especially since September 11. He has consistently favored taking on Saddam Hussein, a position from which Kerry has shied away. If Bush ends up confronting Iraq and winning, Lieberman’s position will serve him well.
If the Connecticut senator hopes his foreign-policy positions will help him in New Hampshire, he may have more work to do. "We don’t hear him," says Arnesen, a New Hampshire talk-show host. "Do I know what he’s carved out in the foreign-policy front? No, because it’s been dominated by the president, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, and [National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice."
With both Kerry and Lieberman making a play for the presidency in part on international issues, Dean will place a Democratic trademark at the center of his campaign — health care. Dean is a medical doctor who helped structure a prescription-drug-purchasing compact wherein Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire collectively buy prescription drugs to lower the price for consumers. While he’s from a small, obscure state, his prescription-drug-buying plan is heralded from Pennsylvania to Kentucky. More important, New Hampshire residents know of Dean and his involvement in the plan. He has an ideological advantage, too. His political roots, like those of many New Hampshirites, lie in the old Rockefeller Republican Party — left-leaning on social issues, more centrist on fiscal concerns. As a teen, he accompanied his father to the 1964 Republican Convention in San Francisco, where right-wing Goldwater delegates overpowered supporters of Lodge and New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. Horrified, he has ever since stood firmly behind liberal social positions. For example, Dean helped navigate Vermont’s embrace of civil unions for gay and lesbian couples — albeit with the help of the Vermont Supreme Court. For this and other reasons, he has become strongly identified with gay issues, an asset in his quest to raise funds and carve out a base of supporters within the Democratic Party.
And for all his lack of national renown, Dean has begun to win plaudits from national liberal pundits. "Dean may be on to something," wrote Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift on January 4. "His theme is health care and he brings a perspective that could be just what the doctor ordered."
The most dangerous thing for Dean’s opponents is that his political skills — glad-handing at local town-hall meetings, presenting complicated policy proposals in a folksy way — are the same skills that New Hampshire voters tend to reward. It’s easy to imagine him camping out in New Hampshire in the coming months, addressing small group after small group. He has the advantage over the other candidates of not having to fly back to Washington; all he has to do is make the relatively short commute from Montpelier. And Dean possesses another advantage: his medical background has left him with a warm bedside manner that could play well in New Hampshire. The combination of Dean’s engaging one-on-one personality and New Hampshire’s traditional embrace of mavericks could boost his primary chances.
"Howard Dean is earnest, Joseph Lieberman is a mensch, and John Kerry is a star," says one Democratic insider who has met all three.
On the downside for Dean — in contrast to Kerry, whose actions seep into Vermont through the Boston media — the TV stations in his state broadcast in upstate Vermont and Quebec, leaving him without easy access to New Hampshire news outlets. Plus, Kerry will be sure to do lots of television advertising during his 2002 race, even though no Republican opponent has yet emerged to challenge him. Those ads will saturate Southern New Hampshire less than a year and a half from the primary — an advantage none of his presidential rivals can claim.
Of the three Democratic candidates, who do you think will emerge as the winner? Or will they cancel each other out? Respond here in the Phoenix Forum.
