Capitol Letter: Post-Iowa Politics

Nothing happened in last night's Democratic debate to change the dynamics of the race, except that Wesley Clark may have joined Howard Dean in the penalty box when he declined to distance himself from supporter Michael Moore's characterization of President Bush as a "deserter." A more nimble politician wouldn't have made that mistake.

Newly anointed front runner John Kerry wasn't a target the way Dean was when he had the lead. With negative attacks backfiring in Iowa, everybody was on his best behavior. "Nice try," Joe Lieberman replied amiably as ABC's Peter Jennings pressed him to critique his rivals on their ability to push back against the GOP on values issues.

Along with an air of exhaustion, there was a sense the candidates didn't quite know what to do now that they didn't have Dean to kick around any more. Dean's poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, followed by a primal-scream concession speech, fueled the notion that the former Vermont governor is not presidential material.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," the Rev. Al Sharpton told Dean. "If I spent the money you did in Iowa and got 18 percent, I'd still be hooting and hollering." All Dean could muster in his defense was, "I am not a perfect person," a preview of what viewers would see later in the evening when Dean and his wife sat for an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer.

Dean told Sawyer that he was "a little sheepish" about his "I Have a Scream" speech, but he was not apologizing. He and his physician wife, Dr. Judy Steinberg Dean, came across as down to earth and utterly normal, the kind of people the country would be lucky to have serve but who are out of their element in the gotcha game of presidential politics. It's one thing to lose, it's another to become an object of ridicule. Dean's hog-calling yelp, played over and over on cable stations, crystallized in people's minds what they found worrisome about him.

I was in the Des Moines hall Monday night when Dean was trying to cheer up his demoralized supporters, and his passionate cry to fight on seemed appropriate. It seemed to work in the hall, but was way too hot for television. By the next morning, the consensus was that Dean had howled his way out of contention. Dean's prickly personality didn't wear well. That's one reason we have campaigns--to test people's mettle.

The voters are making a discerning choice about who could be president, and it's not Dean. "Memo to Democrats: don't let Al Gore darken your campaign," cracked one Senate aide. Gore's early endorsement of Dean set up a dynamic where stopping Dean took on a new urgency. He had an unprecedented amount of stuff thrown at him while the other candidates got a free ride. He didn't handle it well, and doubts about his electability mushroomed.

The Iowa results also upended Wesley Clark, who thought he would be the anti-Dean in a two-man race. Now he's in a competitive four-way contest, and he's not the only decorated veteran. Clark made a serious misstep by calling into question Kerry's credentials and pulling rank on him. Anything is possible, but it's hard to develop a scenario for Clark going the distance unless he finishes close to Kerry in New Hampshire.

The Republican attack machine is gearing up. The plan is to "Dukakisize" Kerry, turning him into a clone of the wonkish former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis who lost to Bush's father in 1988. If John Edwards is the nominee, the GOP will portray him as "The Breck Girl," turning his good looks against him and portraying him as lightweight. "I believe the White House would least like to run against Edwards," says a Republican strategist. As the son of a mill worker, Edwards is best able to mount an attack on Bush's Achilles heel: the perception that he's on the side of corporate interests against the little guy. Assailing Edwards as a sleazy trial lawyer won't work, the strategist believes: "Look at all the lawyer shows on television. People like guys suing the big guys, and he knows how to play to a jury."

The other line of attack on Edwards, just as dicey, would be painting him as a lightweight, then asking voters: in a time of terror, do you trust someone who just got involved in politics? It's the strategy that was used against Bush in 2000, and it didn't work, says the GOP strategist. "They'll paint Edwards as light, that he lacks gravitas, but when Edwards shows up for the debate, he's not going to be a lightweight."

Kerry is easier to demonize. He has a long record of conventionally liberal votes. His campaign was rescued by the Kennedy machine. "He's Kennedy's Mini-Me," says the GOP strategist. Details from his time as leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 will be spread around in a way to make him appear duplicitous. Early on, when Kerry first appeared to be the front runner, Republicans salivated at the prospect of running a cultural war against him. One GOP operative was quoted saying, "He looks French."

Bush's State of the Union address, delivered the night after the Iowa vote, offered a taste of what we're in for during the coming months. It was a speech for the Republican base: steroid use among athletes, defense of marriage as a union between a man and woman, pie-in-the-sky re-entry programs for prisoners, with very little about the economy and no mention of the more than 500 dead and thousands more injured in Iraq. It was an in-your-face political argument written with Dean in mind but adaptable to any of the Democrats.