Month: January 2004

Senator John Edwards, who finished in a virtual dead heat for third place in New Hampshire with General Wesley Clark, categorically rejects the idea of running in the #2 slot in November:

Presidential candidate John Edwards (news – web sites) on Wednesday rejected any notion of sharing the Democratic ticket with front-running rival John Kerry (news – web sites) — unless he is at the top.
Asked on NBC’s “Today” show if he would accept second place on the Democratic slate to face President Bush (news – web sites) in the fall election, Edwards said: “I think you’ve got the order reversed. I intend to be the nominee.” Edwards said he would not be willing to be No. 2. “No, no. Final. I don’t want to be vice president. I’m running for president,” he said.

While candidates often pooh-pooh the idea of being a VP, this is the second time that Edwards has said he would never consider it. If he wound up in the #2 slot — a move that would definitely benefit Democrats if typical Northeastern liberals John Kerry or Howard Dean won the nomination — these tidbits could be a minor-league equivalent of “Read my lips!”
I find it rather odd that a one-term Senator from the South wouldn’t leave more of an open door on this question, answering more along the lines of this: “I’m running for President, and that’s what we’re going to focus on now. The time for selecting a Vice President will come when the nominee is selected, and at that time we’ll all have a say in that process.” Being a VP would hardly be a step down for Edwards; he’s not running for a second term in the Senate, but he does have long-term political aspirations with the Democrats. Assuming he doesn’t win the nomination, which seems a safe bet at this point after failing to capture any delegates in New Hampshire, a refusal to assist the Democrats in the South by joining the ticket does not augur well for any future electoral plans he will have. It comes across as arrogant and selfish. If Edwards wanted to build momentum for his current campaign, creating that kind of image with the DNC won’t help here, either.

All times CST…
6:56 – I’ve got Fox News on the TV and on the computer, getting set up to flip around and open several browser windows. I’m also hoping that Saint Paul comes around again to satirize me while I’m doing this. It’s too self-important to resist. Anyway, on Fox News, I’ve already found what may wind up being the funniest line of the night:

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich (search), who has been polling at 1 percent in most polls, said Tuesday his campaign has the money to carry beyond New Hampshire and insisted he won’t drop out of the race. “We’re going to do our best here and go on to the next state and the next state,” Kucinich said while in Maine. “I haven’t discounted the possibility of a surge in some of these other states.”

Stop it, Dennis, you’re killing me. What qualifies as a Kucinich “surge”? 2%?
7:01 – Kerry 38%, Dean 24%, Edwards 13%, with 13% of all precincts reporting. No word on absentee ballots. It’s the same order as Fox’s exit polling, but their exit polls have it 36%-29% Kerry over Dean.
7:08 – Kerry’s campaign predicts an “early night,” according to Fox, meaning they think it’s all wrapped up. CNN has the same numbers as Fox with 14% reporting. Clark is narrowly behind Edwards for third place.
7:27 – Kerry still holding at 39% with 24% of the precincts reporting, and the others are holding at the same levels as before. CNN is calling it for Kerry. Don’t know how I feel about that — it seems rather quick, but so far the numbers aren’t changing that much. Fox News is calling it as well. A 15% gap doesn’t bode well for Dean, but a second-place finish is probably enough to keep him going.
7:37 – Kerry will be addressing his supporters in about 10 minutes. I am now babysitting the Little Admiral, so blogging will be short and to the point. If these numbers hold up, then Kerry will have a full head of steam rolling into the first Super Tuesday. It’s looking like I picked the correct order, and even the correct percentages for everyone except Kerry. It looks like both Clark and Lieberman are done. I doubt Clark will withdraw — there are few creatures more egotistical than a general, after all — but Lieberman is much more of a realist.
7:47 – Fox News exit polls shows that military households went 35% Kerry, 25% Dean, and only 15% Clark. So much for the General outranking the Lieutenant.
8:02 – Still waiting for Kerry to speak to his supporters. He’s a rock star, I tell ya. Never out on time.
9:01 – Okay, I had to do some serious baby-sitting stuff, like changing toxic-waste diapers, and the like. It felt strangely like politics to me … I see that Clark has edged out Edwards for third place but still only got 13% of the vote. It looks like Clark may be fading away, like old generals are supposed to do, Dean wound up twelve points behind Kerry, which does not bode too well for Deaniacs. Overall, their candidate made up very little ground since tanking eight days ago. He’s still in the race, of course, and has a big organization and lots of money, but he will need to translate that into an actual victory somewhere next week.
9:06 – Dean’s taking the podium now. Let’s see if he’s learned anything in eight days.
9:23. Dean handled losing much better this time than in Iowa, but he’s still losing. I couldn’t listen to most of it, as my granddaughter insisted that Grampa pay attention to HER. Chris Matthews mentions that the only demographics that Dean won tonight were those voters who describe themselves as very liberal (40% of those) and the youngest . Not too much of a surprise there, although Hardball all said he would go even harder after the far-left segment. I disagree; he will need to get more support from the moderates if he wants to beat Kerry.
One of the fools on the show said that Bush had to be worried about New Hampshire now, given the “energy” of the Democrats after this primary. Hogwash. A large number of voters (35%) only made up their minds in the last three days, hardly an indicator of passion. The number one issue on NH voters’ minds today was … health care/Medicare but only by 28%, hardly a passionate subject. Where this energy can be found is beyond me.
Bottom line: Kerry is in the driver’s seat, Dean’s tagging along for now, and everyone else is window dressing from this point forward. Edwards and Clark couldn’t even crack the 15% threshold.

As Professor Bainbridge will attempt to do, I will be live blogging during the New Hampshire primary results once the polls close. I’ll probably concentrate on media reactions and coverage (my channel-flipping skills will be put to the test tonight). The wise Professor also has his predictions and a list of others, including mine.

Senator John Kerry continues to make odd statements about the Iraq war, trying to reconcile his vote authorizing it with his current anti-war platform:

Kerry said that the administration had promised to go through the United Nations first, and then didn’t do it, but he added that at the time Saddam Hussein constituted a threat.
“From 1991 to 1998, we had inspectors in Iraq blowing up weapons of mass destruction,” Kerry said. “A lot of people seem to have forgotten that. We destroyed plenty of weapons of mass destruction in those 7½ years. We found more weapons than we thought Saddam had, and evidence of a nuclear program. “

Kerry is either lying or being deliberately obtuse. Bush went to the UN twice. In December, he pushed through UNSC resolution 1441, demanding immediate and full compliance from Saddam Hussein with the previous 16 UNSC resolutions. Inspectors were supposed to report on full compliance, not become detectives conducting search warrants for the entirety of Iraq. When UNSCOM inspectors found evidence of evasion and banned weapons, Bush went back to the UN to get them to finally recognize, after a dozen years, that Saddam was in material breach of the resolutions and the cease-fire that left him in power.
Note that Kerry, in attempting to bolster his vote, acknowledges that Saddam had WMDs until 1998, when he threw UNSCOM inspectors out of Iraq. Any reasonable interpretation would not include that Iraq was complying but were too shy to do so while UN inspectors were around. Certainly the Clinton administration and Congress in 1998 didn’t take that interpretation.
And then Kerry said something truly bizarre, in the next breath:

“I voted for the process,” Kerry said. “Go to the UN, build a coalition, and go to war as a last resort. George Bush broke his promise and went around us. He set the date for the war, not Saddam Hussein [emph. mine].”

So what Kerry proposes is to wait until we’re attacked before taking any action? Maybe in a non-proliferated era we had the luxury of trusting the wide oceans to act as a buffer for any attack, but 9/11 should have taught everyone the folly of that philosophy. An attack from Saddam would not have begun with an invasion of Kuwait or missile attacks on American troops in the Persian Gulf — it would have begun on our soil, especially if Saddam retained WMD capability. Such a statement indicates why John Kerry and the Democrats cannot be trusted on national security; they’re living in the past.

The New Hampshire Union-Leader reports that there has been no unusual demand for absentee ballots for this primary:

Election officials from around New Hampshire have received an average number of requests for absentee ballots this primary season. … “I would typify it as average,” Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said, regarding the number of requests for absentee ballots.

Why does this matter? Absentee ballots are immune to last-minute eruptions, even going back a week or more, as voters complete them and mail them in early to assure their acceptance. Presumably, a large number of absentee voters marked their ballots prior to Dean’s meltdown in Iowa and his odd acceptance speech. Since support ran stronger for Dean in the Granite State at that point, a high number of absentee ballots would have helped Dean. As it is, he can probably count on a small boost from absentee voters when they’re processed; Clark may be the other beneficiary. I’ll try to keep an eye on those numbers if they’re broken out separately in tonight’s tallies.