By being a prime mover of the resolution authorizing the force against Iraq (81 House Democrats for, 126 against), Dick Gephardt annoyed his party’s “peace” wing, which believes that the United States is the world’s foremost rogue nation. That wing’s vehemence has, he says, surprised him. But he has passed the threshold test for a general-election candidate: seriousness about national security.
His bold proposal for universal health care provided by employers–who would be subsidized by a tax credit paid for by repealing all of Bush’s 2001 tax cuts–has forced his rivals to seem emulative and has burnished his credentials as a Bush critic. Would Gephardt also repeal Bush’s May tax-cutting trifecta–reducing rates on capital gains, dividends and personal income? “I think so,” he says.
Gephardt has the support of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and 28 other members, most of whom are skilled fund-raisers and all of whom will be convention delegates. Speaking in his L Street campaign office, he says he is doing well in Iowa’s Johnson County–Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa and a strong antiwar contingent–where he remembers finishing third while winning the 1988 caucuses. Victory is in the mastery of such details. He has been around this track before.
The schedule of early nominating events–probably the only ones that will matter–may favor Gephardt. In 1988 he won Iowa (next year, Jan. 19), where the UAW is strong. In New Hampshire (Jan. 27), both Vermont’s Howard Dean and Massachusetts’s John Kerry must win, and both can’t. In South Carolina (Feb. 3), where almost 40 percent of the primary vote will be black, Gephardt has the support of 16 of the 26 members of the state’s black mayors’ conference–and his campaign is run by Ike Williams, chief political operative of the state’s foremost black leader, Rep. Jim Clyburn, who Gephardt says “is a good friend.” How good? Gephardt is asked. “We’ll find out,” he says with a matter-of-factness that suggests confidence.
In Arizona (Feb. 3) Ed Pastor, the state’s Hispanic congressman, supports Gephardt. Michigan–Midwestern, strong labor vote, Gephardt won there in 1988–has moved its caucuses up to Feb. 7. Wisconsin–Midwestern, strong labor vote, like Michigan, strong liberal tradition–has moved its primary up to Feb. 17. Gephardt feels strong in Oklahoma (Feb. 3)–“It’s really a Midwestern state”–where labor is important in primaries and has been energized by recently losing a right-to-work battle in the legislature.
Gephardt thinks he is favored by rank-and-file union members. But only twice has the AFL-CIO endorsed a Democrat before the nomination, choosing Walter Mondale over Gary Hart in 1983 and Al Gore over Bill Bradley in 1999. If it endorses someone this year, Gephardt says laconically, “I think I have a chance.” Does anyone else? “I don’t think so.” The AFL-CIO’s most flourishing union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, might act alone. Its leader, Gerald McEntee, showed an eye for the main chance in 1992 when he broke ranks and endorsed Bill Clinton early.
Democrats hope 2004 will resemble 1992, when a fast-fading war glow and economic anxieties defeated an incumbent. But Democrats could make 2004 resemble 1972. Then their nominating electorate, blinded by its loathing of Richard Nixon, and contemptuous of the nation that elected him, went on a ruinous ideological toot with George McGovern. Dean is the McGovern option this time.
Why does the Democratic base so loathe Bush? Gephardt says it is not memories of 2000 (“It was,” he says, “a tied election, and someone had to lose finally”). “It’s [Karl] Rove,” he says. “Not Rove as a person, but a style.” Meaning a “manipulative” way with the media. Gephardt is, however, impatient with those who obsess about such minutiae: “I’d rather be debating health care than whether George Bush should have been in a helicopter or a plane to go to the aircraft carrier.”
On abortion (once he favored a constitutional amendment to ban it; now he would ban only partial-birth abortions) and taxes (once he favored simplification and lower rates; now he favors higher rates and complexity in the service of social policy), Gephardt has shown some flexibility. Some of his current proposals (e.g., “an international minimum wage”) are loopy, but so are many Democratic activists, who must be fed.
Gephardt, from America’s middle border, is not Southern–since Kennedy in 1960, the three Democrats elected president have been Southerners–but his placid demeanor and flat cadences project a blend of economic populism and traditional values. And as Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska who competed against Gephardt for the 1988 nomination, says, “At the end of the day, you like Gephardt.” Which matters, as Democrats learned with their last nominee.
