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Democrats rush to beat Bush, let Kerry avoid traditional tests thus far
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Edited | User 13 Feb 10, 2004 02:54pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Tuesday, February 10, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | In an anti-Bush voting spree, Democrats are racing through their front-loaded election calendar to crown a presidential nominee -- making John Kerry all but unstoppable in the delegate chase.
But their rush to judgment could backfire in the heat of a general election contest if Kerry escapes the nomination fight untested by a front-runner's usual pitfalls: gaffes, mini-scandals and buyers' remorse.
While a confident Kerry looks ahead to the fall, laying plans for a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against President Bush, his rivals are begging voters to take a second look. They have one week to slow Kerry's momentum, or the race may be over.
"You have the power to keep this debate alive," Howard Dean said Monday in Wisconsin, site of a Feb. 17 primary that every campaign views as a decisive showdown. Dean, the race's dominating force until his sudden fall a month ago, blamed the media and pundits for the premature coronation.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark complained that "this election is flashing past so fast that for so many Americans they can hardly tell the difference between the candidates." Sen. John Edwards' spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said voters "need to let this process go a while to make sure we're ferreting out the best candidate."
But the process wasn't designed to go a while.
Led by chairman Terry McAuliffe, party leaders eliminated the traditional weeks-long gap between New Hampshire's primary and subsequent elections to ensure a nominee emerges by mid-March.
Without that lull, there was nothing to stop Kerry's momentum once he won Iowa and New Hampshire. He piled up eight more victories against two losses -- and was poised to take two Southern states Tuesday.
Polls show Kerry comfortably ahead in Virginia and Tennessee while aides for the race's two Southerners, Edwards and Clark, privately acknowledge they expect to lose. That would cripple both candidacies, and give Kerry the standing to claim he is the only viable candi |
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