Following the campaign, October 25
From Karin Caifa:
ATTACKING THE ATTACK ADS
Dean’s New Hampshire ads regarding activity in Iraq have rankled at least one candidate, and it’s not who you think. Nope, it’s not John Kerry. It’s Dennis Kucinich. At a press conference in Portsmouth, N.H., on Friday, Kucinich made a call for the Dean campaign to pull the ads from the air, saying it distorts Kucinich’s stance as the only member of Congress in the race who voted against the war in Iraq. There’s a line in Dean’s ad that’s really gotten under Kucinich’s skin. It’s this: “The best my opponents can do is ask questions today that they should have asked before they supported the war.” In a press release prior to the ad coming out, the campaign said it would “set Governor Dean apart from the Washington candidates running for President.” Kucinich has taken great offense to that assertion. He says his candidacy has been defined by his anti-war stance. It was a speech in February 2002 advising against military involvement in Iraq that got a “Draft Kucinich” movement up and running. And he went as far as suing President Bush for going to war without a congressional declaration. He said it’s not just him who should be offended by Dean’s ad ... it’s also other anti-war candidates like Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun. The campaign is calling the Dean ads “blatantly, baldly false,” and Kucinich called Dean’s credibility into question because of them. “When Gov. Dean denied his own position on the retirement age for Social Security during the AFL-CIO debate, he apparently thought no one would notice,” Kucinich said in a statement before his press conference Friday. “Now he is trying to oppose the occupation of Iraq in television ads but support it in debates and in conversations with newspaper editors. Does he imagine that no one will notice these contradictions? We already have a problem with the current president using this war for political gain, saying one thing and doing another.” The Kucinich camp got the wheels in motion by having legal counsel send letters to all the television stations that serve New Hamsphire — about 15 of them — asking them to cease and desist from running the ad. “Kucinich has made his opposition to the war the primary focus of his presidential campaign, and to allege that he supported the war is significantly damaging to his reputation,” said the letter from Donald J. McTigue. These letters went out about 6:30 Friday morning and McTigue told me late Friday he had not heard back from anyone yet. Most stations I talked to (including WMUR and WHDH) said it was a matter they would forward to their own legal counsel but they will continue to run the ads. The congressman said at the press conference that he’ll take it next to the FTC and the FCC and plans to confront Dean about it at the debate in Detroit on Sunday. If the ads aren’t pulled, Kucinich is looking for equal time. Cohen told me all of this could go away if the Dean campaign fixes or pulls the ads. “It’s not difficult to choose words that are accurate,” he said.
N.H. PUSH
Kucinich has been campaigning heavily in New Hamsphire over the last week and will be there for two days next week. Zobgy poll numbers out Friday have him not even registering at 1 percent there and his name recognition was by far the least among the nine candidates (59 percent are unfamiliar with him, according to the poll.) Cohen told me that the numbers out today aren’t going to be the final numbers in that state. The campaign also blames the mainstream media for tagging Dean as the anti-war candidate while ignoring Kucinich. Why would a campaign barely registering in the New Hampshire polls try to take on one that surged to 40% this month? “When you talk to Dean staffers and volunteers they know they’re in a battle with Dennis Kucinich for liberal, progressive, anti-war Democrats,” Cohen told me. You also have to keep in mind that this is a campaign that had only $800,000 cash on hand at the end of the third quarter, done very little ad spending, mostly less expensive radio ads. This could be a way to pick up some attention in the Granite State.
RUMBLE IN N.H. AND DETROIT?
If the Dean campaign doesn’t pull the ads, Kucinich said he’ll bend the former governor’s ear on the matter over the weekend. Kucinich says the two will cross paths at the New Hampshire AFL-CIO event in Whitefield on Saturday and at the DNC debate in Detroit on Sunday. If Kucinich takes the issue to the stage in Detroit, it wouldn’t be the first time Kucinich has pressed Dean at a debate. At the debate in Phoenix on Oct. 9, Kucinich sparred with Dean, engaging him in a spat over the proposed $87 billion for Iraq. Kucinich said that Dean had made a flip-flop in his position between the Sept. 25 CNBC/Wall Street Journal debate and an article in the morning’s New York Times. “Mr. Dean has said that he says what he believes,” Kucinich said. “I want to ask him, do you believe in spending $87 billion to keep our troops in Iraq? Because I don’t. Do you?” When the former Vermont governor replied he would keep the troops there “if the president was willing to pay for it,” Kucinich continued to press for an answer until moderator Judy Woodruff redirected the questioning.
KUCINICH TURNS DOWN “HARDBALL”
Kucinich is just saying “no” to an appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” He will not appear on show from Harvard University, as the eight other candidates have agreed to do. The campaign has not seen eye-to-eye with host Chris Matthews for awhile now, and campaign press secretary David Swanson has described the host as having a “conservative agenda,” not in line with the liberal, progressive stance Kucinich is taking. The campaign could still be sore over comments Matthews made during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show in late September. Matthews cited Dean as the only anti-war candidate in the race. Swanson was quick to point out, “Howard Dean waffled on war. Dennis is the one on all of those issues.” Matthews agreed to clarify on “Hardball,” but Kucinich’s campaign wanted the much larger “Today” show audience to hear the clarification, either from Matthews or during an appearance by Kucinich. “It’s not the place of the media to decide the elections, it’s the decision of the voters,” told me. Many are wondering if it’s wise for the congressman, lagging in the polls, to pass up an hour on national television. But this is a campaign that sticks to its principles, so don’t expect the campaign to retreat on the matter.
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