Washington Wrap
Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Beth Lester, Clothilde Ewing, Sean Sharifi and Jamie English of the CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.
Tuesday's Headlines
* Poll Watch: How Good a Day for John Kerry?
* National Polls Make News, Too
* Showdown at the S.C. Corral
* South Carolina Drops Loyalty Oath
* Dean Says Maybe New Mexico will Come Through
* Mo Money, Mo Ads
Poll Watch: Kerry Ahead in Five, Close in South Carolina and Oklahoma: As voting gets under way in seven states, the polls show what is essentially an expectations game. John Kerry is ahead in five states: Missouri, Delaware, Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico. Today's Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll (conducted Jan. 31 through Feb. 2, margin of error 4.1 percent) shows Kerry up by 39 points in Missouri and 14 points in Arizona. American Research Group's poll (conducted Jan. 28 through Jan. 29, margin of error 4 percent) has Kerry up by 11 points in Delaware and a Fargo Forum poll from North Dakota last week showed Kerry leading by 16 points. In New Mexico, the Senator's has overcome an early surge from Howard Dean: The Albuquerque Journal (conducted Jan. 28 through Jan. 29, margin of error 4.4 percent) has Kerry leading the former governor by 16 points. Despite this, the Dean campaign believes it may have a chance, telling reporters yesterday during satellite interviews that he thought he might have a shot.
Beyond those five, in two contests the picture gets cloudy. In South Carolina, Tuesday's Zogby poll has Edwards up by four and yesterday's CBS News poll (conducted Jan. 31 through Feb. 1, margin of error 4 percent) shows the same margin. Black turnout could be the key: Edwards has a strong lead with white voters but is running third behind Kerry and Sharpton with blacks. In Oklahoma, a duel between Kerry and Wesley Clark appears to be under way. American Research Group (conducted Jan. 31 through Feb. 1, margin of error 4 percent) shows a three-point margin, with Clark up 28 percent to 25 percent, and Tuesday's Zogby poll shows Clark clinging to a two-point lead over Kerry, 31 percent to 29 percent.
Glancing ahead to Michigan and Feb. 7 voting, as the Dean team is desperately trying to do (in part because Michigan allows Internet voting), the polls now make a Dean win there look difficult. A new Detroit News/Mitchell Poll (conducted Jan. 31 through Feb. 1, margin of error 6 percent) found that Kerry's momentum and the endorsement of the Gov. Jennifer Granholm is working: Kerry leads with a huge 56 percent of the vote to Dean's 13.
South Carolina
Zogby – South Carolina 1/31-2/1 (600 interviews)
Edwards 36
Kerry 32
Dean 8
Clark 8
Sharpton 8
Undecided (factored out)
CBS News – South Carolina 1/31-2/1 (777 interviews)
Edwards 28
Kerry 24
Sharpton 13
Clark 10
Dean 8
Undecided 11
Missouri
Zogby – Missouri 1/31-2/1 (600 interviews)
Kerry 56
Edwards 17
Dean 9
Clark 6
Sharpton 4
Undecided (factored out)
LA Times/CNN – Missouri 1/28-1/30 (545 interviews)
Kerry 37
Edwards 11
Dean 7
Clark 6
Lieberman 6
Undecided 30
Oklahoma
Zogby – Oklahoma 1/31-2/1 (600 interviews)
Clark 31
Kerry 29
Edwards 26
Lieberman 6
Dean 6
Undecided (factored out)
ARG – Oklahoma 1/31-2/1 (600 interviews)
Clark 28
Kerry 25
Edwards 21
Dean 8
Lieberman 7
Undecided 9
Arizona
Zogby – Arizona 1/31-2/1 (600 interviews)
Kerry 42
Clark 28
Dean 15
Edwards 7
Lieberman 6
Undecided (factored out)
Delaware
ARG – Delaware 1/28-29 (600 interviews)
Kerry 27
Lieberman 16
Dean 14
Edwards 9
Clark 8
Undecided 24
New Mexico
Albuquerque Journal 1/28-29 (500 interviews)
Kerry 31%
Dean 15
Clark 14
Edwards 7
Undecided 27
North Dakota
Fargo Forum-WDAY 1/26, 128 (640 interviews)
Undecided 40
Kerry 31
Clark 15
Edwards 6
Dean 5
Michigan
Detroit News/Mitchell 1/31-2/1 (300 interviews)
Kerry 56
Dean 13
Edwards 6
Clark 3
Undecided 19
Kerry Leads Bush in National Polls, Edwards and Clark are Statistically Tied with Bush in Two: John Kerry's momentum can barely get better. Less than a month and a half after been written off by many pundits, three new national polls show that Kerry is in a very strong position both to win his party's nomination and potentially to take on President Bush. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (conducted Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, margin of error 4 percent) shows that Kerry comfortably leads his peers, 49 percent to Dean with 14 percent. In a hypothetical matchup with President Bush, things look good as well: 53 percent of those picked Kerry and 46 percent favored Mr. Bush. In a similar hypothetical match-up, Edwards gets 49 percent to Mr. Bush's 48 percent. Interestingly Mr. Bush leads Clark by only 50 to 47 and Dean, who has had a bad few weeks, only trails Mr. Bush by 52 to 45. This may suggest that either Dean is a stronger candidate than many think or that Mr. Bush is in for a very tough election fight no matter who the Democrat is.
A new Quinnipiac University poll (conducted Jan. 28 through Jan. 31, margin of error 2.8 percent) also has good news for Kerry. Quinnipiac finds that Kerry would win a contest with Mr. Bush 51 percent to 43 percent, a significant improvement from his Jan.26 hypothetical loss to the president, 49 percent to 45 percent. Mr. Bush beats all other Democrats in the Quinnipiac survey with a 49 to 44 percent lead over Dean, a 47 to 45 percent lead over Edwards, and a 48 to 45 percent lead over Clark. In the Democratic primary, the numbers mirror those of CNN, with Kerry leading Dean 42 to 11 (that section has a margin of error of 4.8 percent) for the party's nomination.
In a third poll, Newsweek (conducted Jan. 28 through Jan. 29, margin of error 3 percent) finds that Kerry and Mr. Bush would be statistically tied, with Kerry ahead by about 48 to 46. Edwards polls second-best against the 43rd president, with 44 percent to Mr. Bush's 49. "The other Democratic candidates lag by double-digit percentage points," with Dean down by 12. Among Democrats, Kerry holds a consistent, large lead, 45 percent to Dean's 14, with Edwards a close third with 11.
Showdown at the S.C. Corral?: The Washington Post's David Broder interviewed John Edwards on Monday and reports: "If the native son of South Carolina loses the presidential primary here to John F. Kerry -- a possibility that his entourage nervously acknowledges is real -- the decision will be simple. Edwards will congratulate Kerry, quickly endorse the Massachusetts senator as the Democratic nominee and head home."
Edwards tells Broder that if he loses to Kerry in the Palmetto State "he will feel no shame … in losing to a man he regards as an upright politician, worthy of the presidency. But if he beats Kerry in South Carolina, Edwards said he looks forward to challenging him for the top spot — no matter what the odds against his success."
If Edwards manages to win in South Carolina, he plans to depart the state for Memphis, Tenn., immediately. There, he will begin focusing on two more Southern states holding primaries next Tuesday: Tennessee and Virginia. Edwards tells Broder that he does not expect to win delegate-heavy Michigan on Saturday, Maine on Sunday or Washington State on Feb. 10. But, of the Southern states, Edwards says, "The geography is good for me."
Meanwhile, Edwards departed – briefly – from his all-positive-all-the-time campaign theme on Tuesday when he attacked Kerry's acceptance of contributions from lobbyists and free-trade policies that he claimed cost American jobs, particularly in trade-devastated South Carolina, the AP reports.
Kerry gave fodder to reporters looking for a fight. In a whispered aside to aide David Wade he said, "Edwards says he's the only one who can win states in the South. He can't even in his own state."
Some Edwards aides were a little distressed over the candidates' chattiness to Broder. "He's on a lot of antibiotics," one quipped.
Swear No More: The Greenville News reports that the South Carolina Democratic Party has canceled its loyalty Oath on the day of the primary. The oath, which was heavily criticized within the party, would have required each voter to pledge his or her loyalty to the Democratic Party before voting in the primary. State Party Chairman Joe Erwin told a Columbia news conference that the loyalty oath would not be required due to "confusion" over the oath's intent. Critics of the oath believe that it was rescinded because it would have deterred independents from voting. Clark and Edwards' forces both lobbied to get the oath dropped.
South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson suggested that the loyalty oath is reminiscent of the Democrats' old reading tests and poll taxes. Dawson said, "Their oath was a painful reminder of the hateful politics of the past. I am heartened that the State Democratic Party would move quickly to correct it. Race relations have come a long way in South Carolina and the last thing anyone would want is for our State to take a step backwards."
The polls in South Carolina will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Dean Keeps Hope Alive In New Mexico: Howard Dean changed course on Monday and said he might be able to win New Mexico, despite pulling his advertising and having all but given up hope of winning any of the Feb. 3 contests, reports CBS News' Eric Salzman. Over the past couple of days, the campaign has talked about a strategy that looks beyond Tuesday's contests to races that will be held over the next two weeks in Michigan, Washington State, Maine and Wisconsin. Dean did take pains to point out that he has not given entirely up on Feb. 3 states such as South Carolina and that he hopes to get 15 percent of the vote there.
Dean talked up his flagging fortunes during 21 satellite interviews with stations from Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington State, South Carolina, Missouri and Minnesota. In the interviews, he stuck to the new campaign line of attacking Kerry for his ties to special interests and hyping the wonderful job the Dean campaign is doing fundraising, claiming that "the money is rolling in, that's never been a problem." New campaign chief Roy Neel sent a "blog" to Dean supporters saying they had raised over $3 million in the last few weeks and would start paying staff again.
And as a candidate who has paraded his endorsements around over the last couple of months, he took a line from his contenders saying that "endorsements don't mean that much," but that he was hoping to win the endorsement of Maine Gov. John Baldacci. Meanwhile he told an audience in Lacrosse, Wis. that he would "probably" live in Wisconsin for a week before the primary and that a win there would "change the whole dynamic of the race."
Dean also said he believed the race wouldn't be decided till at least March 2. This mirrors what he said this past Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press. In that interview he went one step further, saying he was not going to stay in the race all the way until the convention just to prove a point. "I'm not going to do anything that's going to harm the Democratic Party if we get blown out again and again and again. You know, if somebody else gets more delegates and they clinch it, of course, I'm not going to go all the way to the convention just to prove a point. But I'm going to be in this race as long as I think I can win."
Mo Money, Mo Ads: As voters head to the polls today in seven states, they will have seen an enormous number of television advertisements, mostly concentrated over the past week, the Los Angeles Times reports. Clark leads the pack with a total ad spending of $5.7 million, with $2.7 spent in the Feb. 3 states since Jan. 25.
Front-runner Kerry, though leading in the polls, has spent considerably less on advertising. Prior to Jan. 25, Kerry had not advertised in any of the states voting today. The Kerry folks will not give out figures but according to the Times, he has spent more than $590,000 to advertise in all the Feb. 3 states combined this week. He has purchased larger buys in Missouri, Arizona, South Carolina, Oklahoma and New Mexico and smaller buys in Delaware and North Dakota.
Edwards, hoping for a win in at least one state Tuesday, has spent about $1.5 million — "more than" $490,000 during the past week — with over half in South Carolina and Oklahoma. Edwards' recent spending comes on top of the approximately $900,000 that the campaign spent to advertise prior to Jan. 25.
Joe Lieberman, who quietly spent $1.5 million in three states (South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arizona) before Jan. 25, has now spent an additional $410,000 in the past week, concentrating on Arizona and Oklahoma. He has also been on TV and radio in Delaware. Rounding out the pack, Dennis Kucinich "spent $25,000 on ads in New Mexico and Oklahoma" in the past week.
Missing from the ad melee is Dean. Prior to Jan. 25, Dean had put $3.25 million into television advertising in four Feb. 3 states: Arizona ($1.15 million), South Carolina ($640,000), New Mexico ($500,000), and Oklahoma ($120,000). After his spending spree in Iowa and New Hampshire, Dean pulled his advertisements a week ago and is concentrating on post-Feb. 3 states. Television advertising is tbd.
Quote of the Day: "I narrowed it down to John Edwards and General Clark -- and I finally voted for John Kerry." -- Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., an ex-Gephardt backer who voted absentee, AP, 2/3