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.
* Iowa Polls Are Old News, It's On To New Hampshire
* Gephardt Bows Out; No Endorsement Expected
* Dems Might Have Controlled Monday, But Tuesday is Bush League
* New Hampshire Is Center Stage as The Candidates Move To The Second Round
* Iowa's Results Give Lieberman Hope
* For Edwards and Kerry There's No Rest for the Weary
* New York Gov Race, Still Two Years Out, Already Heating Up
Poll Watch – Iowa's Over, What's New Hampshire Thinking?: Even before the caucus results were known in Iowa, John Kerry continued to rise in New Hampshire. The newest American Research Group poll (conducted Jan. 17 through Jan. 19, margin of error 4%) shows Howard Dean still leading with 28 points. The big change is in second place, with John Kerry moving ahead of Wesley Clark, 20 points to 19. John Edwards remains in fourth with 8 percent. According to pollster Dick Bennett, all the ARG interviews were conducted before the results of the Iowa caucuses were available. Another new poll, from WBZ/Boston Globe (conducted Jan. 18 through Jan. 19, margin of error 5%) showed Dean with 28, Clark with 21 and Kerry with 20. The WBZ pollster Gerry Chervinsky told CBS News that the poll is staring to show "real movement" for Kerry. All of the interviews were conducted before the results of Iowa were known. In the newest 7News/Suffolk University Poll, the numbers also seem to be changing in Kerry's favor. The Suffolk poll (conducted Jan. 18 through Jan. 19, margin of error 4.9%) shows a three-point difference between Dean and Kerry, 20 to 23. As pollster David Paleologos told CBS News "this place is shifting so much." More than half of the polling was done before any Iowa results were known. As the Senators John Edwards and Kerry head East, it remains to be seen how much bounce – if any - Iowa will provide in New Hampshire.
American Research Group 1/17-1/19 (600 interviews)
Dean 28
Kerry 20
Clark 19
Edwards 8
Undecided 13
WBZ/Boston Herald 1/18-1/19 (400 interviews)
Dean 28
Clark 21
Kerry 20
Edwards 8
Undecided 14
Suffolk University 1/18-1/19 (400 interviews)
Dean 23
Kerry 20
Clark 15
Edwards 6
Lieberman 6
Undecided 26
Gephardt Bows Out: Rep. Dick Gephardt's devastating fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses on Monday ended his presidential campaign – and potentially his political career. The 14-term congressman and two-time failed presidential candidate is expected to officially drop out of the race at 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday in his hometown of St. Louis.
Gephardt is not expected to endorse any of his rivals on Tuesday, nor anytime soon. But, always the loyal soldier, Gephardt pledged on Monday night to support the eventual nominee who emerges from his rivals. "One of them will wind up carrying the banner of the great Democratic Party in this election and they will have earned it," Gephardt said. "I will support that candidate any way that I can."
Gephardt's candidacy was no doubt hampered by a weak showing from union members in his favor at last night's caucuses. CBS News exit polls showed that 23 percent of caucus-goers belonged to unions, but Gephardt – a fierce union backer for much of his career – lost to Kerry among members who did show by a 29 percent to 22 percent margin. John Edwards also won 22 percent of union household support, and Dean received 19 percent.
Another problem for Gephardt was the relatively low importance of one of his pet issues – foreign trade. While Gephardt won nearly half of the support from voters who cited trade as the most decisive issue in the race, these voters made up only 4 percent of the overall caucus electorate.
A source with the Edwards campaign tells CBS News that at some Iowa precincts, Gephardt backers moved to their team when it became clear the Missouri congressman did not have a chance of winning.
CBS News Campaign Reporter Ben Ferguson reports that some of Gephardt's young, lower-level staffers are interested in joining Edwards' campaign, but that for now his senior staff will remain unaffiliated. A senior Gephardt aide tells CBS News not to expect a wholesale organizational shift to the Edwards campaign along the lines of the Bob Graham-Wesley Clark shift in late 2003.
State of the Union: One day after the Democrats formally began their presidential nomination process in Iowa, President Bush began his 2004 campaign with his fourth State of the Union address. The address laid out his election year agenda: reaffirming his policies on Iraq, support for tax cuts, opposition to same sex marriages, support for funding to teach sexual abstinence in the schools, and opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens.
Mr. Bush hits the road this week to underscore those themes. He will travel to Ohio, Arizona, and New Mexico on Wednesday and Thursday.
Meanwhile, Back East … : While John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt battled it out in Iowa, Wesley Clark and Al Sharpton took advantage of their absence and campaigned in two East Coast states holding key primaries in the next two weeks, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Clark began the day with formal rival, Carol Moseley Braun, who signed on to help the Dean campaign in South Carolina after she dropped out of the race, as the two celebrated Martin Luther King at a church service in South Carolina. Before flying back to New Hampshire, Clark then joined Sharpton as the two spoke at the NAACP's anti-Confederate flag rally, urging the audience to continue to fight for equal rights by voting in South Carolina's Feb. 3 presidential primary, reports The State.
Meanwhile, all roads lead to New Hampshire as Wesley Clark starts competing in a state that he and Joe Lieberman have had virtually to themselves for the past two weeks. Basking in the glow of a well-publicized surge, Clark and his aides know that everything will change on Tuesday as his rivals arrive from Iowa, riding the momentum of a win or fighting for survival, reports the Boston Globe.
After hearing about Kerry's success in Iowa, Clark said he might have to pull rank on the decorated former Navy officer, reports the AP. "It's one thing to be a hero as a junior officer. He's done that; I respect that ... but I've got the military experience at the top as well as at the bottom," Clark said.
It's All About Power Naps: It looks like John Kerry won't get much time to rest his beleaguered sore throat on Tuesday in New Hampshire. His campaign staff gave him a measly four-and-a-half hours of downtime to rest on Tuesday. (Keep in mind that Kerry arrived in Manchester at 6:30 a.m. after leaving Des Moines at 3 a.m.) After a rally at the airport, a swing by an auto body garage and hopefully a quick nap, Kerry will attend yet another chili feed in Pembroke and another rally/Carole King concert in Concord at 8 p.m. Afterwards, Kerry will watch Bush's State of the Union speech with a family in Concord.
John Edwards had two events with voters on Tuesday after a similar overnight flight (on Texas trial lawyer Fred Baron's plane, incidentally) from Iowa to New Hampshire. Just as quickly, however, Edwards will board a charter flight to South Carolina, where he arrives at 7:30 p.m. (plenty of time, the campaign points out, to get in location for Bush's speech). On Wednesday, Edwards holds a "Edwards Comes Home" event in Greenville, S.C., before jetting back to Nashua, N.H. by noon on Wednesday. Then it's BACK to South Carolina for a "voter education project" in Columbia on Friday afternoon. The North Carolina senator's schedule is a clear indication that Edwards will have to juggle the Jan. 27 New Hampshire primary and the Feb. 3 South Carolina primary very carefully.
Comeback Lieberman? While most of his rivals focused on winning Iowa, Joe Lieberman took to the sky on Monday for a seven-city tour of New Hampshire, making what he called his "closing arguments" that he was the best candidate to beat President Bush, reports the New York Times. Lieberman received some validation for his argument when The Union Leader, the statewide New Hampshire newspaper, which argued that the Bush White House should hope that Mr. Lieberman did not become the nominee, endorsed him on Monday night. As he struggles in the polls, the campaign must be hoping that the endorsement will prove as handy as the Des Moines Register endorsement proved to be for John Edwards in Iowa.
Although not a contender in Iowa, Lieberman used Monday night's results to inspire his struggling New Hampshire campaign, reports the Washington Post. "Look how Iowa has changed in a week," said Lieberman, who is stuck in the single digits in New Hampshire polls, despite spending almost all his time in the state for a month. "I think the same thing's gonna happen in New Hampshire."
Meanwhile, the campaign released a new ad using John F. Kennedy's "While this year it may be a Catholic, in other years it may some day be a Jew" line to describes his family's journey to America to live the American Dream.
Meanwhile, In Other News: New York's Republican Gov. George Pataki has continued to raise money at a brisk pace, reports Albany Times-Union, pulling in $1.3 million during the last half of 2003 even though his plans remain unclear.
His efforts were overshadowed "by the fund-raising prowess of Democratic state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who pulled in almost $2.5 million during that time and has close to $3.6 million on hand, according to records filed Thursday with the State Board of Elections." While Spitzer has not said what office he will seek in 2006, he is considered the front-runner for his party's nomination for governor.
Democrat-turned Republican Randy Daniels, State Secretary of State, the highest-ranking black member of Pataki's administration, has been touted as a possible successor to the governor if Pataki doesn't run in 2006. Daniels has raised $166, 590 over the past six months and has $247,963 on hand according to his campaign treasurer Stanley Grayson.
Quote of the Day: "Thank you, Iowa, for making me the comeback Kerry." -- John Kerry thanking Iowa for his first place finish in the state's caucuses.