These decisions on timing and electability were once left to big-city bosses. This year the only smoke in the smoke-filled room is the winter breath of powerful Wisconsinites, who have next week’s primary day all to themselves. If they’re smart, the people of Eau Claire, Eagle River and Ephraim will vote to keep it going, even if they favor Kerry. It was a mistake to “front-load” the process–and not just because it means less fun for us reporters.
Democrats like Terry McAuliffe (the party chair) think that the longer the nomination struggle goes on, the weaker the Democrats look. Events are proving them exactly wrong. By dominating the airwaves with their attacks on President Bush, Democrats are energized and gaining ground in the polls. But if Kerry is crowned in Wisconsin, then Super-duper Tuesday (essentially a national primary on March 2) will be a low-turnout bore when it could be another injection of excitement.
Besides, Kerry has not yet been truly tested, except by his own inadequacies in 2003. Intramural competition would toughen him up for the coming struggle. If it exposes fatal flaws, he wasn’t the right nominee anyway. “I’d be happy with any of them,” says Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, who, like the entire Democratic congressional delegation, remains uncommitted so far. Wisconsin is a Blue-Red draw (Al Gore won by 5,700 votes), an urban-rural mix with an open primary. “In order to win here, you really have to convince independents and even Republicans, just like in the general election,” the governor told me. A Feb. 15 Milwaukee debate could prove pivotal.
So who’s best positioned for the Badger vote? As of last week, Kerry had employed only two paid workers in the state and had visited rarely, though he’s well ahead in the polls. Wes Clark is making a big effort but is getting less traction with veterans than Kerry. Howard Dean says he must win Wisconsin or he’s out of the race. But John (Sly) Sylvester, the host of a popular Madison radio talk show, insists that “no one’s taking him seriously anymore.” Sly is among several uncommitted political sharpies I talked with who believe that John Edwards is well positioned to “resonate” in Wisconsin, which has a tradition of upbeat populism dating back to Robert (Fighting Bob) LaFollette. In a state where 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past three years, mostly to China, Edwards’s well-honed message on the economy may neutralize some of Kerry’s biographical advantages. But watch for Dean and Dennis Kucinich to point out that both senators voted for the China trade deal.
Even as his momentum grows, some troublesome warning signs about Kerry are emerging. Despite his service in Vietnam, “he’s vulnerable. His voting record is terrible when it comes to national defense,” says Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, whose cranky assault on fellow Democrats is a best seller. Edwards, at the age of 50, has a much shorter and less target-rich paper trail. He tries to turn his lack of Washington experience into an advantage, though he’d do well to remind voters that his five years in the Senate match Bush’s five years as a governor.
The trial-lawyer rap wouldn’t help Republicans much in November. His big cases in North Carolina were not sleazy ambulance-chasing, but worthy examples of fighting negligent corporations on behalf of working people. He defends himself with a tort-reform plan that goes beyond Bush’s in sanctioning lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits. And if the president tried to bash trial lawyers during a fall debate, Edwards would turn to him and say: “The founder of your party was a trial lawyer. His name was Abraham Lincoln.”
A Kerry-Edwards contest this year could be a classic. It would pit experience versus excitement, gravitas versus buoyancy. Kerry the Vietnam vet would be better at going against Bush’s strength, which until now has been on foreign policy. Edwards would be better at going against Bush’s weakness, which is that polls show a majority of voters don’t believe he cares about people like them. Kerry would be harder to depict as soft; Edwards would soften the hard edges of the risky class-based campaign that Democrats are running. Kerry is Brie and crackers on a rugged picnic. Edwards is a slice of American on a hamburger at Wendy’s. Even beyond Wisconsin, politics is still about how you say “Cheese!”
