Candidates target pitches with an eye to the South

After his first debate in the front-runner's dunking booth, Kerry was only a little wet, offering a tepid response to Dean's criticism of his failure to pass health care initiatives in the Senate. And in his first appearance as a true underdog, Dean came out punching, blaming Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to the CIA for intelligence reports exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and knocking Kerry for his long tenure in Washington.

But it is unclear whether Dean's toughness will bring back memories of the straight-talker who dominated the race for most of last year -- or remind voters of the screamer whose Iowa concession speech made him the butt of jokes on late-night television.

"This is so mellow," Dean told moderator Tom Brokaw during a commercial break, as though eager to stir things up.

While Dean put on his boxing gloves, Edwards, retired Army General Wesley K. Clark, and Connecticut Senator Joseph I. Lieberman took every opportunity to advertise their electability, as though challenging Kerry at his game. Exit polls in New Hampshire showed that Democrats were so concerned about beating President Bush that they supported the person they felt had the best shot: Kerry.

But voters in the South and West employ a different calculus.

Lieberman presented the electability issue as a mathematical equation. He said his moderate positions on issues attract independents and "disgruntled Republicans," which could lead Democrats to victory in November.

"I'm the one experienced moderate in this race," Lieberman said, implying Clark and Edwards were moderates-come-lately.

Perhaps aiming at the large numbers of military families in South Carolina, where independents and Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary, Lieberman advertised his unwavering support for the Iraq war and brushed aside concerns about flawed intelligence leading up to the war.

"Saddam Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction," he declared, in a clip no doubt being filed away by the GOP for reference in the fall campaign.

Edwards, too, took pains to defend his support for the war, which was something of a shift: In Iowa and New Hampshire, he would respond to any question about Iraq with an attack on Bush.

He said he backed the war in part because of reports that Hussein was "gassing Kurdish children in northern Iraq," though the last reported gas attack was 15 years before the war.

But electability was also on Edwards' agenda last night, and he offered an equation of his own: No Democratic president has ever been elected carrying fewer than five Southern states.

And Edwards later pointed to his North Carolina roots, emphasizing that he understood the struggles of working people. "I've lived with this my entire life," he said, neglecting to mention the multimillion-dollar fees he collected as the state's leading personal-injury lawyer.

Clark, too, hails from the South, having grown up in Arkansas, and he even offered a hint of a drawl, pronouncing the nation's capital as "Warshington," as in "I'm not a Warshington insider."

His answers were clearer and quicker than in his subpar performance in the New Hampshire debate, but it remains to be seen whether his outsider campaign can catch on in time.

As for the new front-runner, this debate was the only scheduled televised event before the Feb. 3 primaries, where Kerry's appeal will be tested in seven states where he has had little time to campaign.

Voters got to see the good Kerry, whose quick-witted retorts to questions about the Iraq war have been a key to his resurgence, and the bad Kerry, lecturing the audience on the ways of Congress.

Peter Canellos can be reached at canellos@globe.com