Focus shifts in N.H. campaign
Candidates extol their electability
MANCHESTER, N. H. -- As the clock runs out on the New Hampshire primary contest, the Democratic candidates are shifting their focus to a single selling point -- momentum -- to persuade voters that they are more capable of beating President Bush than any of their rivals.
Substantive issues often fade as elections draw near. But this time the campaigns are more fixated on the direction of the polls than usual, apparently convinced that Democrats are likelier than ever to go for a perceived "winner."
To that end, advisers to Senator John F. Kerry yesterday circulated a new Newsweek poll showing the Massachusetts senator has the best chance of beating Bush if the election were held today, 49 percent to 46 percent.
Howard Dean, who has seen his momentum turn downward in recent weeks, told a crowd of supporters that "people who went away from us after we lost Iowa are coming back."
In fact, the latest Boston Globe/WBZ-TV tracking poll has found that Dean was holding steady at 15 percent, though still far behind Kerry, whose numbers rose to 38 percent from 35 percent the day before.
Senator John Edwards, the surprise second-place winner in Iowa, stayed at 12 percent, while retired General Wesley K. Clark dropped one point, to 14 percent.
"It's a toss-up for second place," pollster Gerry Chervinsky said. Whoever wins -- and, most likely, whoever comes in second -- is expected to get a crucial boost in the seven far-flung states where contests are held on Feb. 3. With just a week between New Hampshire and those states, it will be all but impossible for the candidates to campaign everywhere, making it critical for contenders to get a bounce in the national news.Already, the candidates are seizing upon any shred of evidence that they are surging, however meaningless the evidence might be to the average voter. The fact that Kerry hired Steve Elmendorf, a former adviser to Representative Richard A. Gephardt, was seen as proof yesterday that Kerry is serious about competing in Missouri now that Gephardt is out of the race. But Edwards landed a similar prize, hiring another former Gephardt aide, Julie Gibson, to head his Missouri effort, as he shifted resources to St. Louis.
Lieberman, meanwhile, issued a press release yesterday bragging that "Joe Jumps in New Hampshire polls" -- a two-point surge in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey, from 8 to 10 percentage points.
Dean and Clark, locked in a tight race for second place, mapped out their events carefully, apparently to impress reporters on the support they can attract. On Friday, Dean's first event in Londonderry had only 100 attendees, but by the end of the day he had packed more than 1,000 people into a middle school in Keene, a southwestern community close to his native Vermont.
Yesterday, Dean repeated the pattern, speaking first to about 100 people heading off to canvass for him. Then, at lunchtime, he went to New Castle and spoke at Wentworth-by-the-Sea before a crowd of more than 500 that filled not only a banquet hall but also a spillover room.
All the roads and parking lots near the Seacoast hotel were lined with cars.
By the same measure, Clark aides were stung two days ago when a late-scheduled Town Hall event in Nashua did not draw as many supporters as hoped, leaving empty seats -- and a lack of momentum -- in the room.
As a result, the remainder of Clark's pre-primary events, aides say, will be rally-style: not the candidate alone at a podium making his pitch to undecided voters, but standing in front of a group of cheering supporters. Subliminal message: Yes, we've got the "mo."
Clark started the race at the head of national polls, which pick up on buzz and name recognition. But the Newsweek poll released yesterday found him to be tied for third with Dean, with 12 percent of the voters. Edwards was listed in second at 13 percent; Kerry was reported to be leading with 20 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Such numbers would tend to suggest that just as New Hampshire voters were motivated by the Iowa results, so, too, will Democrats nationwide take a look at the outcome in the state.
At the same time, Clark's fund-raising remains strong, with the campaign on track to raise $2 million over the Internet before Tuesday's primary.
One Clark aide said privately yesterday that the campaign believes it has hit bottom in the New Hampshire polls and is going back up. The polls, on that, are mixed. American Research Group has had Clark hovering around 19 or 20; the Globe/WBZ poll tracking poll showed him dipping by a percentage point.
Steve Sartorelli, 56, a steel company salesman from Auburn, attended a Clark event yesterday morning at a cramped local fire station, and said that he was intrigued with the former general -- but that he was still deciding between Clark and Kerry.
"If Kerry or Clark, either one looks like they're going to pull ahead, I'd vote for that person, just so we can defeat Bush," Sartorelli said.
A time-honored way to create the illusion that a candidate is surging is to hold an event in a small venue, to pack the room, or to import supporters from elsewhere, to boost the estimates. of the crowd size. Clark's event, for example, drew 500 people yesterday to the Portsmouth Music Hall; while there were some New Hampshire residents in the audience, many said they had come from Connecticut, California, Boston, and other places to help with the final week's push.
Dean spent part of yesterday canvassing door-to-door in Dover and Portsmouth. He stopped at a half-dozen houses, all of which had been screened by his campaign and at least one of which was home to a verified supporter. Another house played host to several undecided voters, all of whom said that they had been impressed by Dean's pitch -- but that they still were not entirely sure they were going to support him Tuesday. "The biggest question is, `Can he beat Bush?' " said Andy Diengott, whose Rutland Street home Dean visited in a tour of Dover.
One house guest, Rick Robbins of Dover, said: "I'm not sure if we're seeing the `old' Howard Dean or the `new' Howard Dean, but I liked what I saw."
The Kerry campaign is well aware of how critical it is for him to keep up his momentum. The campaign is counting on it to generate more in the Feb. 3 states, in which Kerry has not aired advertisements and has mostly ignored in order to concentrate on Iowa and New Hampshire.
Hence Kerry advisers' delight with yesterday's Newsweek poll. "NO WONDER KARL ROVE HAS UNLEASHED HIS GOP ATTACK DOGS," read the headline of Kerry's press release on the poll, a reference to Bush's senior political strategist and to criticisms of Kerry's record by the Republican National Committee chairman, Ed Gillespie. Kerry advisers have framed Gillespie's speech, trying to signal that the Bush White House is most afraid of Kerry -- in other words, that Kerry stands the best chance of beating Bush.
Kerry also pulled ahead in a poll published by the Arizona Republic, the largest newspaper in that Feb. 3 state. This seemed to signal that his "momentum approach" to running for president seems to be working in at least one such state. Kerry registered at 19 percentage points, ahead of Clark, who was at 17 points, followed by Dean at 14, Edwards at 9, and Lieberman at 6.
Dean, who had spent some of his Internet-raised treasure trove on ads in Arizona, New Mexico, and South Carolina, has pulled his television spots off the air everywhere except New Hampshire, at least for now.
Joanna Weiss, Glen Johnson, and Patrick Healy of the Globe staff contributed. Anne Kornblut can be reached at akornblut@globe.com.
