BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Monday, January 05, 2004
A very bad day for Dick
Gephardt. Even without Al Sharpton and Wesley Clark, yesterday's
Democratic presidential debate in Iowa still felt too
crowded.
Though Media Log was pleased that
the bloviating Sharpton was MIA, Clark appears to be emerging as the
consensus choice as Howard Dean's strongest challenger.
So you had the worst of both
worlds: seven candidates, not much of an improvement over nine; and
the most potentially interesting confrontation failing to take
place.
For my money, then, the most
interesting subplot in this lowered-stakes debate was John Edwards's
absolute evisceration of Dick Gephardt. Gephardt, from neighboring
Missouri, has to win the Iowa caucuses. Gephardt himself would
surely tell you otherwise, but the plain truth is that if he can't
win there, he can't win anywhere.
And Gephardt was having a pretty
good day, appearing more animated than usual and seeming to get more
face time than most of the other candidates.
But then he mistakenly said that
all of his opponents had voted for NAFTA and for free trade with
China except Dennis Kucinich.
"Can I respond first to what was
just said?" interjected Edwards. "Because it was very skillfully
done; he lumped everybody together."
Note the little trick Edwards pulls
here: Gephardt not only wronged me, but did it in a way that shows
he's a skilled politician.
According to the transcript,
Edwards continued:
First of all, I didn't
vote for NAFTA. I campaigned against NAFTA. NAFTA passed before I
got to the Congress, to the United States Senate.
And I might add, you could pick
out any one vote of anybody on this stage - you
[Gephardt], for example, voted for fast-track authority
for Bush I that led to the passage of NAFTA.
So the point is - and I don't
believe you're not for American workers; I do. I absolutely
believe that. But I think you could take any one vote from any
candidate and distort it. And we ought to tell the truth about
this.
This is first-rate political
gamesmanship on Edwards's part.
First, he sets the record straight.
Next, he points out that not all of Gephardt's votes have been in
accord with his anti-NAFTA stance. Finally - and this is the best
part - Edwards deconstructs the debate, explaining that plucking out
single votes and beating people over the head with them is just
wrong, y'all.
You can see how Edwards got to be a
zillionaire as a trial lawyer. The wonder is that he hasn't done
better in his presidential campaign.
Gephardt's response was as
flat-footed as Edwards could have hoped for. Roll the
transcript:
GEPHARDT: Well, John, you
weren't in Congress when NAFTA came up, so you couldn't vote. But
you voted for the China...
EDWARDS: But you just said I
voted for it.
GEPHARDT: I
understand.
(LAUGHTER)
EDWARDS: You
understand?
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
EDWARDS: Does that mean you're
wrong? You'll take it back now?
GEPHARDT: I'm quite willing to
say that you weren't there and you didn't vote for it.
But you voted for the China
agreement, and it's had a bad impact here in Iowa, and it's had a
bad impact in your state of North Carolina.
Adam Nagourney reports
in today's New York Times that Gephardt "appeared to redden a
bit" during this exchange. The color on my TV set must be off, but I
should think he would have.
Thanks to Edwards's deftness, it
turned out to be a fairly good day for Dean, despite Joe Lieberman's
effective attack on him for refusing to make public all of his
records from his years as governor of Vermont.
Dean is in defensive mode, trying
to protect a lead that, though substantial, may not be quite as big
as it was a few weeks ago.
The Dean strategy: (1) eliminate
Gephardt in Iowa; (2) eliminate John Kerry in New Hampshire; (3) try
to withstand a post-New Hampshire surge from Clark or, less likely,
from Lieberman.
Edwards certainly helped Dean with
part one yesterday.
posted at 8:56 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
