Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Gore endorsement sparks anger
Dean can't beat Bush, 8 other candidates say
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DURHAM, N.H. - Eight Democratic presidential contenders on Tuesday strongly disputed that Howard Dean was the party's best chance for beating President Bush, or that former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement of the front-runner would seal the nomination.
"This race is not over," declared Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts as the candidates gathered in this first-in-the-nation primary state for this year's eighth and final debate. The first votes will be cast in Iowa's Jan. 19 caucuses and New Hampshire's Jan. 27 primary.
One after another, the field ganged up on Dean, who holds a double-digit lead in New Hampshire polls, and Gore in an effort to take the luster off the newly minted endorsement. They appealed to the independent streak of voters here, and suggested the endorsement smacked of old-style party machine politics.
Joe Lieberman, Gore's spurned 2000 running mate, asserted that "my chances have actually increased today." The Connecticut senator said people had stopped him in the airport to express outrage over Gore's backing of Dean.
For his part, Dean told the others: "Attack me. Don't attack Al Gore. I don't think he deserves to be attacked by anybody up here."
The response to Gore's decision was precipitated when one of the debate's moderators, ABC's Ted Koppel, opened the debate by inviting the field of nine candidates to "raise your hand if you believe that Gov. Dean can beat George Bush."
Only one, Dean, raised his hand.
That touched off an avalanche of criticism from Dean's rivals.
Al Sharpton said Gore's tactics smacked of "bossism," and added, "We're not going to have any big name come in now and tell us the field should be limited. … No Democrat should shut us up today."
Said Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina: "We're not going to have a coronation."
And Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri declared, "I'm sure all of us think we have the best chance to beat George Bush." But, he said, he stood a better chance than the others in the battleground states of the Midwest that would likely decide the election.
The debate, on the University of New Hampshire campus, brought fresh attacks on the Bush administration's Iraqi policy.
