ON THE TRAIL
A Stop-Clark Movement? What used to be known as the stop-Dean movement has transformed a bit into a stop-Clark campaign.

By Chuck Todd
NationalJournal.com
Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004

DES MOINES, Iowa -- With the countdown clock to Iowa about to change from days to hours, there is a growing consensus that the Democratic race will quickly become a two-person February sprint between former Gov. Howard Dean, D-Vt., and retired Gen. Wesley Clark (D).

What used to be known as the stop-Dean movement has transformed a bit into a stop-Clark campaign.

What used to be known as the stop-Dean movement has transformed a bit into a stop-Clark campaign. And where does this stop-Clark drive begin? In Iowa, of course, the one state Clark opted to avoid.

Since Dean's initial surge to the front-runner position, every campaign, including Clark's, has acknowledged that at some point this nomination fight was going to become a two-person race. All of the candidates have resigned themselves to the fact that Dean will be one of the finalists. Consequently, it is the race to be the last other candidate standing that's suddenly heating up.

The Dean camp has been nervous about Clark for weeks. In fact, when Clark first entered the race, Dean's team was the first to admit he'd be a major factor. The other campaigns were slower in acknowledging Clark's potential strength, and now it appears many are regretting it because without a stunning upset in Iowa at this point, a Dean-Clark showdown appears inevitable.

But the beauty of conventional wisdom is that it's usually created in order to be debunked down the road. So here's a look at the campaigns' various stop-Clark strategies:

• Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.: Outside of Dean, the candidate most engaged in a stop-Clark campaign is the one-time New Hampshire front-runner. Anything short of a victory in New Hampshire was supposed to sound Kerry's death knell. That said, the campaign fell so far behind Dean in the Granite State that a surge now to make Kerry's New Hampshire loss better than expected may keep the Massachusetts senator alive for another week or two.

But Clark's nonstop New Hampshire advertising and campaigning have made Kerry a third-place also-ran in New Hampshire. Kerry's best chance to overtake Clark at this point is a better-than-expected showing in Iowa. What would be better than expected? First or second -- and that's the flaw in the Kerry plan to stop Clark. Surpassing either Dean or Gephardt seems like a tall order because of the institutional organizational strength each Iowa co-front-runner has. Kerry doesn't have any major union infrastructure helping him, and that alone could stop him. Still, Kerry has one thing going for him -- an interest by Dean's campaign in seeing him catch a little fire in Iowa. Could some crazy Joe Trippi-Iowa-jujitsu help Kerry overtake Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt (D)? Anything is possible.

• Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.: His challenge is not dissimilar to Kerry's. He must figure out how to break through the Dean vs. Gephardt storyline in Iowa to get a bump in New Hampshire. Without a major Iowa breakthrough, it will be hard to get the press to focus on anything outside the Dean-Clark showdown.

Is a surprise second place in Iowa realistic for Edwards? At this point, it seems unlikely, and yet Edwards has to figure out how to get incredibly close. A very close third maybe, just maybe, might be enough to make the media give him a second look in New Hampshire. But with so much ground to make up on Clark in the state, Edwards might not have enough time, even with some media attention. To gain real momentum, Edwards would have to divert from his all-positive primary message, and if one is to believe the Edwards campaign, it's that message that has given him newfound traction in Iowa. Edwards could be in a box that he just can't break out of in time to stop Clark before Clark ends up beating him in South Carolina.

• Gephardt: Of the three major contenders attempting to stop Clark's rise in New Hampshire, Gephardt has the easiest plan: Win Iowa. Overtake Dean by even a single delegate in Iowa, and Gephardt gets a bounce that's far better than anything he experienced in 1988. Of course, there's another path Gephardt could follow that isn't there for the other major contenders -- he could skip New Hampshire and move straight to South Carolina. An Iowa win, coupled with his high-profile endorsement from leading South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn (D), could catapult Gephardt into the finals with Dean. One of the toughest decisions Gephardt will have to make if he wins Iowa is this New Hampshire-South Carolina decision.

• Dean: Believe it or not, the campaign that might be the most intent on developing a stop-Clark strategy is Dean's. The longer it takes for a one-on-one race to develop, the more likely Dean won't be stopped. The Dean camp would love nothing more than to see Kerry pull the upset in Iowa and edge ahead of Gephardt for second -- breathing a tiny bit of life into the Massachusetts Democrat heading into New Hampshire. The way the Dean campaign sees it, they already overtook Kerry once in a one-on-one showdown earlier in the summer -- there's no reason that if they're pitted against him again in the finals, they won't blow him away again.

These scenarios aside, it's still a good bet that a two-man race between Dean and Clark is inevitable. When examining it, we're struck by the similarities between this showdown and the one between President Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 2000. Like Bush, Dean leads the money primary. Like Bush, Dean is running a 50-state campaign, meaning cherry-picking primary states is out of the question. Like Bush, Dean is being painted as the less electable candidate for the general election. Like Bush, Dean has A-list surrogates to help him in states down the road should Clark get traction. Like Bush, Dean has a prickly relationship with the media. Like Bush, Dean is facing a media that is in the midst of propping up his potentially toughest foe.

Finally, like Bush, Dean has a potential rival in Clark who could be vulnerable to basic party loyalty, which eventually dooms the insurgency.

There are a few things Clark has going for him, though, that McCain did not. The biggest is money. Unlike McCain, Clark is already on the air in late-February states (like Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin) in order to plant the seeds for a national boomlet should New Hampshire go as planned. McCain had to wing it from primary to primary post-New Hampshire. Also, unlike McCain, Clark has some members of the party establishment actually pulling for him (i.e. the Clintons). And unlike McCain, there are enough February primaries that he can withstand a loss or two to Dean as long as he makes it up by winning another state.

The upcoming February sprint to the nomination could be an interesting roller coaster.

Chuck Todd is editor-in-chief of The Hotline, National Journal's daily briefing on politics. His e-mail address is ctodd@nationaljournal.com.