Rivals Target Dean's Blunt Comments

Unscripted Remarks On Key Issues Seen As Big Liabilities

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page A06


Presidential candidate Howard Dean has excelled throughout his political career by speaking bluntly, usually unscripted, about the problems facing the country. Now, his words are coming back to haunt him on the campaign trail.

Dean's rivals and some Democratic strategists see the former Vermont governor's comments past and present as among his biggest liabilities. Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) are turning Dean's words against him almost daily, calling into question his commitment to Democratic causes such as Medicare and the Middle East, and portraying him as a flip-flopper on other issues. Since running for president, Dean has switched his position on at least three politically sensitive topics: Social Security, free trade and the Cuba trade embargo. In all three cases, his new position comports with the views of the key voters he is courting.

"Howard Dean has tried to reinvent his record on a lot of issues in this campaign because time after time . . . he is on the wrong side of seniors and working families," Kerry said recently.

If the charges stick, they could undermine Dean's appeal as the political outsider willing to tell it like it is, strategists said.

"He'd have to go a long way to alienate" his committed supporters, many of whom are new to politics, said Democratic strategist Joe Lockhart, a former spokesman for President Bill Clinton. "The problem for him is he can't win with just those people. He needs some of the people who regularly participate in the process. Those people still have reservations, and this back-and-forth plays into those reservations."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30685-2003Oct1.html