Kerry courts blue collar votes in the 'rust belt' states

[Dreamer128]

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
07 February 2004

John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, is poised to take a further step towards the Democratic nomination this weekend with a big win in Michigan, one of three states holding caucuses today and tomorrow, and the first of the so-called "mega states" to take part in the 2004 presidential contest.

In all, 230 delegates are at stake in this latest stage of the primary season: 128 in Michigan, 78 in Washington state, and 24 in Maine - almost as many as the 269 that were on offer last Tuesday, when Mr Kerry scored convincing victories in five of the seven states to vote.

In fresh evidence of the bandwagon effect powering the Kerry campaign, he used a rally in Warren, a suburb of Detroit, to unveil his latest supporter, the former House majority leader, Richard Gephardt, whose own candidacy to lead the Democrats ended with a dismal fourth-place showing in Iowa last month.

Both the endorser and the place are of great symbolic importance, not just for Mr Kerry's hopes of scoring a big win here, but for the broader presidential race as it moves into the later primaries and then into the general election this autumn.

The blessing of Mr Gephardt, the candidate closest to organised labour, is likely to swing up to a dozen large unions behind the Massachusetts senator.

That support can only strengthen Mr Kerry's hand in Michigan and in other "rust-belt states" such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and, above all, Ohio, which is likely to be a critical prize in November.

Michigan, home of the United States's motor industry, has lost 185,000 manufacturing jobs in the past four years, and would not normally be especially friendly turf for Mr Kerry, a supporter of free trade which unions claim is causing US jobs to haemorrhage to low-cost producers in Asia and Central America.

But the backing of Mr Gephardt will help insulate Mr Kerry from such charges, and reinforce the claim which is driving his candidacy: that he can unite the various wings of the party and is the man with the best chance of beating President George Bush.

Mr Gephardt said: "We must win the White House." Each of the Democratic candidates was far preferable to Mr Bush, "but John Kerry is best qualified to be the nominee of our party because of his courage under fire, because of his experience, because of his ideals, and because he can defeat George Bush."

Warren could be a pointer to whether that happens. The town means much in the history of presidential politics in Michigan.

It is part of Macomb county, one of the most closely studied swing areas in presidential elections in the country, home of the now legendary "Reagan Democrats", the blue collar and often Catholic workers who deserted the Democratic party in droves in the 1980s in the belief it had become too liberal. But now this vital constituency is returning to the fold. Bill Clinton, the former US president, easily carried Michigan in 1992 and 1996, and Al Gore, the former vice-president, won the state four years ago, with 51 per cent to Mr Bush's 46 per cent.

Now it is Mr Kerry who is surging. In the last fortnight he has taken in $4.5m (£2.4m), and polls show him with up to 50 per cent support in the state, far ahead of rivals struggling to get into double figures.

Neither of the two "southern" candidates, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina nor the retired General Wesley Clark, has made much of an impression in Michigan, while support for Howard Dean, the clear front-runner just a month ago, has collapsed.

Mr Dean may fare slightly better in today's caucuses thanks to Michigan's decision to allow internet voting to boost turn-out. Many people may have cast their votes before 19 January and the Iowa caucuses, where his weak, third-place finish began the implosion of his candidacy. But that alone is unlikely to save the former Vermont governor from a defeat which can only increase pressure on him to withdraw.

In an e-mail message to supporters this week, Mr Dean in effect conceded defeat in Michigan, saying that the Wisconsin primary on 17 February would be the make-or-break moment for him, and urging them to chip in $50 apiece to allow his financially strapped campaign to mount effective advertisements in the media. His message said: "Anything less than a win [in Wisconsin] will put us out of this race." By yesterday, "Deaniacs" had responded by pledging almost $1m on the internet. However, he is running only fourth in Wisconsin, and a Kerry win in Michigan is unlikely to improve matters.

In fact, political professionals say that Mr Dean stands a far better chance in today's caucuses in Washington, where Democratic voters tend to be liberal, and where supporters once flocked in their thousands to his rallies. Cathy Allen, an unaffiliated Democratic strategist told The New York Times: "If he can't win here, he can't win anywhere."

But the former Vermont governor now pulls in only a few hundred diehards at his appearances. The same goes for Maine, an idiosyncratic state which at its 1992 primary shunned Mr Clinton to give Jerry Brown, the erratic former governor of California, a rare victory that year. But polls suggest that Mr Kerry has also taken the lead in Maine.

Meanwhile, Mr Edwards and General Clark are devoting their energies to Virginia and Tennessee, both southern states which hold primaries on Tuesday. Failure to win one of them will probably drive the loser from the race.

[Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/]

he also won in washington which is big since I thought dean might give him a good competition here. kerry's been my choice since when he first declared he wanted to run for president. my guess is it will be a kerry-gephardt ticket.