It’s Getting Tighter and Testier in Iowa Race

The Democratic race for president, tightening as the first key vote nears, grew nastier Wednesday as Iowa’s two frontrunners traded harsh personal attacks over character and integrity.

Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri assailed Howard Dean’s “manufactured anger and false conviction.” Dean called the remarks “a sad commentary on Dick Gephardt.”

Dean, meanwhile, won another supporter -- and the Democratic campaign lost a candidate -- when former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois decided Wednesday night to quit the race and endorse him. The two are expected to appear in Iowa today.

Moseley Braun’s backing probably will have limited impact; she was not a serious contender in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, and polls have shown her with little national support. But it could help Dean because it comes after his record on racial issues was assailed during a debate Sunday in Des Moines.

Moseley Braun, who is black, defended Dean from the criticism by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the other African American in the race. Dean thanked her after the forum, and she told him they should get together for a longer chat. That discussion, held Monday, led to her decision to end her candidacy and back him.

The endorsement capped a day in which Dean in effect opened a second front in his fight for the Democratic nomination, taking a swipe at Wesley K. Clark, who has emerged as a serious threat in the Jan. 27 New Hampshire primary.

The two other leading Democratic contenders in Iowa, Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, struck a mostly positive tone. They were hoping campaign-weary Iowans would tire of the increasing negativity and come their way in the final days before the caucuses launch the nominating process.

“You can point out how you’re different, what it is that makes you a better candidate and why you think you should be [the nominee] without attacks,” Edwards told reporters after delivering a speech to more than 200 people at the Algona Public Library, in north-central Iowa. “These caucus-goers, they know the difference.”

The candidates’ shifting strategies -- with some intensifying the attack, others emphasizing the upbeat -- reflect a Democratic contest that’s grown more competitive after several months in which Dean’s money, momentum and opinion polls seemed to give him a clear edge.

Most polls show a dead-even race between Dean and Gephardt in Iowa, with Kerry and Edwards gaining momentum and battling for third, or better. The results here could tilt New Hampshire’s follow-up contest, which, in turn, could shape the dynamic for the rest of the Democratic nominating fight.

The last few days have been particularly worrisome for Dean supporters, fretful that the frontrunner is wilting under attacks from his rivals and increased media scrutiny.

“When you have the candidates attacking and the media attacking simultaneously, that’s a lot of water to carry in a small boat,” said Dave Nagle, a former Iowa congressman and prominent Dean backer.

But Nagle and others, including some inside the Dean camp, say the candidate also has hurt himself by trying to float too much above the campaign, toning down his aggressive style and stumping as if the nomination were effectively wrapped up.

“Sitting on a lead doesn’t work,” Nagle said. “The question is, can we get the old Howard Dean back?”

After a day’s rest, a feistier Dean showed up Wednesday in New Hampshire. He renewed his criticism of Democratic rivals for backing Bush on the Iraq war -- the subject of a tough ad running on Iowa television. He also broadened his criticism of Clark, seizing the opportunity when a voter in Nashua asked whether Dean was worried about Clark’s rapid rise in New Hampshire polls.

“Look, I think Gen. Clark is a good guy, but I truly believe he’s a Republican,” Dean said, as the audience at Rivier College in Nashua, N.H. laughed. “ ... I don’t mind that he voted for Nixon and Reagan; that was a long time ago.... What bothers me is he went out and raised money for the Republican Party and said great things about Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush, after he knew they were antichoice [on abortion rights], after [Bush] tried to put this incredible $3-trillion tax cut through, which hurt women, children, and people trying to get their jobs and education.”

Clark has said that during his 34 years in the Army he frequently voted for the candidate he felt was strongest on national defense. He has also acknowledged praising members of the Bush administration in a speech in 2001 at a GOP fundraiser in his home state of Arkansas.

But when asked several times Wednesday to respond to Dean’s attack, Clark refused even to speak Dean’s name.

“I always appreciate it when somebody calls me a nice guy,” he said after a speech at the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., where he called for beefing up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to better fight terrorism.

“I voted for Al Gore and for Bill Clinton.... When I got out of the military I was courted by both parties. I chose to become a Democrat. And as a Democratic nominee I’ll bring a lot of other people into this party.”

Clark, who is skipping the Iowa caucuses, has had New Hampshire largely to himself this week. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who also is taking a pass on Iowa, is campaigning in the Granite State but continues to lag behind in the polls. Gephardt, conversely, has effectively wagered his entire campaign on a victory in Iowa, which he carried the first time he ran for president in 1988.

On Wednesday, he tore up his standard stump speech and targeted Dean with a carefully honed attack that painted the former governor as too willing to shift positions on gun control, Medicare and trade policy to garner political support.

“It’s become nearly impossible to know what Gov. Dean really believes,” Gephardt said at a rally in Nevada, Iowa. “ ... The only way we can beat George Bush is to be clear about where we stand and to be completely truthful with the American people. To me, there is no room for the cynical politics of manufactured anger and false conviction.”

In fact, Gephardt himself has shifted from opposing abortion early in his political career to supporting legalized abortion in the 1980s. He also voted for the Reagan tax cuts in the early 1980s but later said he regretted that vote. He insisted Dean had undergone “such dramatic, all-over-the-lot changes” that he would be damaged as a candidate against Bush.

Dean responded hours later in an interview with Iowa Public Television. “Dick Gephardt is part of the old problem. So are some of the other folks,” Dean said. “They’re all good people, but they’re Washington people. Let’s not kid ourselves about this. These guys are looking at the end of their careers if I win. And they’re going to do anything they can to stop me.”

Kerry, in striking a more positive tone, said, “There are good people running in this race, and I don’t criticize any of them on a personal level.”

But he also told a crowd of several hundred at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, “We have differences of opinions and we have differences of experiences.”

He cited taxes in particular, beseeching the audience “to join with me in fighting proposals that some candidates have in this race to raise taxes on the middle class.” Dean and Gephardt favor rolling back all of Bush’s tax cuts, while Kerry has proposed throwing out just those that benefit the wealthiest.

Edwards, who more than any other major candidate has sought to run a positive campaign, also avoided specific attacks on his rivals, a tack that appears to be paying off. He found two more likely supporters during breakfast at John’s Cafe, a one-story cinderblock diner in a factory district on the outskirts of Sioux City, Iowa.

Vicki Caldwell, a 60-year-old school superintendent from nearby Sergeant Bluff, had been undecided but was leaning toward Edwards. Tablemate Paul Craft, 38, a disabled father of three, has shifted over the past couple of weeks from Dean to Edwards. “Dean to me just comes across as an angry candidate,” Craft said.

Perhaps more significant, Edwards has taken his positive message to the TV airwaves, counting on Iowan’s traditional preference for clean campaigns. “I think this is about something much bigger than these petty snipings that are going on,” Edwards says in his final spot.

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Times staff writers Nick Anderson, James Gerstenzang, Maria L. La Ganga, Scott Martelle and Eric Slater contributed to this report.