Kerrey Says He Is Hitting His ‘Stride’ in S.D.

Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey rode horseback through a herd of cattle Monday, glad that the presidential contest was finally back in familiar territory and promising that the American West would rekindle his sputtering campaign, starting with today’s South Dakota primary.

“I’m in my stride, politically, and I’m in my element in the West,” Kerrey said after dismounting from the horse, Country Boy. “I need a lift out of South Dakota . . . and I expect to get it; I hope to get it.”

With a brief, one-week campaign and only 20 delegates at stake, Kerrey is not counting on South Dakota to turn him into an overnight front-runner.

But he is hoping that a victory today will help muddle the race far beyond Super Tuesday on March 10, prompting voters to re-evaluate all the candidates in the campaign. He figures that time is on his side--the longer the race goes on, the better his chances of being the nominee.

During three campaign stops Monday, Kerrey cited the onetime hope of Democratic Party officials who wanted to avoid a divisive primary by uniting behind a candidate. The race is still “wide open,” he said, and it would be a disservice to voters to stifle the debate now.

“This is not a campaign where people know us very well, and they need to know us before they, in the end, choose a nominee,” Kerrey said after speaking to a group of college students at Northern State University in Aberdeen. “I believe that when they do know us well, I will be the nominee.”

Kerrey also sought to bolster his contention that he is the Democrats’ best shot at the White House. Clinton, he said, could be vulnerable to a Republican smear campaign focusing on the problems that had beset him in New Hampshire--unsubstantiated allegations of marital infidelity and a controversy over his Vietnam-era draft status.

“I think Bill Clinton is going to be very vulnerable, the way Michael Dukakis was vulnerable in 1988,” Kerrey said. “We should not try to rush to a front-runner without measuring that individual’s ability to take it to President Bush in the fall.”

Although Kerrey acknowledges that his campaign is running low on funds, he is going all-out in South Dakota, where a newspaper poll over the weekend found he held a 10-percentage-point lead. Clinton, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas were locked in a tight race for second place. The poll also found nearly a quarter of the voters were undecided.

South Dakota’s primary is closed--that is, only Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary, and only Republicans in the GOP race, where Bush is the only candidate.

Both Kerrey and Harkin opened campaign offices in South Dakota last fall, leading political observers to predict that the primary would be a showdown that would finish off the campaign of one Midwesterner.

Harkin’s campaign has struggled in South Dakota, but he said Sunday he will continue in the race regardless of the primary’s outcome. Kerrey also pledged to continue his campaign, even if he loses.

Kerrey began his campaign Monday morning at a Day Care Center in Sioux Falls that is primarily funded through private contributions and serves more than 100 children, most from single-parent homes.