Gephardt Back to Stumping--but for Kerry

A former rival embraced Sen. John F. Kerry on Friday, on the eve of the Michigan caucuses, while two Southerners chasing him for the Democratic presidential nomination clashed over aid to military veterans.

Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt’s endorsement of Kerry in this auto-making city and the feud that erupted between Sen. John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark spoke volumes about a Democratic race that may be nearing a conclusion.

Kerry, of Massachusetts, seems headed toward a strong showing in caucuses in Michigan and Washington today and in Maine on Sunday. He is the only candidate in the past week to campaign in all three states.

He appears on the verge of victories in the weekend’s contests despite a decision to forgo television advertisements in any of the three states. He is riding a wave of publicity and benefiting from tactical decisions by his opponents to save their money for advertisements elsewhere.

The support of Gephardt, a champion of labor unions who ended his presidential candidacy last month, should help Kerry increase his support in an industrial state that has the largest haul of delegates of any of the contests so far: 128.

Edwards, of North Carolina, and Clark are mounting little resistance to the front-runner in the weekend contests. Instead, they are focusing on the Virginia and Tennessee primaries Tuesday, where a combined 151 delegates are at stake. Their clash could weaken both Southerners, to Kerry’s benefit.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was campaigning Friday in Wisconsin; he said earlier this week he must win the state’s Feb. 17 primary to sustain his candidacy. But many Democrats and political analysts believe Kerry could in effect sew up the nomination if he sweeps the five states voting in the next four days. He has won seven of the first nine contests, beginning with the Iowa caucuses Jan. 19.

“If Kerry runs the table through Tuesday, then it becomes next to impossible for any of the other contenders to maintain they could win the nomination, absent a major scandal,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

Kerry, in Michigan, wheeled out major supporters to press his case that the race was nearly over.

Gephardt glossed over his philosophical differences with Kerry in their joint appearance. Gephardt opposed trade deals with Mexico and China that Kerry supported.

There was no trace of hesitation in Gephardt’s endorsement.

“Hello, Michigan! Isn’t it great to be with the next president of the United States?” he said to a small crowd at a banquet hall here.

“We need a leader to defeat George Bush in November in the general election, and we need a leader who we all know can walk into that Oval Office tomorrow afternoon and be a great president of the United States. That leader is John Kerry,” he said.

Gephardt told reporters he believed Kerry had shifted on trade. “John has really come to a view that many of us have, and that is that we’ve got to get labor and environmental provisions in the core text of treaties,” he said.

Kerry praised Gephardt and noted that the two had largely refrained from throwing darts at each other during the campaign.

“No one has invested more time more diligently, with more commitment; with more passion about his roots, about working people, about the possibility of this country, about how politics can be better and our country can be better -- than the man who just endorsed me,” Kerry said.

Kerry was boosted by a team of Michigan political all-stars as he motored from Detroit to Warren to Flint, through the auto-making center of the country. With him were Michigan’s two U.S. senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

In Tennessee, Clark attacked Edwards over his voting record on veterans. He cited a vote Edwards cast in October 1999 against a Democratic-sponsored budget amendment to clamp down on corporate tax loopholes. The motion was an attempt to generate new revenue that would help Congress avoid spending cuts. Edwards sided with 53 Republicans in defeating the proposal.

“Sen. Edwards ... decided to side with supporting corporate interests at the expense of veterans in 1999,” Clark said after a rally at Tennessee Technical University in Cookeville.

“He was the only Democrat to do so. And what the American people sense is this Washington insider culture in which money buys access and access gives you influence and influence gives you special treatment under the law,” Clark said.

The Edwards campaign defended his votes on veterans’ issues.

“Sen. Edwards has a long history of standing up for veterans and has voted repeatedly to increase funding to support them,” a campaign statement said. “The fact that Sens. [John] McCain [R-Ariz.] and [Chuck] Hagel [R-Neb.] -- two of our country’s great war veterans -- cast the same vote as Sen. Edwards shows just how wrong Clark is.”

Clark, in his first race for public office, continued to cast himself as an outsider, or “the solution to the problem.”

Kerry and Edwards, he said, were “part of the problem.”

“They’ve been railing against special interests, but they’re part of that Washington culture,” Clark said. “While Washington insiders have been talking and debating, I’ve been out there acting.... While they talked about whether to send people to battle, I’ve led people to battle.”

Clark’s attack came three days after he squeezed out a win in Oklahoma over Edwards. His aides say he must also score in Tennessee. He is stumping heavily there and in Virginia.

In Blacksburg, Va., Edwards rallied with hundreds of students in a community room at Virginia Tech University. He focused on job losses under President Bush and the persistence of poverty and racism.

“Those of us in the South carry a special responsibility when it comes to issues of race and civil rights and equality,” Edwards said. “We have so much work to do.”

With a convincing win in his native South Carolina on Tuesday, Edwards has a strong claim as the South’s favorite son. He also had strong second-place showings in Iowa and Oklahoma. But he has yet to demonstrate that he has national appeal.

Dean had once counted on easy victories in Michigan and Washington. Friday, though, he was looking ahead to Wisconsin.

At a coffee shop in Milwaukee, Dean greeted diners who seemed largely ambivalent about him.

“Early on, I was intrigued by Howard Dean, but I am very, very undecided at this point,” said Carver Smith, 34, from the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield. He spoke to Dean briefly, but said he would have to study all the candidates before deciding.

Dean planned to be in Vermont today to watch his son play a high school hockey game.

Anderson reported from Washington, La Ganga from Michigan. Times staff writers Scott Martelle, Eric Slater and James Rainey contributed to this report.