Word: gephardts
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Fourteen years after his first, failed presidential bid, Gephardt, 61, looks remarkably like the brash young candidate he was then. His hair may be thinner, his jaw a bit thicker, but he still looks perpetually fresh--especially for a candidate many are ready to write off as shopworn. But he's been ignored in the buzz over new Democratic faces like Senators John Edwards and John Kerry. Like Bob Dole before him, Gephardt is finding it is hard to shape a bold presidential vision when his day job keeps him immersed in legislative minutiae. His passion doesn't come across...
...Republicans have managed to blur the differences on many other issues, from education to prescription drugs. So the Democrats, observes political consultant Rachel Gorlin, have "got to put something on the table." Gephardt agrees. His top aides began strategizing on a splashy list of bold policy promises last week, something like the brash Contract with America, which Newt Gingrich and the Republican candidates rode to victory in 1994. But many Democrats, particularly in rural districts where so many of the swing races are being fought, are resisting anything that ties them too closely to a national party that veers left...
Even if the Democrats get the message right, they remain far behind the Republicans in raising the money to get it out. Gephardt urges his candidates to hold back spending on television commercials until the end, an idea he took from Gingrich's '94 playbook. The key to Democratic victories will be turnout, he says. In Iowa the party has invested millions in computer software so workers can ply towns and neighborhoods each evening, PalmPilot in hand, hunting down Democratic voters, especially any who want absentee ballots, ensuring that they have returned them, even offering to deliver the ballots...
Doggedness has kept Gephardt in the game, but it has not been enough to put him on top of his division. Democratic leader since 1994, he has regained seats in each election since but always came up short of a majority. Whatever presidential dreams Gephardt harbors for 2004, if he doesn't produce a Democratic House majority this November, "he starts looking like a loser," says an operative in the camp of a rival Democratic presidential candidate...
...Gephardt wins, it's very much in question whether he would take the job of Speaker or leave to start a 2004 presidential campaign. Those around him are convinced he would hit the trail. He may be an old face to party insiders, but he has to reintroduce himself to average voters. A woman at an Iowa Dairy Cream saw Gephardt getting an ice cream on Thursday and asked him if he was Senator Daschle. Not long ago, he says, laughing, two women at an airport begged him to settle a $5 bet: Was he Dan Quayle...