Howard Dean’s fight against Democratic rivals gets nasty

A little over a month ago, I noted that Howard Dean was becoming the Democratic candidate the other “top-tier” candidates hated the most. Relations between Dean, John Kerry, and John Edwards grew particularly tense after Dean admittedly misrepresented their remarks about war in Iraq, which Dean later had to apologize for.

At the time, I said these fights were likely to get uglier before they get better. Well, yesterday they got much uglier.

The flap that’s got everyone’s attention is Dean vs. Kerry, stemming from some recent Dean comments about foreign affairs. Dean told a New Hampshire audience this month, “We have to take a different approach [to diplomacy]. We won’t always have the strongest military.” In addition, when Wolf Blitzer asked Dean on CNN last week if Iraqis were better off without Saddam Hussein, Dean replied, “We don’t know yet.”

The remarks prompted the Kerry campaign to go after Dean aggressively yesterday.

Chris Lehane, Kerry’s communications director, said Dean’s remarks “raise serious questions about his capacity to serve as commander in chief. No serious candidate for the presidency has ever before suggested that he would compromise or tolerate an erosion of America’s military supremacy.”

Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager, told the Washington Post that the Kerry campaign’s accusation is “absurd,” and responded that Dean “will never tolerate an erosion of American military power, nor has he ever said such a thing.”

But they were just getting started.

Responding to Kerry’s attack on Dean, Dean’s camp decided it’d be fun to return the favor. First, Trippi went after Kerry, arguing that the senator’s foreign policy is as “short-sighted” as Bush’s. Trippi later told the New York Post, “‘It’d be good if Senator Kerry could decide where he is on the war before he sends out one of his boys to attack someone who actually took a stand and stuck with it.”

Then, Mathew Gross, another Dean aide, antagonized Chris Lehane directly, saying Lehane needed to “chill,” and that the Kerry camp looked “desperate.”

“You see where this goes, Chris?” Gross said on the official Dean campaign blog. “Tit for tat? Never mind that our first instinct was to send you a few history books for your edification. The US will continue to have the strongest military in the world under President Dean. The difference between President Dean or President Bush or Kerry, apparently, is how that military will be used, and in what context, and to what end. Get back to us when Senator Kerry decides where he stands on that issue.”

Nasty stuff. Not satisfied, the Dean campaign has also gone after Gephardt.

Dean got the ball rolling last week, calling Gephardt’s universal health care proposal a “pie-in-the-sky radical revamping” of the system. Gephardt acknowledged that he’d pay for the proposal by repealing all of Bush’s tax cuts, which prompted Dean to criticize Gephardt directly, questioning why the Missouri congressman voted for the cuts in 2001, but now wants to repeal them.

The only problem? Dean was wrong — Gephardt aggressively opposed the 2001 tax cut plan.

This is completely ridiculous. We’re still 10 months before the New Hampshire primary and most of the candidates are able to play nicely with others. These dust ups involving Dean are causing too many internal problems for the party, when Dems should be focusing on Bush.

ABC News’ The Note said Kerry’s camp is enjoying keeping Dean on the defensive, after months of Dean going on the offensive, because it keeps the meta-focus on Dean’s competence and national security experience. I think that’s a mistake. Every time there’s an article about Kerry questioning Dean’s qualifications, it reinforces the Kerry vs. Dean dynamic, which doesn’t help Kerry at all. Kerry is supposed to be the front runner with the best staff and the most cash on hand. Dean is supposed to be the quixotic liberal with no money and no national stature. The more the media plays up Kerry vs. Dean, the more Dean builds his profile, raises his visibility, and is seen on an even plane with the presumptive nominee. I believe, in other words, that Kerry is doing a huge favor for Dean, whether he realizes it or not.

Nevertheless, Dean has to start making some tactical adjustments. First, as much as he likes to just say what he’s thinking, Dean must develop discipline. Saying things about American military strength fading in the future, plus questioning whether Iraqis are better off without Saddam, makes him look, well, unpresidential. These comments end up putting Dean on the defensive and give his political foes ammunition to use against him. I suspect every time Dean makes one of these comments, Karl Rove and the GOP put it aside, pray he gets the nomination, and make plans to use the remarks for TV ads in 2004.

Plus, if Dean is going to attack a rival, he’s got to stop being wrong. What made him think Gephardt voted for Bush’s 2001 tax cuts? Gephardt led the Democratic opposition to the tax cuts.

This is becoming a disturbing pattern for Dean. If he’s going to attack other Democrats, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to get his facts straight first.