Gore’s endorsement hot topic at debate

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, December 9, 2003

DURHAM, N.H. – Eight Democratic presidential contenders on Tuesday strongly disputed that Howard Dean was the party’s best chance for beating President Bush, or that former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement Tuesday of the front-runner would seal the nomination.

“This race is not over,” declared Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts as the candidates gathered at the University of New Hampshire campus for the year’s eighth and final debate. The first votes will be cast in Iowa’s Jan. 19 caucuses and New Hampshire’s Jan. 27 primary.

Their hands joined and raised above their heads, Gore and Dean began their political marriage of convenience earlier in the day in New York’s Harlem community. At the former vice president’s behest, they flew together to Iowa.

Gore, who captured the popular vote but lost the electoral count to George W. Bush in 2000, said Dean’s stance against the war, above all else, swayed him.

The endorsement of Bill Clinton’s No. 2 was a coveted prize for the Democratic hopefuls.

Joe Lieberman, Gore’s spurned 2000 running mate, asserted Tuesday during the debate that “my chances have actually increased today.” The Connecticut senator said people had stopped him in the airport to express outrage over Gore’s backing of Dean.

The response to Gore’s decision was precipitated when one of the debate’s moderators, ABC’s Ted Koppel, opened the debate by inviting the field of nine candidates to “raise your hand if you believe that Gov. Dean can beat George Bush.”

Only one, Dean, raised his hand.

Al Sharpton said Gore’s tactics smacked of “bossism,” and added, “We’re not going to have any big name come in now and tell us the field should be limited … No Democrat should shut us up today.”

Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina added, “We’re not going to have a coronation.”

And Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri declared, “I’m sure all of us think we have the best chance to beat George Bush.” But, he said, he stood a better chance than the others in the battleground states of the Midwest that would likely decide the election.

The debate also brought fresh attacks on the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. But the liveliest exchanges came on the subject of Gore’s endorsement.

Calling himself a champion of the moderate, fiscally conservative, tough-on-security wing of the Democratic Party, Lieberman said: “Howard Dean – and now I guess Al Gore – are on the wrong side of those issues.”

Clark threw Gore’s words back in his face, saying, “To quote another former Democratic leader, I think elections are about people not about the powerful. I think it was Al Gore who said that.”

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