"More than 200 Democrats gathered Saturday to talk presidential politics with a congressman for Howard Dean, a former congressman for Wesley K. Clark and spokespeople for six other candidates.

With just 23 days remaining before Virginia’s Feb. 10 party presidential primary, a large number of Charlottesville-area Democrats appear uncertain which of the eight candidates has the best chance of defeating President Bush on Nov. 2.

A show of hands at the start of the two-hour monthly breakfast meeting of city and Albemarle County Democrats showed perhaps half or more had not firmly decided for whom they plan to vote in the primary.

With a four-way race at the top coming to a close Monday in Iowa, Dean is likely to be the only candidate to head into Virginia with first or second-place finishes in every state that selects delegates before Feb. 10, said 3rd District Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News.

“If we are going to win this election, we have to have a candidate who is telling the truth about the war and about the budget,” Scott, Dean’s campaign chairman in Virginia, told the packed room at the Jefferson Area Board for the Aging offices. “He is a straight talker. He talks straight about the war.”

“Howard Dean said we’re no safer after the capture [of Saddam Hussein in Iraq last month] and seven days later the Bush administration increased the threat level” from terrorist threats against Americans, validating what only Dean, among the party’s presidential hopefuls, had said, Scott noted.

“Half the people in America don’t vote” and Dean can bring them to the voting booths, Scott said. He said only Dean is running a truly national campaign while the other seven candidates target some states and ignore others. “They are playing some tag team” against Dean, he said.

“No one has shown any demonstrated ability to raise money [to spend] after the middle of March except Dean,” most of whose money comes in donations under $250, Scott said.

On to Clark, Edwards

Former congressman L.F. Payne of Nelson County, Clark’s Virginia campaign chairman, said he sees the Feb. 10 Virginia primary boiling down to a race between Dean and Clark at the top. “In 15 months, he has raised $15 million,” Payne said of Clark.

Of all eight Democrats running for president, “I don’t think there’s a bad one in the lot,” Payne said. He praised Clark as a retired general with vision and called him the candidate most likely to make American families feel safe in their homes in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Antwaun Griffin, political director for U.S. Sen. John Edwards’ Virginia campaign, cautioned that Democrats will lose if they run against Bush on the war in Iraq. He said Edwards would work to attain “a tax system that rewards work and not wealth.”

“John Edwards has the energy, the strength of conviction to take on George Bush,” Griffin said. “We cannot make this election a referendum on the war.”

Griffin said Edwards, D-N.C., is likely to win in South Carolina’s Feb. 3 Democratic primary in a state he called “a better snapshot of what America looks like” than Iowa or New Hampshire. “He doesn’t have to win in Iowa or New Hampshire.”

Edwards “will be an advocate for strong public education,” Griffin said. “There’s a detailed plan for college for everyone” with a first year free at public universities in exchange for public service and college scholarships to attract new teachers to underserved rural schools.

And the rest

David Swanson, campaign press secretary for Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, said the four-term congressman and former mayor of Cleveland “would repeal those portions of the Bush tax cuts that were for the extremely wealthy” and would hand the defense and rebuilding of Iraq over to the United Nations.

Susan Swecker, state director for U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., said her candidate appears to be “a lot of peoples’ second choice” at this point and will be competitive with Dean and Clark in Virginia.

“We need to keep in mind who is the best candidate who can beat George Bush,” said Swecker, who began her talk by holding up a doll of the president with lots of yellow and orange cloth sewn around its middle. “This is a George Bush ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire’ doll,” she explained.

Kerry is a former prosecutor and a Democrat who “held Ollie North accountable in the Iran-Contra scandal,” Swecker said.

Spokesmen for U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York also told Democrats that their candidates have messages with which to beat Bush.

Lieberman and Gephardt were depicted as Democrats with 30 years of leadership experience and appealing to voters in the middle of the political spectrum and in middle America." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, January 18, 2004)

Contact Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.

Editor's Note: Contacted on numerous occasions, Rev. Al Sharpton's campaign was unable to provide a representative to the breakfast. So local personality Uriah Fields was offered a brief moment to speak on his behalf.

Editor's note: L.F. Payne wishes to point out that Bob Gibson mis-quoted him. Gen. Clark raised $15 million in 15 weeks, not months.