DUKAKIS REDUX:

Kerry tries to clarify Southern campaign strategy to colleagues (Nedra Pickler, 3/28/2003 , Associated Press)

Presidential candidate John F. Kerry has been passing notes on the Senate floor, assuring his Southern Democratic colleagues that he plans to compete in their home states.

The Massachusetts senator distributed verbatim text of remarks he gave earlier this month at a fund-raiser in California when he was asked about his chances in the conservative-leaning South.

Kerry slipped the note, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press, to a few colleagues Wednesday while the Senate deliberated the budget. He was prompted by a story Monday in The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., titled, ''Kerry might have written off the South,'' that referred to his speech.

''Al Gore proved that you can get elected president of the United States without winning one Southern state - if he had simply won New Hampshire or West Virginia or Ohio or Colorado or a number of other states,'' Kerry said at the fund-raiser. ''We are the leaders. Democrats have to stop looking at the small solution that the country is compartmentalized in that way.''

The prospective nomination of John Kerry risks not only handing the election to George W. Bush but driving Democratic numbers in Congress to lows not seen since before the Depression. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 28, 2003 5:30 PM