STRATEGERY

Democrats rethink strategy: Campaigns deal with condensed primary slate (Anne E. Kornblut, 7/20/2003, Boston Globe)

The shifted schedule -- with scores of races being held earlier than usual -- has Democratic campaign advisers plotting creative strategies about where to send their candidates to campaign, where to seek endorsements, and where to buy television ads, no longer certain that a strong showing in Iowa or New Hampshire will build enough momentum to sweep the rest of the race.

At the same time, strategists are looking beyond the first two contests to a much larger degree than in the past, assuming that Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri has a next-door advantage in Iowa and Howard Dean of Vermont and Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts have an edge in New Hampshire. [...]

A key piece of the strategy for Senator John Edwards of North Carolina -- with no automatic advantage in Iowa or New Hampshire -- is to perform well in the first two races but focus intently on the Feb. 3 races, in the hope of sweeping two Southern states (South Carolina and Oklahoma) and two Western states (Arizona and New Mexico) on a single day. His approach also targets Feb. 10, when both Virginia and Tennessee hold their primaries.

This seems to underestimate the degree to which all of the oxygen will be sucked out of the campaigns that don't break through in the first two contests. Having been waxed in IA and NH the Edwards campaign is unlikely to be able to even get any press coverage leading into those more amenable states. Meanwhile, he'll have had to spend campaign cash like a sailor on leave in NH and IA, just hoping to finish third somewhere. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2003 6:55 PM