Republicans Relish Facing One of the 'Liberals' [View All]

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They Don't Know His Name, but the Label Is Ready

By David S. Broder and Mike Allen

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 25 -- Ask any of President Bush's Washington strategists to size up the Democratic candidates campaigning for Tuesday's New Hampshire primary and they will say they are delighted at the prospect of running against a liberal tax-raiser who is soft on terrorism. They don't know what his name is, but those Republicans say that they can put him in that box, whoever he turns out to be. One Republican consultant said the basic message of ads on behalf of Bush will be that the Democrat is "liberal, liberal, liberal."

By contrast, key Republicans here say their close-up view convinces them that the Democrats may field a ticket capable of making November's election as close as the 2000 race.

Peter Spaulding, an elected member of the state Executive Council and a strategist in Arizona Sen. John McCain's successful 2000 New Hampshire GOP primary campaign, said Sunday that a ticket combining Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) "could be very, very competitive" in New Hampshire and nationally.

"The country is still very polarized," Spaulding said, "and I don't see a lot of Gore-Lieberman people who wouldn't vote for that ticket." Still, neither Kerry nor Edwards has commented about such a ticket.

None of the half dozen New Hampshire Republican leaders interviewed said Bush was anything but a favorite for a second term. But they were far less dismissive of the Democratic challenge than their counterparts at the Republican National Committee or the Bush reelection headquarters in Arlington, Va.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47276-2004Jan25.html