DES MOINES, Iowa (REUTERS) –The Democratic presidential contenders set their sights on former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean on Monday, with rivals Richard Gephardt and John Kerry sharply attacking his record on Medicare and questioning his foreign policy credentials.
At a debate in Iowa, site of the first crucial 2004 nominating contest in less that two months, eight of the nine Democrats vying to challenge President Bush also squabbled over Iraq and assailed a $400 billion Medicare bill headed toward Senate approval.
Gephardt, who is battling with Dean atop the polls in Iowa, and Kerry, who is chasing Dean in the first primary state of New Hampshire, questioned Dean’s commitment to Medicare while in Vermont and asked if he planned to cut growth in the health care program for seniors to help balance the federal budget.
“He cut funding for the blind and disabled,” Gephardt said of Dean’s efforts to balance the Vermont budget in the early 1990s. “You don’t just cut the most vulnerable in our society.”
Dean said as a governor he had to make “tough decisions,” but denied ever lopping anyone from the Medicaid rolls or cutting human service or education funding. “We need new leadership in this party,” he said, a shot at Gephardt’s long record leading House Democrats in Washington.
Kerry prompted a sharp exchange with Dean, interrupting him repeatedly to ask if he planned to slow the growth rate of Medicare as one step toward balancing the federal budget.
“We are not going to cut Medicare in order to balance the budget,” Dean said, adding at one point: “I’d like to slow the rate of growth of this debate.”
The escalating attacks on Dean were another sign of his growing stature in the race and his budding rivalry in Iowa with Gephardt, who won the state during his first unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988 and must win it again this year to advance.
Dean, who has broken Democratic fund-raising records and rejected public financing and the spending limits that come with them, has been a target of attacks in recent weeks from both Gephardt and Kerry as they try to cut his lead.
Kerry, who also opted out of public financing in order to tap his personal assets for the campaign, touted his foreign policy credentials in Congress and his experience as a Vietnam veteran, drawing a direct contrast with Dean.
“I think it matters in the post-September 11th world that we have somebody with experience,” Kerry said.
Dean, who shot to the top of the Democratic pack largely on the basis of his opposition to the war, said Kerry still had not shown good judgment in supporting a congressional resolution authorizing military action in Iraq.
“His experience led him to give the president of the United States a blank check to invade Iraq,” he said.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark admitted he “bobbled” the issue when he switched stances early in his campaign on whether he would have supported the resolution, but added, “This party’s making a great mistake by trying to make a litmus test on who would have or did or didn’t vote for that resolution last October.”
North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said all of the Democrats needed to quit fighting each other and focus on their vision for America. “Now, the Democrats are all at each other’s throats,” he said. “People are tired of listening to politicians yell at each other.”
All of the candidates attacked the $400 billion Medicare bill, charging it was a giveaway to the insurance and drug industries that in the long run would harm those it was designed to serve — the nation’s elderly.
“It’s a $400 billion charge to our grandchildren’s credit card so that President Bush can be re-elected,” Dean said.
Kerry and Edwards participated in the debate via satellite from Washington after voting in the Senate earlier in the day in support of a Democratic filibuster against the Medicare bill.
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who said last week that he would not participate after pulling his campaign out of Iowa, had not planned to attend and the Democratic National Committee denied his late request to participate by satellite.