New Hampshire voters take criticism of Clark in stride...

[wyldwolf]

A week of interviews with New Hampshire voters... suggests some of the combative, leading candidates (Dean, Kerry) might do better (than attacking Clark) by courting the state's growing number of independent voters -- voters with a history of preferring mavericks to party loyalists.

Ever since Clark jumped into the race, Kerry and other leading candidates -- including former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt -- have tried to stall his momentum by repeatedly criticizing his late Democratic conversion. They've pointed out that Clark voted for Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and that Clark publicly praised the current Bush administration as recently as 2001.

But in interviews over the past week, voters of every political persuasion said over and over that this argument is unlikely to take hold in New Hampshire, where more people are registered as "undeclared" than as either Democrat or Republican. And these independents, who can vote in either party's presidential primary, are likely to flock to the Democratic contest because no one is challenging President Bush for the Republican nomination.

Even voters who identified themselves as Democrats or Republicans said they take pride in their ability to look beyond party lines in this traditionally anti-tax, anti-regulation state, where the motto is "Live Free or Die" and the law doesn't require adults to wear seat belts. Jack A. Saunders, a Democrat from Holderness, said going after Clark for voting Republican will backfire on candidates like Kerry.

http://www.post-gazette.com/election/20031019independents1019p2.asp

[displacedtexan]

1. i'm impressed by clark;

however, i was also impressed by the early campaigns of anderson, perot, and nader. keep working; you might convince me in the near future that clark can beat the odds. btw, i feel the same way about dean. i wish i felt today that either of these two could beat *.