Candidates spar; King holiday draws comment

The Democratic presidential candidates take the stage moments before their nationally televised debate Thursday night in Greenville at the Peace Center for the Performing Arts. Staff/Owen Riley Jr. e-mail this story Related Related stories: • Hotel wired for debates Photo gallery • Brokaw speaks at Furman • The day in photos • Candidates spend debate day campaigning • Post-debate spin and gatherings • Photos from the debate

They agreed that the Confederate flag that flies outside the Statehouse is a divisive symbol and one, Al Sharpton, found time to raise the absence of a paid holiday for Greenville County employees to honor Martin Luther King Jr.

The lone flash point came in an exchange between former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who displaced him at the top of the field with successive come-from-behind victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. Dean's questioning of Kerry's record on health care legislation drew a rebuke from the senator and a lesson in how a bill becomes law.

The debate took place five days before South Carolina's Feb. 3 Democratic presidential primary, a crucial first-in-the-South test and one that Edwards, a Seneca native, has said he must win to remain viable, a point he reiterated during the debate.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich said the Confederate flag has no part in popular culture or public life. He said he would spend the night in North Carolina to support the NAACP's tourism boycott of South Carolina, aimed at forcing the flag from the Statehouse grounds. The boycott has been suspended for the primary campaign.

The flag, he said, is one of many issues dividing America "and my presidency will be to take these hands and put them on the country to help heal America because all these divisions that have arisen, when you play on them, just exacerbates them."

Sharpton, a New York civil rights activist, shifted from denouncing the Confederate flag to the King holiday, saying, "We in this county still can't even get an official celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday." Sharpton vowed not to rest "until the Confederate flag is down everywhere in this country."

The candidates differed over the South's role in winning the White House and the best way to stem the erosion of American jobs.

The 90-minute debate in the concert hall at the Peace Center for the Performing Arts moderated by NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw was generally low-key and without apparent verbal blunders as the contenders largely fell back on the tried-and-true rhetoric of their stump speech and fine points of the policy white papers.

Don Aiesi, professor of political science at Furman University, said, "All the candidates' performances were adequate. Edwards needed to be good and he needed to dominate." Aiesi said he didn't. As for Kerry, Aiesi said he didn't "razzle-dazzle the way a front-runner should."

John Simpkins, associate director of Richard W. Riley Institute at Furman University, said, "Nobody was damaged, but nobody did particularly well."

Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham said the debate "was definitely more moderate in tone."

He said Kerry enhanced his chances in Tuesday's primary by emerging unscathed and taking moderate positions on "almost all the issues, social and fiscal."

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement of Kerry hours before the debate was a major coup, said the debate was sedate, a circumstance that will "give me a good night's sleep."

Responding to a Brokaw question on the propriety of placing the Ten Commandments on public property, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said, "Tom, I grew up in the South and I went to church every Sunday and I did all that and I can quote Scriptures and so forth. But, you know, I think we need to preserve the separation of church and state."

Edwards criticized President Bush for a foreign policy rooted in "arrogance" and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman defended his support for the war in Iraq.

Lieberman also defended the North American Free Trade Agreement that has long been attacked by Southern textile interests as the cause of the loss of jobs to cheap foreign labor.

"NAFTA has cost some jobs, but it has actually netted out 900,000 new jobs," he said. "The jobs that are leaving South Carolina, very few of them are going are going to (NAFTA partners) Mexico and Canada. They're going to Asia and there the Bush administration hasn't had the guts to stand up to China and other countries for ripping off copyrights, for fixing their currency to give them a price advantage and causes jobs to be bled out of America."

Dean, whose major endorser has been former Vice President Al Gore, a NAFTA proponent, said the U.S. must pressure foreign competitors to pay their workers more and put additional emphasis on "free trade, not fair trade."

Kerry accused the Bush administration of "selling jobs out to large corporations and backing off on technical training for American workers.

"We'll take down any revenues, any incentives, any benefits for CEO's of any company that takes American jobs overseas," Kerry said.

While Democrats spoke to audiences in and beyond South Carolina, they did so from the conservative heartland of a solidly Republican state that has given only one Democratic presidential candidate a majority of its votes over the last 40 years.

The debate may have been the high-water mark for the primary campaign.

Following a candidates' forum this morning in Columbia, one that not all of them will attend, most of those who do will head elsewhere and aren't scheduled to return.

Only Edwards is scheduled to campaign extensively around the state today, Sunday and Monday. He will await the outcome at a rally Tuesday night in Columbia.

The Kerry-Dean exchange came when Dean questioned Kerry's ability to win changes in health care, saying that of Kerry's 11 health-related bills during his 20-years in office, "not one of them passed."

Responding sharply, Kerry said, "One of the things you need to know as president is how things work in Congress if you want to get things done."

Kerry then launched into an explanation of how one lawmaker's bill can become part of another's and go on to become law. Among his bills that won passage that way were family medical leave, mental health benefits and a one for children's health care.

The exchange came between two candidates heading in opposite directions in the primary struggle, Kerry, who overcame huge polling deficits to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Dean, who lost those leads and is now grasping for a victory to keep his campaign alive.

Brokaw's first question was for Kerry and dealt with his views on whether the Democrats could win without the South. Last weekend in New Hampshire, Kerry said that Democrats have spent too much time on the region.

But in recent elections, only Arkansas' Bill Clinton was able to carry Southern states and win the White House.

Edwards said their party has "never elected a Democratic president without winning at least five Southern states."

Lieberman, who several times referred to himself as a moderate or centrist, said he's the Democrat who can appeal to Southern independents and disgruntled Republicans.

Dan Hoover covers politics and can be reached at 298-4883.