Gun vote could go to Dean [View All]

[w4rma]

Strategists warn that candidate is no pushover

WASHINGTON -- In 2000, George Bush was the dark horse presidential candidate in West Virginia, wooing voters right under the nose of would-be Romeo Al Gore.

Now, West Virginia is being linked to another presidential suitor -- and it's not Bush.

Republican political strategists here are warning Bush could be vulnerable to former Vermont governor Howard Dean, one of nine Democratic challengers, in key states like West Virginia, and on exactly the same issue the president used to court state voters -- guns.

"We are whistling past the graveyard if we think Howard Dean will be a pushover," Bob Moore and Hans Kaiser of Moore Information write in a memo first reported last week in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.

The hypothesis since has been picked up by the New Republic and the Washington Post.

The consultants propose an electoral scenario that would send the Vermont governor to the White House by winning 23 states, 21 captured by Gore, plus Nevada and West Virginia.
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http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2003101313/