GOP says Kerry is too liberal for state

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Looking toward November, Republicans eagerly labeled John Kerry too liberal to carry Missouri while Democrats said Kerry's sweeping presidential primary victory displayed strength critical to beating President Bush in the swing state.

Kerry received 51 percent of Tuesday's statewide vote and 36 national convention delegates, after a compressed Missouri campaign thrown together when favorite son Dick Gephardt, the St. Louis congressman, ended his second White House bid a couple of weeks ago.

John Edwards finished second with 25 percent of the vote -- including carrying three rural counties -- and he got 20 convention delegates. The North Carolina senator was just a handful of votes behind Kerry in several rural Missouri counties.

Just 15 percent of Missouri's 3.6 million registered voters participated in the primaries. More than three-fourths of the votes cast were for Democrats, because there was no suspense about President Bush swamping two unknown Republican challengers. Secretary of State Matt Blunt had predicted 23 percent turnout, but freezing weather and icy roads helped depress participation.

Exit polls showed most Missouri Democrats made their decisions in the election's closing days, and most of those late deciders went to Kerry.

Many Missouri Democrats acknowledged they didn't know much about Kerry, who visited the state twice during the suddenly competitive campaign and relied mostly on a relatively small purchase of television ads and an organization led by quickly recruited Gephardt expatriates.

Winning momentum

May Scheve Reardon, the state Democratic chairwoman, said the Massachusetts senator "obviously benefited" in Missouri from a perception of winning momentum.

"All we knew in Missouri about Kerry was news video and headlines of Kerry winning in Iowa and New Hampshire and raising his arms in victory, and Missouri likes a winner," said David Robertson, a political scientist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "It was all about the buzz."

Exit polls showed about 80 percent of Kerry's Missouri voters believed him the best in the field to defeat Bush. The Show Me State is a closely watched general election state, because Missouri has gone with the winner in every presidential election except one during the last century.

"As goes Missouri, so goes the entire country," Slay shouted happily at Kerry's election watch party in St. Louis.

But Ann Wagner, chairwoman of the Missouri Republican Party and co-chair of the national GOP, said Kerry was "not, underscore not, the middle-of-the-road, mainstream Missouri, electable candidate that Missourians are used to voting for."

"Not a one of those Democrats is going to want to throw their lovin' arms around him while they're standing in outstate Missouri," Wagner said.

Rural Democratic activists interviewed Wednesday said they wanted to know more about Kerry.

Stanley "Bear" Conway, a self-described conservative Democrat who has spent 23 years as Shannon County assessor, said folks in his southern Missouri county are dissatisfied with Bush -- "but Kerry tends to be a little more liberal than what Shannon County likes."

Kerry beat Edwards by 30 votes in Shannon County, where Democratic Gov. Bob Holden grew up. In Shannon County's sparsely populated 1,004 square miles, "we just have a slower way of life and we rely more on individual efforts than on parties and governments doing things for us, so liberal candidates don't play so well here," Conway added.

In the Ozarks' Douglas County, a Republican stronghold where Kerry edged Edwards by 17 votes, former county Democratic chairman Charles B. Cooper said he liked what he had learned so far about Kerry's military record, including the Purple Heart and Silver Star for Vietnam combat.

"I think Kerry can motivate these Missouri Democrats," said Cooper, who voted for Kerry. "Even in Republican country."