John Kerry - reserved veteran, losing direction
Having won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, John Kerry went straight from Vietnam to the peace movement. But as Massachusetts Senator his opposition to the Iraq war is undermined by early support for it, and he has focused largely on Bush’s lack of pre-war diplomacy. Despite being the early frontrunner, Kerry’s campaign is losing momentum and staff, and risks looking conventional and reserved next to the vigour of Howard Dean’s insurgency.
Kerry would give free health insurance to all poor uninsured school children, raising the money by repealing some - but not all - of the 2001 tax cuts. In favour of strict fuel-efficiency legislation for cars, he plans to get 20 percent of US electricity from renewables by 2020.
Howard Dean – populist liberal, fiscal conservative
The former doctor and four-term governor of Vermont has benefited from huge grassroots support powered by internet ‘bloggers’ and small donations. He opposed the Iraq war from the beginning - and would scrap missile defence to pay for programmes against nuclear proliferation.
On social policy, Dean balances a plan to extend federal health insurance to all those under 25 or on low incomes, with support for both gun rights and the death penalty. As governor of Vermont, he signed into law the first civil partnership legislation for gay couples.
He is also the most emphatic about fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget every year of his governorship. He would cancel all Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, has suggested raising the retirement age to 67 or 68, and has branded NAFTA a failure.
Dismissed early as appealing only to liberal activists, he has broadened his appeal, gathering both pace and supporters and a clutch of endorsements from powerful trade unions and former vice president Al Gore. Clinton-style New Democrats equate his alleged weakness on national security to that of the liberal Democrat candidate George McGovern, who was crushed by Richard Nixon in 1972.
Richard Gephardt – for an international minimum wage
A congressman from Missouri, Gephardt led four unsuccessful Democrat attempts to retake the House of Representatives from Republican control. Viewed as the unions’ best friend in Washington, thanks to his vigorous opposition to free trade treaties like NAFTA, he’s been shaken by labour’s increasing support for Dean.
Gephardt has issued relatively mild calls for multilateralism, prudence and diplomacy over Iraq but has reaffirmed his support for the war and his certainty that WMD will be found. Given his pro-war stance, he’s wooing core Democrats with a promise to protect American jobs by establishing an international minimum wage coupled with a pledge to universalise health insurance by doubling the subsidy on employer-provided plans.
John Edwards - education, home ownership and saving
Only elected to the Senate from North Carolina in 1998, Edwards is a former trial lawyer, and more hawkish that all the nominees except Joe Lieberman. He suggested as early as May that a NATO-led coalition, rather than the UN, should run post-war Iraq. Alongside Lieberman and Clark, Edwards attracts support from many New Democrats.
His centrepiece is education, with a cluster of policies around free college education for teachers in poor areas, smaller, more flexible high schools, and one year’s free college education at all public universities. Edwards would repeal the parts of the Bush tax cuts that benefit Americans earning $240,000 or more, subsidise the down-payment on a first home, and match private savings with tax credits for those earning less than $50,000.
Joe Lieberman – conservative hawk with his eye on tax reform
Joe Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut and Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, is the most conservative of all the Democrats running, and the most consistent hawk. He was one of two Senate Democrats who co-sponsored the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act committing the USA to change the Iraqi regime - but unlike all the other 2004 candidates, including Bush, he outlined clear plans for the aftermath before the war started.
Lieberman’s economic reforms are detailed, and include making the tax code more progressive with a five percent surcharge on couples earning more than $250,000, a 20 percent investment tax credit, and the creation of the internet as a ‘duty-free zone’. He also aims to eliminate the need for imported oil within 20 years.
Wesley Clark - internationalist with a late entrance
A Rhodes scholar with a masters in philosophy, politics and economics, a key player in ending Bosnia’s genocide and Kosovo’s ethnic cleansing, General Wesley Clark has the background to force neo-con hawks onto the defensive. Firmly anti-war, he proposes a foreign policy based on three ideas: idealistic engagement, a reliance on international organisations, and the use of force only as a last resort because of vast ‘unintended consequences’.
Clark argues for investment in the environment, education, health and retirement, and condemns Bush’s tax stimulus as neither fair nor efficient. After declaring in only September 2003, his challenge is to show that he can be more than a vice presidential running mate with starred epaulettes. Despite repeated denials by the Clintons, he’s widely seen as their favoured candidate.
Dennis Kucinich - rank outsider
Kucinich has been a politician since the age of 21. As well as wanting to replace all private health insurance with universal public care, the Ohio congressman would withdraw from NAFTA and the WTO, and create a ‘Department of Peace’ both to tackle spousal abuse and to ‘make war archaic’.
Carol Moseley Braun – rediscover the Constitution’
After losing her seat as senator from Illinois, Braun became ambassador to New Zealand. She is now running as the most outspoken critic of the USA Patriot Act - but only, say some, to derail the campaign of Al Sharpton.
Al Sharpton - New York community leader
Sharpton, an ordained minister since the age of nine, proposes federalising all public education and standardising voting. The inspiration for Rev Bacon in Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.