Candidates, spouses, others go into a home-stretch kick
11:00 PM 2/16/04
Scott Milfred State government reporter

A final day of feverish campaigning for president Monday brought two candidates, two spouses of other candidates, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and even a talking carrot to Madison. <

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean drew the largest crowd, about 1,200 people, to the Orpheum Theatre, hoping for an upset in today's Democratic primary to jump-start his once mighty campaign. <

"You don't have to be a rubber stamp for the media and the pollsters," Dean declared to the cheering audience of mostly young people waving signs and small American flags. "What a difference you can make tomorrow." <

Dean touted his record of expanding health-care coverage for most Vermont residents, balancing state budgets, allowing civil unions for gays and lesbians and standing up against the Iraq war. <

With the audience chanting, "We want Dean," the former governor responded, "If you vote tomorrow, you'll have him." <

Long-shot challenger U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio warned young people on the UW-Madison campus to expect a draft if the direction of the Iraq occupation doesn't dramatically change soon. <

"This isn't a scare tactic," Kucinich told about 500 enthusiastic supporters at the Memorial Union. "This is a fact." <

Kucinich pledged to turn over lucrative contracts for rebuilding Iraq to the U.N. so Iraqi citizens can get more jobs. One of their few options now is signing up as police officers, he said. <

"They line up for jobs to get blown up because they can't get any other work," Kucinich said. <

Kennedy, D-Mass., stumping for front-runner U.S. Sen. John Kerry, also of Massachusetts, recalled the lift his late brother President John Kennedy received with a victory in the Wisconsin primary of 1960. <

"That is why your votes are so important," Kennedy told a few hundred excited people at the Kohl Center. "Wisconsin is going to be front and center, and we need your help to bring a new America." <

Kerry will raise the minimum wage, protect the environment, create jobs and stand up to President Bush, Kennedy said. He also recalled flying off a ski jump in Middleton in the '60s to draw attention to his brother's campaign. <

"I'm ready to do it" again for Kerry, Kennedy joked. "Show me where those skis are. Show me where that jump is." <

Teresa Heinz Kerry, the front-runner's wife, recalled her husband's war heroics in Vietnam. <

"He came back to stop the war," she said. "He has high ideals. He follows through." <

Heinz Kerry also cited her husband's commitment to helping kids, making college more accessible and his knowledge of foreign affairs. <

"He enjoys complexity," she said. "He's actually curious about the world. And he knows people can actually solve problems, not just make them." <

Kerry the candidate spent Monday touring by bus from Wausau to Milwaukee. <

U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina rallied supporters from South Milwaukee to Eau Claire, while his wife, Elizabeth, detoured to Madison. <

She said her husband is the one Democrat who can win in the South with his message of protecting workers and jobs. <

"What we need in the end is somebody who can unite us," Elizabeth Edwards said. "My husband will make a great president because he has the capability to reach inside each one of us and pull out the better part of us. <

"And you see him do this," she said. "It doesn't matter where somebody is. A lot of us vote ideologically. But a lot of people don't. They vote with their gut. And he reaches all those people. He has the ability to talk about things in a way that doesn't scare people away." <

Also campaigning in Madison was a tall, orange, smiling carrot wearing a red-white-and-blue tuxedo shirt and hat. His name, he said, is Chris P. Carrot, the only vegetable seeking the White House. <

"It's a vision thing," Carrot said from inside the costume he wore as a stunt by the vegetarian-pushing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Carrot expects to do well because he was "born and raised in American soil and welcome at every table in every home across the land." <