Unlike Kerry, who had been in public service for decades, Edwards was a political newcomer and lacked a long record that could be attacked. And, unlike former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who had been the front-runner but whose campaign was collapsing in Iowa, Edwards couldn't easily be painted as "nutty."
If that sounds implausibly convoluted, consider Dowd's own words:
"Whomever we attacked was going to be emboldened in Democratic primary voters' minds.
"So we started attacking John Kerry a lot in the end of January because we were very worried about John Edwards," Dowd said. "And we knew that if we focused on John Kerry, Democratic primary voters would sort of coalesce" around Kerry.
"It wasn't like we could tag [eliminate] somebody. Whomever we attacked was going to be helped," he said.
Nicolle Wallace, the 2004 Bush campaign communications director, recalled at the Harvard conference that the campaign "refused" to even respond to Edwards' attacks on Bush, not wanting to make him seem like a threat.
Edwards was selected as Kerry's running mate and now is vying with Clinton and Obama for their party's 2008 nomination.
Is Rove playing a similar game against Clinton? Is he trying to stampede Democrats into nominating her, having concluded that Obama, Edwards or someone else would pose a stiffer challenge to the Republican nominee?
The White House declined to make Rove available to comment for this article. But political strategists said Rove's visibility suggested he had no intention of fading from the game in 2008.
"I haven't known Karl to do many things accidentally or spontaneously," said Dowd, who has broken ties with Bush, Rove and others and has expressed disappointment in the president's leadership and political tactics.
"He may be right, but I'm not convinced," Dowd said of Rove's apparent strategy. Clinton is "smart, able. She's got very smart people around her, and she knows how to be disciplined," he said.
Bob Shrum, the top strategist for Kerry's 2004 campaign, said that "too little attention has been paid to what Rove is doing" and that he was clearly "not just casually chatting because he's retiring."
But Shrum said Rove was forging a dangerous strategy if he was banking on an easy general-election win over the former first lady. He recalled that many Democrats in 1979 relished the thought of taking on Ronald Reagan the following year.
