Dean: Long Shot to Front-Runner Back to Long Shot

Tuesday, February 3, 2004

SPOKANE, Wash. — Howard Dean, once the fresh face in American politics from computer screens to magazine covers, finds himself as just another struggling White House hopeful who can't seem to get a win.

Just six weeks ago, Dean's victory in the Democratic presidential primary appeared all but inevitable. He had money, the lead in polls and legions of supporters around the country who got together every month to discuss how they would help him wrap up the nomination.

Now, Dean's White House bid hangs on a last-chance strategy -- keep plugging along despite more impending losses while other underdog candidates spend themselves out of the race. Then engage front-runner John Kerry directly.

Dean blames his plunge on the media for crowning him too soon and on rivals whom he says torpedoed his candidacy using every desperate tactic they knew. But there were other problems -- lavish spending early in the race, difficulty transferring his cult-like support into votes and a candidate who sometimes talked without thinking of the political consequences.

"Howard Dean had a great recruitment message for Democrats and new voters to get them into the party and feel part of the process," said Democratic consultant Jenny Backus. "I think Democrats are past wanting to be recruited and they are now looking at electability instead of inspiration."

In some ways, Dean is back to where he started a year ago -- an antiestablishment candidate who most observers say has a long shot at winning.

"I can't really think of a flop that big," said Democratic strategist Dane Strother. "He flopped so big he put the water out of the pool."

Dean, a former Vermont governor, gained respect among the Washington crowd by raising more than $40 million last year, far more than any other Democratic candidate. Thousands of Americans, many who had never donated before to a political campaign, were inspired to contribute to Dean's anti-Iraq war, anti-Washington candidacy.

But Dean frittered away his $40 million by January and all he had to show for it were two losses.

"We had to take enormous risks because I came from nowhere when people had never heard of me before," Dean said this past weekend. "We did take those risks and we lost."

Dean says his biggest mistake was challenging rival Dick Gephardt in Iowa. As Dean surged in the Iowa polls, Gephardt began a sustained attack on Dean's commitment to Medicare and Social Security. Dean responded by criticizing Gephardt's support for the Iraq war.

While Dean and Gephardt fought it out, Kerry and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards were gaining in the polls.

Dean spent his last few days in Iowa on an unwieldy bus tour of the state, but the man who used to be received like a rock star often addressed rooms that still had space. When he railed against President Bush, one of the most often played film clip during the tour was Dean pointedly telling an elderly man, "You sit down. You've had your say and now I'm going to have my say," after the man chastised him for "mean mouthing" the president.

The flip side was Kerry holding an emotional campaign trail reunion with a veteran he rescued 35 years ago in Vietnam.

"When Dean yelled at that 60-year-old man and told him to sit down, then the next day Kerry was hugging the guy whose life he saved," Strother said. "That was quite a juxtaposition."

Dean had 3,000 volunteers from around the country in Iowa, knocking on doors and wearing bright orange hats with their team name, "Iowa Perfect Storm." Although they were enthusiastic, Dean's supporters were campaign novices, while Kerry relied on Iowa precinct captains and other entrenched political natives who could get out the vote.

The result was that Dean came in a shockingly distant third place behind Kerry and Edwards. The negative campaigning with Gephardt put the Missouri congressman in fourth place and ended his bid, but left Dean severely battered, too.

An overenthusiastic concession speech that became the butt of jokes on talk radio and late-night TV didn't help.

Almost overnight, Dean's double-digit lead in New Hampshire evaporated. Dean tried to recover, showing a softer side by appearing with his wife, Judy, who had been nonexistent on the campaign trail until the day before his Iowa loss.

But Dean couldn't overcome Kerry's momentum or the perception that he didn't have the temperament to be president -- an opinion expressed by a third of the New Hampshire voters in an exit poll.

Dean couldn't stem the tide of losses Tuesday, either, and gave up on winning any of the seven contests. Instead, he spent the day campaigning in Washington state, which holds its caucuses on Saturday.

Dean says the nomination will be won by the candidate with the most delegates, and with only nine states having voted, plenty are up for grabs. But the question is whether voters can be persuaded to back a former Vermont governor who has yet to prove he can win a state over a senator with multiple victories.

"It's just the same as it was a year ago, just put one foot in front of the other and keep going," Dean said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,110362,00.html