Dean pursued Gore for year

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- The cellphone call came in Friday at 9 p.m. as Howard Dean traveled to Des Moines after a day of campaigning. The man at the other end was phoning from Tokyo to talk about a draft of a foreign policy speech Dean had forwarded him -- offering advice as he'd done upon occasion for the candidate over the last year.

This time, though, the caller had a dramatic coda to his words of counsel.

"I want to endorse you," former vice president Al Gore told Dean, according to his campaign manager, Joe Trippi. Gore said he had made his decision and wanted to make it public as soon as possible.

So yesterday, Gore stood next to Dean in New York and then in Iowa, proclaiming his support for the former governor of Vermont -- the man he'd once asked not to seek the presidency to clear the way for his own failed run in 2000.

"Democracy is a team sport, and I want to do everything I can to convince anybody who is interested in my judgment about who among these candidates has the best chance to win," Gore said before a crowd in New York's Harlem that included his daughter Karenna Gore Schiff. "I want to do everything I can to convince you to get behind Howard Dean, and let's make this a successful campaign as a group."

The announcement capped more than a year of courtship by the Dean campaign. Among other things, Dean sought Gore's advice on foreign policy, particularly the war in Iraq, which like Dean, Gore vehemently opposed. Tipper Gore, the former vice president's wife, was consulted for her views on early-childhood education and mental health issues, according to campaign officials.

The endorsement was a bombshell for other contenders bidding for the Democratic nomination, stunning Gore's former running mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who said at a rally in New Hampshire before attending last night's debate in Durham that Gore's telephone call to him yesterday morning "was about four to five minutes in length -- and too late."

Dean campaign officials said Gore had tried to reach Lieberman on Sunday night without success.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said he would remain a supporter of Senator John F. Kerry, who is trailing Dean in polls in New Hampshire, and sought to downplay the endorsement: "I think people like to make up their own minds in the Democratic Party. . . . I'm looking forward to going around and trying to convince people for Senator Kerry, both in New Hampshire and, later, out in Iowa. And we'll look forward to the outcome."

Dean held the endorsement closely, at Gore's request -- with his closest advisers kept in the dark for days. Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, said he learned of Gore's decision Sunday, despite spending the day before with Dean at the Florida State Party convention.

In comments both in Harlem and Cedar Rapids yesterday, Gore said his decision to back the former governor was cemented by the Dean campaign's strong grass-roots support, his outspoken criticism of President Bush, and his early and vocal opposition to the war in Iraq.

"I realize it is only one of the issues. But, folks, this nation has never in our two centuries and more made a worse foreign policy mistake," Gore said before a raucous midday crowd in Cedar Rapids. "Therefore, it is not a minor matter to me that the only major candidate for the nomination of my party that had the good judgment, experience, and good sense to feel and see and articulate the right choice was Howard Dean."

Gore, who departed after the Iowa announcement for a trip to Sweden, ruled out a run of his own last year, surprising many who had expected him to campaign for the White House after losing the 2000 presidential election despite winning the popular vote.

Yesterday, Gore appeared at peace with that decision, talking with eagerness about putting an end to the internecine fighting that has increasingly characterized the nomination battle.

"I decided that I wanted to speak up and speak out, and I hope that somehow and in some way those of us who are participating will indeed find a way to close ranks behind a nominee," Gore said.

The path to the endorsement was one of tiptoe and deference on Dean's part. Trippi said the campaign's first significant connection with Gore was when Dean contacted him to praise a speech Gore made in September 2002 in San Francisco in which he warned against war in Iraq.

Over the next year, Dean not only reached out to Gore for advice on defense and foreign policy, but also on the environment. Dean was cautious, using key advisers who had been Gore staff members and campaign workers to make contact with Gore associates, including Roy Neel, Gore's former chief of staff.

The relationship intensified in late summer when Gore made another speech critical of the war in Iraq, this one for MoveOn.org, a liberal group whose online poll this fall gave Dean an early boost when it placed him in the lead. Dean again was impressed and jotted a note to Gore, according to campaign staff.

Afterward, the two men talked more frequently, and in November, a 90-minute meeting was arranged for Dean with Gore and his wife at their home in Nashville. Last week, Dean asked Gore to review the foreign policy speech he will deliver Monday in Los Angeles, triggering the arranged Toyko-Iowa cellphone call Friday night.

Dean said he did not know when Gore would join him on the campaign trail, but he said he had already received talking points on global warming and campaign strategy. Equally significant, he said, was the message the endorsement sends. "I think it's a wonderful match; it helps us enormously. We are the insurgent campaign, but the truth is we are not going to win against Bush without uniting the whole party."

Glen Johnson of the Globe staff contributed to this report from New Hampshire.