Despite setback, candidate looks ahead
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa -- After telling supporters the Iowa caucuses would be a test of his "people-have-the-power" campaign theme, Howard Dean last night conceded the race to two Washington Democrats he had scorned, Senators John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina.
The former Vermont governor, losing his first contest in national politics, said his campaign had been undercut by incessant attacks from his rivals and the media.
But in a concession speech that was more of a rallying cry to his supporters, Dean declared he would fight on. He immediately decamped from Iowa en route to New Hampshire, which holds its primary a week from today.
"You know what? If you had told us one year ago that we were going to come in third in Iowa, we would have given anything for that," an impassioned Dean told a crowd of about 1,500 flag-waving supporters packed into an old roller-skating rink.
Casting aside the sweater he had worn for the past week and returning to his trademark rolled-up shirtsleeves, Dean shouted several times in a full-throated roar, "We will not give up!" Then he rattled off the upcoming primary and caucus states, vowing to take them all.
"And we're going to win in Massachusetts and North Carolina and Missouri and Arkansas and New York and Ohio," he adding, including the home states of Kerry and Edwards in the list. "We have just begun to fight."
His voice wavered as it went hoarse during the rousing remarks, made in the tone of the battling, determined underdog that Dean had been considered before he spurted ahead in fund-raising and polls over the summer.
Ninety minutes earlier, a more pensive Dean attributed his loss to sustained attacks against him.
"We were way ahead, and when you're way ahead, people decide you're the target, and we were pretty much the target of everybody for a long time, and it's hard to sustain that," Dean told CNN. "But we did sustain it and we got our ticket punched to New Hampshire and that's what matters."
While the latest polls in the Granite State have shown retired Army General Wesley K. Clark surging into second place behind Dean and ahead of Kerry, the former governor discounted those numbers as he turned his attention to campaigning in another state.
"I think people shift around some as a result of all of this. But I'm looking forward to the primary. It's a new day, a new state," he said.
An hour before caucus sites opened, Dean told a crowd of about 1,000 at Iowa State University that the results would provide the first measuring stick for a campaign that had shattered fund-raising records and set a new standard for using the Internet for political organizing.
"Tonight, about three hours from now, we're going to find out if this works or not," he said, standing beside Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. "You need to talk to people about switching their votes. Tell them about what's happening in this movement to take America back."
Dean woke yesterday after barely five hours of sleep and made the rounds of morning network television shows.
He then boarded his campaign bus for the drive west to Des Moines, making back-to-back phone calls to 14 radio stations across the state.
But his late media blitz and organization of loyal young volunteers were not enough to offset the late surge in momentum that carried Kerry and Edwards, who had trailed far behind in the polls until recent weeks, to the top two finishes in the caucuses.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
