Dean says he'll stay in beyond Wis.

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- For the second time in less than a week, Howard Dean altered the shelf life on his presidential candidacy, declaring yesterday that he will stay in the Democratic race regardless of whether he wins next Tuesday in what he previously declared was a do-or-die primary in Wisconsin.

Dean said he would stop seeking his party's nomination as soon as any candidate amasses the the number of convention delegates necessary to win. He also hinted that he was looking for a way to continue to have political influence after a nominee is chosen.

"Clearly, if we don't win Wisconsin there's going to be a real problem trying to run the kind of conventional campaign," he said. "I can tell you what we're not going to do. We're not going to run a quixotic campaign that's going to attack the nominee of the Democratic Party -- that we're not going to do under any circumstances.

Last Thursday Dean sent an e-mail to his supporters urging their contributions and saying: "The entire race has come down to this: We must win Wisconsin. . . . Anything less will put us out of this race." The appeal netted over $1 million in fresh contributions, although Dean's campaign chairman later said a loss would not necessarily force Dean from the race.

Dean told reporters he decided to stay in the race regardless of the Wisconsin outcome because of the success of the fund-raising drive, and because supporters he met here and in Maine during the past two days have urged him not to quit. In addition, he said he does not believe the Democratic front-runner, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, has been fully examined by the media or is as well known to voters as he is.

"The truth is, people know more about me than they know about John Kerry, because once you start doing well you gain an enormous amount of momentum," Dean said. "Let's take a look at Senator [John] Edwards, for example, let's give people a chance to see if they think he's a more viable candidate. Because of the tightness of the primary schedule, we haven't had an opportunity to do that."

Dean acknowledged that before he lost 12 straight primaries and caucuses he had hoped to use similar momentum and this year's front-loaded election calendar to secure the nomination for himself, but said: "I'm not blaming John Kerry for any of this. All I'm saying is this process is problematic for this party, for this country."

The declaration overshadowed what had been a carefully crafted kickoff of Dean's eight-day Wisconsin campaign. He and his aides drafted a new speech in which he implored the state's progressive voters to save his candidacy. They arranged to deliver it before three favorable audiences, in Madison, a university town and liberal Democratic hotbed, and at the University of Wisconsin branches in Green Bay and Stevens Point. At each of the first two stops, he said, "Wisconsin -- you have the power to keep this debate alive."

Speaking with WKOW-TV in Madison, Dean also said recent questions about President Bush's military record were appropriate. Bush flew fighter jets in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, but he also spent eight months of his military commitment working on a Senate campaign in Alabama and was discharged early to go to Harvard Business School. "I think we need to find out the details of what that service [was], but it's very clear that is fair game, because it certainly was in my candidacy, and I don't know why it shouldn't be in his," Dean said.

Dean received a draft deferment because of a spinal condition. After graduating from Yale, he spent months skiing in Aspen. Last year he bragged to a Colorado newspaper about his prowess at mogul-skiing.

Dean tried to motivate state residents by arguing that the mass media are trying to devalue their votes. "The media claims that this contest is over," he said. "They say that Wisconsin's voice doesn't count, that your votes don't count. They expect you to rubber-stamp everybody else's choice. But you don't have to listen to them."

Dean shifted position on his political future in an interview with WBAY-TV after he delivered an identical speech in Green Bay.

"I know, an obvious contradiction," Dean told a Globe reporter who took notes on the interview for the campaign's traveling press corps. "I've just been convinced that we're not going to drop out. There's too many people who've come up to me and said, `Whatever you do, don't drop out.' So I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen in Wisconsin, but we're going to find a way to stay in one way or the other."

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.