Despite setback, candidate looks ahead to N.H.

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa -- After telling supporters the Iowa caucuses would be a test of his "people-have-the-power" campaign theme, a humbled Howard Dean conceded last night that he would finish third behind two Washington Democrats he had scorned, Senators John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina.

The former Vermont governor, taking his first step in national politics, said his campaign had been undercut by incessant attacks from his rivals and the media after he surfaced atop polls in mid-August. Nonetheless, he vowed to fight on and immediately decamped from Iowa en route to New Hampshire, which holds its primary a week from today.

"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 in an interview before even half of the caucus results were officially reported. "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 showed retired Army General Wesley K. Clark surging into second place behind Dean and ahead of Kerry, Dean discounted those numbers as he commenced a new phase of his campaign.

"I think people shift around some as a result of all of this. But I'm looking forward to the [New Hampshire] primary. It's a new day, a new state," he told CNN.

Dean said the campaign would next concentrate on South Carolina, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, all of which hold their primaries on Feb. 3.

"We have a huge base. We've raised a lot of money in small donations; that's the way campaigns should be run in this country. And we're still going to stand up," Dean said.

An hour before the caucuses 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 round 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.

Dean had planned to attend a Martin Luther King Day service in Des Moines, but he marched out after a waiting pack of about 150 reporters blocked his entrance to the Iowa State Historical Building, surrounded him after he took a wrong turn and wandered around a vacant rooftop plaza, and then overran the auditorium inside where the service was being held. "I wasn't able to attend the event because you guys behaved so badly," Dean told the media horde on the way back to his campaign bus. "You've got to get a new life."

A similar scene greeted Dean as he traveled across town to his campaign headquarters. "This is the beginning," Dean told more than 200 cheering workers from a desktop after he was escorted inside with the assistance of several aides, including a former Secret Service agent. "Whatever happens tonight is the beginning, and we're not going to stop until the right wing is out of power!"

Paying tribute to 3,500 supporters who had come from as far away as Japan over the weekend to canvass potential caucus-goers, Dean said: "We're going to win if we get every last person out. People with the best organization win this race, and we have the best organization."

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