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Howard Dean's last stand?
by Bob Kelleher, Minnesota Public Radio
February 10, 2004

In Superior, Howard Dean appealed to voters who may be jumping ship to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. (MPR Photo/Bob Kelleher)

Supporters packed a Superior, Wisc., school auditorium to hear former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's pitch to the Badger state's most northern Democrats. Dean is focused almost exclusively on next week's Wisconsin primary. He hopes to pull off an upset win that might revitalize his struggling campaign. But Dean lost key endorsements, including from a veteran northern Wisconsin congressman.

Superior, Wisc. — Howard Dean brought a potent mixture of populist politics and his unabashed dislike of the Bush administration and its supporters. That's what hundreds of Wisconsin's most northern Dean supporters apparently came to hear.

"Next Tuesday -- the 17th of February -- people from Wisconsin have the power to take back our country, so that the flag of the United States of America is no longer the exclusive property of John Ashcroft, and Dick Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh, and Jerry Falwell," Dean says. "So that it belongs to every single one of us again."

Dean criticized President George Bush, and Democrats who failed to stop the invasion of Iraq.

"This president has lost all his credibility in foreign affairs and the defense of this country," says Dean. "The Washington Democrats say they were outraged. Where were they when it really mattered?"

Dean's campaign is putting everything into Wisconsin. At one time, he said he'd drop out of the presidential race if he didn't win the Wisconsin Democratic primary. But Dean backed off that statement on Monday, saying he would continue regardless.

In Superior, Dean appealed to voters who may be jumping ship to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a candidate many Democrats think has a better chance of toppling George Bush. Dean is asking his Wisconsin supporters to stay with him.

Wisconsin, you can do this. You don't have to be a rubber stamp. It's important to change presidents, but it is also important to put ordinary people back into the driver's seat in Washington. - Howard Dean

"Wisconsin, you can do this," Dean says. "You don't have to be a rubber stamp. It's important to change presidents, but it is also important to put ordinary people back into the driver's seat in Washington."

Dean says special interests have taken over both the Republican and Democratic parties. But he was undoubtedly taking a jab at Kerry.

"One of my opponents was designated as the senator who took more special interest money than any other senator in the last 15 years," Dean says. "That's a tough accomplishment, considering the amount of special interest money that's sloshing around in Washington. So, our campaign, by contrast -- 89 percent of our contributions are relatively small donations," he says. "If you make me president, I'll go to Washington, and I won't owe anybody anything, except for you."

The audience was padded a bit with middle school students, but it included several hundred adults from the Superior area and across the bridge from Duluth, Minn.

Loraine Urbaniak, who lives nearby in South Superior, Wisc., says she supports Dean, even if he's falling behind John Kerry.

"I think, because he's for the people," Urbaniak says. "He's for education. He's for a good medicare program - insurance program for the older people. And the fact that he doesn't want to go to war every time somebody gets slapped."

But John Kerry's growing strength is drawing in new support. Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Ron Kind and David Obey announced they're endorsing the Massachusetts senator. Kind represents Wisconsin's 3rd District. Obey is a veteran congressman from the 7th District, including Superior. Obey says he honors Howard Dean for energizing the party, but he supports John Kerry.

"We need to close ranks, and get about the task of putting into the White House a president with a sense of history, and a sense of justice," Obey says.

Howard Dean's work is laid out for him. A recent poll taken for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WTMJ-TV, finds Kerry with 45 percent of the support among Wisconsin Democrats. Dean has less than a third of that, just behind retired Gen. Wesley Clark, but ahead of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich and Rev. Al Sharpton.

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