Election 2004

Gore nod to bolster Dean

WASHINGTON - Al Gore will endorse Howard Dean for president, several media services reported Monday. The news rocked the Democratic presidential field and boosted Dean from a long-shot maverick to the candidate of the Democratic establishment.

Gore will make the announcement this morning at events in Harlem, N.Y., and in Iowa, Democrats close to both men said.

The decision stunned Democrats and emboldened the Dean campaign, which rented three charter jets to carry Dean, Gore and scores of reporters to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was the former vice president who opened the floodgates to this crowded Democratic nomination contest by announcing last December that he would not run again.

"This is huge," said Donna Brazile, who was Gore's campaign manager in 2000. "It gives Dean what Dean has been missing most: stature. Gore is a major-league insider, somebody with enormous credibility that Democrats respect, who can rally the grass roots and who's been speaking very strongly in the last few months about the direction he wants to take the country."

Gerald McEntee, the president of the municipal workers union, which endorsed Dean last month, said: "I think this may be the beginning of the end for the other candidates. I don't know how they stop him."

Gore's decision put him in the odd position of supporting an insurgent candidate who has built his campaign attacking the centrist Democratic positions that the former vice president has espoused for two decades.

It also came as a devastating blow to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who was Gore's running mate in 2000. Lieberman delayed entering the 2004 race until he was sure Gore would not run, a show of courtesy to Gore that Democrats later blamed for Lieberman's slow start in this presidential contest.

Lieberman's spokesman, Jano Cabrera, who used to work for Gore, said Lieberman learned of the decision after reporters called for comment. Asked on Monday evening if Gore had called his old friend to inform him, Cabrera responded: "No. That's my only response."

Later the Lieberman campaign issued a terse statement, saying, "I was proud to have been chosen by Al Gore in 2000 to be a heartbeat away from the presidency," and added, "Ultimately, the voters will make the determination and I will continue to make my case about taking our party and nation forward."

Gore's support for Dean was also a serious setback for Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and seemed likely to complicate his efforts to defeat Dean in Iowa, a state where Gore is highly popular and where he will campaign with Dean on Tuesday.

It also was a rebuke to Gen. Wesley K. Clark of Arkansas, who has surrounded himself with many former advisers to Gore and former President Bill Clinton, as he has sought to present himself as the candidate with the implicit support of the last White House.

Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000 but conceded to Republican George Bush after a tumultuous 36-day recount in Florida and a 5-4 Supreme Court vote against him. Gore's concession came Dec. 13, 2000.

The Gore endorsement comes just weeks after two key unions - the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - backed Dean's candidacy. Gore's approval bolsters Dean's case that he can carry the party's mantle next November and represents more than an Internet-driven outsider relying on the support of largely white, upscale voters.

It also helps Dean, who leads in some polls as well as in the fundraising battle, as he tries to persuade Democrats worried about his lack of foreign policy experience and campaign missteps that his nomination is all but certain.

McEntee said Gore's support is more significant than all of Dean's labor endorsements. "It goes so far in dispelling this idea that swirls around that Dean would not be a good candidate in the general (election), that Dean in some way would be damaging to the Democratic Party," he said.

Polls show Dean is in a dead heat in the first two states that vote next month, Iowa and New Hampshire, but is behind in South Carolina, the first state to vote when the contest turns to the South.

New polls released Monday by the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press, a nonpartisan research group, underscores the regional nature of the early Democratic primary contests, showing how voting may change as the campaign moves from the Midwest (Iowa) on Jan. 19 to the Northeast (New Hampshire) on Jan. 27 to the South (South Carolina) on Feb. 3.

The results of the polls:

NATIONAL: Howard Dean, 15 percent; Wesley Clark, 15 percent; Dick Gephardt, 12 percent; Joe Lieberman, 12 percent; John Kerry, 6 percent; John Edwards, 5 percent; Al Sharpton, 5 percent; Moseley Braun, 4 percent; Kucinich, 2 percent.

IOWA: Dean, 29 percent; Gephardt, 21 percent; Kerry, 18 percent; Edwards, 5 percent, Kucinich, 4 percent; Clark, 3 percent; Lieberman, 1 percent; Moseley Braun, 1 percent; Sharpton, 1 percent.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Dean, 34 percent; Kerry, 20 percent; Clark, 8 percent; Lieberman, 8 percent; Gephardt, 5 percent; Edwards, 4 percent; Kucinich, 1 percent; Moseley Braun, 1 percent; Sharpton, 1 percent.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Edwards, 16 percent; Clark, 11 percent; Gephardt, 10 percent; Lieberman, 9 percent; Sharpton, 8 percent; Dean, 7 percent; Kerry, 3 percent; Moseley Braun, 2 percent; Kucinich, 0 percent.

The polls were taken Nov. 18-Dec. 4. The Iowa poll of 394 likely caucus voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points. The New Hampshire poll of 585 likely voters, the South Carolina poll of 566 likely voters and a separate national poll of 469 voters who are Democratic or lean Democratic had margins of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

When results don't total 100 percent, the remainder didn't know or refused to answer.

A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll found 43 percent of Florida voters would re-elect Bush, while 37 percent would back the eventual Democratic nominee.

- Information from the New York Times and Associated Press was used in this report.

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