In Tacoma, Dean focuses on outsider status

By J. Patrick Coolican
Seattle Times Staff Reporter

	JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean struck familiar themes during a stop at the Pantages Theatre in Tacoma yesterday. Dean is counting on strong showings in Washington and Michigan this weekend to give his flagging campaign a boost.
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"We need fundamental institutional change in this country, and we're not going to get that with someone from inside Washington," he told about 500 people at the Pantages Theatre in downtown Tacoma, a smaller and more subdued event than an appearance last weekend in Seattle.

"We're going to have a tough night tonight, but we're going to keep going and going and going," said Dean in front a giant American flag at the downtown Tacoma theater.

Dean, still considered a strong contender in Saturday's Washington caucus, looked somewhat fatigued from the long campaign season.

Dean said in an interview he would support the Democratic nominee no matter who it is, though he sounded less than enthusiastic about the prospect, saying the election of anyone other than him would mean "four more years of sclerosis."

The one-time front-runner said he would balance the budget, provide universal health insurance and invest in renewable energy and early-childhood education.

Mike and Jackie Stewart of Tacoma, both self-employed and without health insurance, said they came to the Tacoma event as undecided voters and left Dean supporters.

"Everything he said touched on something I care about," Jackie Stewart said.

Erin Boni, Katie Deremigio and Cody Yantis, students at the University of Puget Sound, said they care about education and the environment. They represent exactly the type of young and inexperienced voters Dean hoped to bring to the polls.

They arrived undecided and left the same way, they said.

"I still have some more thinking to do," Yantis said.

Dean's campaign has now gone full circle, from longshot to front-runner back to longshot.

"Here's why we're going to keep going and going and going and going and going just like the Energizer bunny," Dean told supporters in Spokane, where he visited before coming to Tacoma. "We're going to pick up some delegates tonight, and this is all about who gets the most delegates in Boston in July, and it's going to be us."

J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

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