Amid staff shake-up, Dean altering his strategy

By Dan Balz and Jonathan Finer
The Washington Post

	PAUL SANCYA / AP Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, right, speaks to his campaign manager Joe Trippi before the Democratic presidential debate in Manchester, N.H., on Jan. 22. Dean has replaced Trippi with Roy Neel, longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore.
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Meanwhile, the former Vermont governor insisted that he intends to keep campaigning for the Democratic nomination even if he wins none of the seven states with contests Tuesday. As if to symbolize that strategy, Dean's first stop was in Michigan, whose caucuses come four days after the seven-state battle. There, he took a veiled shot at front-running Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., over trade.

"We're going to have to win eventually," Dean said. "But the question was, do we have to win on February 3? Of course we want to, but we don't have to. We need to amass as many delegates as we can."

Neel signaled a sense of urgency. "We're moving forward," he said. "We've got two weeks, three weeks to turn this thing around."

Kerry, meanwhile, sparred with Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie over Kerry's record on national security and foreign policy. Gillespie told GOP officials in Washington that, while Kerry's military service was honorable, "his long record in the Senate is one of advocating politics that would weaken our national security."

Kerry called Gillespie's criticism "the greatest form of flattery" and said he welcomed a debate with President Bush and the Republicans on military issues. "Bring it on," he said.

The fallout over Dean's staff shake-up continued to reverberate through the Democratic race yesterday, as strategists debated whether Dean could survive another round of losses Tuesday.

Dean's new strategy: Bank on doing well in Michigan, Washington state and Wisconsin, which vote later in the month and have much larger caches of delegates, not to mention more liberal Democrats likely to respond to Dean's anti-establishment appeal. Campaign advisers said Dean's hopes also depend in part on the success of candidates such as Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., or retired Gen. Wesley Clark in slowing Kerry's momentum next week.

Dean in Seattle Howard Dean plans a town-hall meeting in Seattle tomorrow as he campaigns to win Washington's Feb. 7 Democratic presidential caucus. The former Vermont governor is scheduled to appear at Seattle's Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., to discuss his health-care plan, according to his campaign. The event will be open to the public and begins at 3 p.m. Doors open at 2:15. Dean will give a brief speech and then take questions from the audience. Dean will be making his fifth trip to Washington as a presidential candidate. — Seattle Times staff

Dean plans to visit Missouri, New Mexico and Arizona, which have Tuesday primaries, but he will spend at least half his time the next five days in Michigan and Washington, which vote Feb. 7, and Wisconsin, which votes Feb. 17.

Democratic delegates are awarded proportionately based on the popular vote cast within individual congressional districts as well as a state as a whole. Dean hopes to gain delegates with at least 15 percent of the popular vote in most or all congressional districts in the states voting Tuesday.

"The biggest danger is that Kerry wins six of the seven," one Dean supporter said. "If it's all mixed up, if anyone manages to break through, and it's all jumbled, (Dean's) position is strengthened."

Trippi said he would continue to support Dean.

"The governor decided he wanted to bring Roy Neel in and asked me to stay on in a different capacity," Trippi said. "I said, 'Thank you, I'm proud of what I've done, but I've been around long enough to know you can't have two captains.' "

Neel said he and Trippi bring different skills to the campaign.

"His was clearly an extraordinary vision in organization and message," Neel said. "Mine is more about helping bring discipline and focus to an organization, particularly an organization that is under a great deal of stress right now."

Several Dean advisers, including Trippi, said changes were long in the planning. But those changes were plotted initially when they believed Dean could win the nomination quickly and alter the operation to prepare for a general-election fight against Bush. Instead, Dean shook up the staff under far more difficult conditions.

"The time was unfortunate," one adviser said yesterday, "especially because we felt we had turned the corner after New Hampshire by coming back" from the third-place Iowa finish.

Signs that Trippi was in trouble appeared immediately after Dean's disappointing finish in Iowa. The once-ubiquitous campaign manager virtually disappeared, while Bob Rogan, a senior campaign official whose service dates to Dean's tenure as governor, suddenly appeared in the traveling party.

Trippi loyalists said they believed pressure from Rogan and from Kate O'Connor, one of Dean's longest-serving advisers, forced the changes at the top. Others said Dean was surprised, and unprepared, when Trippi decided not to continue in the campaign in a diminished role. "That's not true," O'Connor said yesterday.

Trippi loyalists also noted that word of his probable departure appeared in the Vermont weekly "Seven Days" in the issue that was sent to press before the New Hampshire primary and that appeared in print Wednesday, just as Trippi was spurning appeals from Dean and others in the campaign not to quit. "I think he had no clue Joe would choose to go," one adviser said of Dean. "Perhaps that's why things seemed to be mishandled."

Dean was eager, according to some supporters, to find someone to bring more order and structure to his campaign operation, particularly one that burned through most of the $40 million raised during 2003 by the time of the New Hampshire primary. But Trippi friends said Rogan, not Trippi, controlled the campaign budget, a fact confirmed by O'Connor.

Neel, a former telecommunications-industry lobbyist, said the campaign had raised about $2 million since Iowa but is not advertising in the seven states with contests Tuesday.

Dean said yesterday he now plans to expand his media team beyond the firm of Trippi, McMahon and Squier, which has handled his advertising since he was a governor. The cost and commissions for Dean's television ads have been a source of controversy, with some Trippi critics claiming his media firm was receiving a commission of at least 15 percent of the ads' cost. Steve McMahon, a media team member, denied that yesterday, saying, "The commissions are in line or less than percentages that are received by other firms for similar work."

The candidates campaigned through several of the states with contests Tuesday. Edwards said again he must win in South Carolina, his birthplace, to keep his candidacy alive. Clark defended his role as a lobbyist after leaving the military, saying he was proud of the work he did opening doors for defense contractors.

Kerry officially collected the endorsement of Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., the state's most influential African-American politician. Al Sharpton, who has spent considerable time in this state, urged African-American voters to back him even if he can't win the nomination. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was endorsed by the Arizona Republic newspaper.

Post writers David Von Drehle, Vanessa Williams, Paul Schwartzman and John F. Harris contributed to this report; details on Dean's strategy and the awarding of delegates were provided by Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Associated Press.

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