WSJ.com - Dean Is Back, and Not on the Fringe, Either

Dean Studying Conservative Tactics To Use To Rebuild Democratic Party

The feisty former Vermont governor, determined not to be a fringe player, is boning up on the political right for guidance on how to better organize the left -- not just for November's elections but beyond. He is studying the tactics used by Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Ralph Reed, who helped make the Christian Coalition a political power. A decade after Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Reed, now a private consultant and adviser to President George W. Bush's campaign, helped usher in an era of Republican power, Mr. Dean hopes to begin to shift the balance back toward his progressive agenda.

Conservatives dismiss the whole Dean phenomenon as an overhyped, second coming of the 1970s liberal George McGovernites that moved Democrats to the left for years after. But there are two distinctions -- ones that echo themes of the Republican "revolution" a decade ago. First, the record government spending and huge budget deficits under President Bush give Mr. Dean an opening to stress fiscal responsibility. Second, increasing unhappiness about Iraq lets him cast the elections as a moral struggle about what it means to be an American.

"We've lost our standing as the moral leader of the world," Mr. Dean says. "I want [the U.S.] to be the moral leader of the world in how we provide for our people....I want to elect a president as good and strong as the American people."

Mr. Dean's new political apparatus, Democracy for America, keeps him in almost-candidate mode. In the past 10 days, he has popped up in Hawaii, Salt Lake City, San Juan and Washington D.C., and is scheduled to appear today at a labor rally in New York City. "The circus left town but the act remains. He started something that is still moving down the tracks, that he has some ownership over it," says Paul Maslin, who polled for Mr. Dean in the presidential race.

Mr. Dean's famous e-mail list took a substantial hit after his withdrawal from the presidential race in February, but it's beginning to grow again. Every two weeks, in sets of 12, he is making "Dean Dozen" endorsements to boost lower ticket, often state and local candidates, much as the Christian Coalition did in building its network in the late '80s and early '90s. Like Mr. Gingrich's conservative "Contract for America" in 1994, there have been early discussions of a Progressive Manifesto -- laying out goals such as health-care reform -- that would give new voters a clearer idea of the Democratic mission.

No single individual, other than Mr. Kerry's future running mate, may be more important to the success of the Democratic ticket against President Bush. After all the bitterness of last winter, a Dean ally jokes that the two "blue-bloods have bonded." In some respects they resemble two senior vice presidents, who vied for the same chief executive job and now find common interest in staying as a team -- not breaking apart.

Certainly, Mr. Dean's free-spirited independence makes him an asset as Mr. Kerry tries to fend off defections to third party candidate Ralph Nader. As a trained doctor, Mr. Dean is working with old labor allies to promote health-care proposals at the heart of Mr. Kerry's domestic agenda.

"My constituency is divided on John Kerry," Mr. Dean acknowledges in an interview. Among young people, he says, the task is harder now that he no longer is a candidate, and the challenge is to keep alive that sense of community and civic involvement his campaign bred among otherwise disaffected voters.

"Governing in the real world means you can make things better, dropping out means hope is dead," Mr. Dean wrote.