Howard Dean on Wednesday ended his attempt to build a presidential campaign on anti-war sentiment and reformist zeal, but signalled his intention to become an independent power broker in the Democratic Party at the head of a grassroots organisation.
Dean announced the decision in his home state of Vermont, leaving behind a two-man race for the Democratic nomination between John Kerry and John Edwards, who finished an unexpectedly strong second in Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary.
Dean was a poor third, with only 18% of the vote in a state his campaign had taken for granted only a month ago, before a downward spiral even more rapid than its ascent.
”I am no longer actively pursuing the presidency,” Dean told his supporters in Burlington. ”We will, however, continue to build a new organisation, an enormous grassroots network to continue the effort to transform the Democratic Party and to change our country.”
He said his name would remain on the ballot in future primaries, and urged his supporters to continue to seek votes, so that they could elect delegates who would be a progressive voice at the party’s convention in Boston in July.
”We are not going away. We are staying together, unified, all of us,” Dean said.
Meanwhile, his campaign organisation, Dean for America, would be transformed into a ”new grassroots organisation” that would press for the causes for which Dean had argued: fierce opposition to a foreign policy built on military muscle, and the weaning of the Democratic Party off corporate special interest funding.
The organisation would also back local candidates with a similar political outlook.”We are leaving one track but we are going on another track that will take back America for ordinary people again,” he said.
Dean did not endorse either of the remaining serious contenders for the Democratic nomination, but said he would support any eventual nominee in the interests of ousting President George W Bush.
However, he said that support would not be unconditional. It would instead depend on the Dean organisation’s assessment of the candidate, who would have to ”adhere to the standards that this organisation has set for decency, honesty, integrity and standing up for ordinary American working people”.
It was unclear this week how much impact Dean could have on the nomination campaign without being part of it. Many of his campaign volunteers were on Wednesday returning home to consider their own future in the wake of the Dean collapse. — Â