Gore Plans to Endorse Dean

Former Vice President Al Gore will endorse Howard Dean today, culminating the former Vermont governor’s transformation from little-known insurgent to the commanding front-runner in the 2004 Democratic presidential race.

Sources close to the Dean campaign say Gore, the party’s 2000 nominee, will appear with the former Vermont governor this morning in Harlem and then campaign with him later in the day in Iowa.

The Dean campaign did not confirm the reports, but by Monday night the impending endorsement was a subject of open discussion among top Dean supporters, close advisors to Gore and members of other Democratic campaigns.

The announcement is expected to provide another burst of momentum for Dean, who has led in the latest polls in Iowa and New Hampshire -- the states where the nominating contests begin in January -- and also has raised more money than any of his rivals.

“This is a tremendous, tremendous boost to the Dean candidacy,” said Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who managed Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign but is neutral in the ’04 contest.

As Dean’s candidacy has surged in recent months, his Democratic opponents have hoped that members of the party establishment still uneasy about his prospects as a general election candidate might unite behind one of them in an effort to stop him.

But Gore’s endorsement -- following Dean’s embrace last month by two of the nation’s most politically potent labor groups, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- will drive home the point that critical segments of the party have grown comfortable with the notion of Dean challenging President Bush.

“If there is any Democrat in the country that wants to beat George Bush again, it’s Al Gore ... and he’s saying that Dean should be the leader of the Democratic Party going into this election,” said Gerald W. McEntee, AFSCME’s president. “I think it dispels all of this talk among people in Washington saying, ‘Dean can’t win; he can’t run against Bush.’ ”

Gore’s backing of Dean could prove especially important among Democrats just tuning in to the race -- which analysts believe describes the vast majority of those living in states other than Iowa and New Hampshire.

“It has to be a very big factor” nationwide, McEntee said. “If [Gore] doesn’t carry juice in a national campaign, nobody does.”

Still, his endorsement is unlikely to erase the anxieties among those Democrats -- largely centrists -- who have been the most skeptical of Dean and believe Gore lost in 2000 largely by tilting too far to the left.

Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank, said that despite Gore’s endorsement, he still feared that “the strident tenor” of [Dean’s] opposition to the war in Iraq and other positions he has taken -- including his protectionist position on trade -- were wrong and would hurt the Democrats in the general election.

“There’s a bandwagon effect here, and Dean is the beneficiary of it,” Marshall said of the support developing for Dean. But he added: “I guess I would prefer to see some actual voters vote.”

Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but Bush claimed the White House with a razor-thin electoral college majority after being declared the winner of Florida’s disputed vote recount.

Gore considered seeking the 2004 nomination, but announced last December that he would not run. Since then, he has made a series of speeches harshly critical of Bush on several issues, including the war in Iraq. Dean first began drawing support for his candidacy with his tough attacks on the war.

In deciding to back Dean, Gore passed over his own 2000 running mate, centrist Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, to select the candidate who has proved most popular among Democratic liberals. Lieberman aides said Gore did not notify the senator of the decision.

In a statement, Lieberman noted he had delayed his own candidacy until Gore announced his plans for the 2004 race. “I have a lot of respect for Al Gore -- that is why I kept my promise not to run [for next year’s nomination] if he did,” Lieberman said. “ ... I will continue to make my case about taking our party and nation forward.”

Gore’s embrace of Dean leaves former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, among the influential Democrats who have not announced a preference for 2004. Clinton has given no indication that he intends to endorse; his wife has explicitly ruled it out.

Gore’s decision may say as much about his evolution as it does about Dean’s growing political strength. As vice president, Gore was identified with the centrism that Clinton promoted. But by endorsing Dean, Gore could cement his estrangement from the “New Democrat” agenda associated with the Democratic Leadership Council, a moderate group that has been among Dean’s sharpest critics inside the party.

In his 2000 campaign, Gore emphasized more-traditional liberal themes, especially a sharp-edged economic populism. In the last year, Gore has continued to identify with the party’s more liberal wing through his denunciation of the war in Iraq and his calls for the repeal of the Patriot Act, the law passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks that gives Washington increased authority to monitor suspected terrorists.

Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi, would not confirm the reports of Gore’s endorsement. Discussing today’s campaign schedule, he said, “We made a promise to people to stand together ... and let them in their own words talk about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.”

Dean’s rivals struggled to find a silver lining in what Gore is expected to say.

The campaign of Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri renewed its efforts to question Dean’s Democratic credentials. Said spokesman Erik Smith: “We’re clearly disappointed because [Gephardt] fought side by side with Al Gore to pass the Clinton economic plan, pass the assault weapons ban and defend against Republican attacks on Medicare and affirmative action. On each of these issues, Howard Dean was on wrong side.”

The campaign of retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark sought to counter the endorsement by noting that more than 20 former aides to Gore and Clinton back Clark, the onetime NATO leader.

Former Gore press secretary Chris Lehane, who now serves as a Clark strategist, also argued that endorsements won’t decide the race.

“This is an election that will not be won by who gets the most political endorsements, but who gets the most endorsements from real Americans,” Lehane said.

Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts also sought to discount the importance of Gore’s endorsement. “I respect Al Gore,” Kerry said in a statement. “But this election is about the future, not about the past.... This election will be decided by voters across the country, beginning with voters in Iowa.”

The risk to Dean’s rivals is that the endorsement could help Dean solidify the impression that the party is consolidating behind him before the balloting begins.

Indeed, news of Gore’s decision came as Dean was picking up support on Capitol Hill. In recent days, several Democratic lawmakers have endorsed him, including prominent African American Reps. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois and Robert C. Scott of Virginia.

Dean gained his 20th congressional endorsement Monday from Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Anaheim). “He’s been able to energize an incredible amount of people who haven’t been politically active,” Sanchez said. “Dean has been able to find a way to do it, and I don’t think the rest of the field has.”

Other House Democrats from California to endorse Dean are Reps. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose and Bob Filner of San Diego. Overall, Gephardt leads with 33 endorsements from Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, followed by Kerry with 22.

Looking at the advantages Dean is accumulating, Brazile, Gore’s former campaign manager, said today’s endorsement could signal “quitting time” for some of the other contenders.

“They have no place to go; they have no gasoline,” she said.

No word was available on how extensively Gore would campaign for Dean after tomorrow, but Brazile said she expected the Dean camp to aggressively tout the endorsement through television ads and other means. “I’m sure [Dean campaign manager] Joe Trippi is already working on the footage,” she said.

On the Internet, Dean supporters quickly posted jubilant comments on the Gore endorsement to the campaign’s official Web log.

One wrote: “Yes, Al did ‘lose’ to [Bush], but we all need his expertise, passion and experience if we’re gonna win this thing.”

But on Kerry’s campaign blog, one of his supporter’s wrote: “The Gore endorsement of Dean only means one thing ... Gore chooses losers.”

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Times staff writer Nick Anderson and researcher Susannah Rosenblatt in Los Angeles contributed to this report.