Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Gore backs Dean, urges unity
The Associated Press
"We don't have the luxury of fighting among ourselves," said Gore, right, in supporting the candidacy of Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor. Gore's endorsement was a blow to Dean's eight rivals.
Ex-VP praises candidate's anti-war stand
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean's presidential bid Tuesday, praising the front-runner's fervent opposition to the Iraq war while urging Democrats to unite behind Dean five weeks before the first votes are cast.
"We don't have the luxury of fighting among ourselves," said the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, sending a chilling signal to Dean's eight rivals stunned by the former Vermont governor's political coup.
Their hands joined and raised above their heads, Gore and Dean began their political marriage of convenience in New York's Harlem - homage to the candidate's bid to draw minority voters to his campaign. At the former vice president's behest, they flew together to Iowa, site of the Jan. 19 kickoff caucuses won by Gore three years ago by a 2-1 ratio.
Gore, who captured the popular vote but lost the electoral count to George W. Bush, said Dean's stance against the war, above all else, swayed him.
"I realized it's only one of the issues, but my friends, this nation has never in our two centuries and more made a worse foreign policy mistake," Gore told several hundred people at a downtown convention center.
The force of his Iraq criticism was a not-too-subtle indictment of the four candidates who backed the congressional resolution on Iraq, including Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gore's running mate in 2000.
The Gore-Dean courtship began in fall 2002, when Dean called and wrote Gore to praise Gore's speech criticizing President Bush on Iraq. Gore broke the news to a stunned Dean on Friday, then the two former rivals pledged to keep it a secret - even from their closest advisers - until the last possible moment.
"Now that I've made the decision that I want to endorse you, I want to do it as soon as possible," Gore told Dean from Tokyo. The former Vermont governor was on a cell phone in a van in Iowa, forced to speak in hush tones and code.
Dean hopes the coveted endorsement eases concerns among party leaders about his lack of foreign policy experience, testy temperament, policy flip-flops, campaign miscues and edgy anti-war, anti-establishment message.
