Dean machine gathers momentum

[T_i_B]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-931400,00.html

FROM his desk in a converted textile mill overlooking the Merrimack River in New Hampshire, Matthew Bethell has a front-row view of American political history unfolding. As a volunteer in Howard Dean’s Democratic campaign war room, Bethell is one of hundreds of students who have ploughed through winter snowstorms to help propel the mercurial former governor of Vermont into a seemingly unbeatable lead in the crucial opening primary of the 2004 presidential race.

Bethell, 20, a lanky Cambridge university undergraduate, has come further than most to do his bit for Dean. He read a British newspaper account of the outsider’s electrifying surge to Democratic prominence and decided to see for himself if reports of Dean’s high-energy, internet-powered, anti-war candidacy were for real.

Bethell said he had not been disappointed by Dean’s knack for energising supporters who have never voted in American elections before. “He’s rejuvenating a spirit in American society that I just can’t imagine in Britain. Could you see a British person inviting 15 of their neighbours around to discuss a political candidate? Dean makes it happen all the time.”