Howard Dean is pursuing a last-gasp strategy of winning the Feb. 17 Wisconsin primary, but many Democrats, aides and supporters are privately predicting the end to one of the wildest, most unpredictable and most innovative presidential campaigns of recent times.
On the first anniversary of the initial Internet "Meetup" for Dean supporters, which quickly grew into a revolutionary e-campaign and fundraising machine, the former Vermont governor is pleading with supporters to buy into the unorthodox strategy that he can lose 15 states in a row and still turn his campaign around.
"It's looking pretty dismal, isn't it?" said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), a Dean backer.
"It's going to be extraordinarily difficult," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), who stays in contact with the campaign. "Unless he wins and shortly, we have to face up to the fact" that a prolonged fight could undercut the larger goal of Dean supporters: beating President Bush. Both Abercrombie and Sanchez commended Dean for toughening the party and vowed to stick with him, at least through Wisconsin....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14123-2004Feb4.html