Howard Dean

HOUSTON - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean confirmed yesterday that a joint U.S.-Laotian task force has likely discovered the remains of his younger brother Charles, who was kidnapped and slain while traveling through Laos 29 years ago. Dean, who journeyed to Southeast Asia last year to visit the site where it was believed his brother was killed, received the news several days ago. He and his two other brothers told their mother Monday night....

If an objective checklist of qualifications, similar to what a business would use for a major hire, was used to nominate presidential candidates, then U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, as multi-term governor of bellwether Florida and as a former chairman of the Senate intelligence committee who warned against invading Iraq and the false claims of WMDs, would have topped the 2004 Democratic field by a huge margin. Instead, he dropped out of race days before the Iowa caucus. Why? Because the media, concentrating on the fundraising and "rock star" appeal of Howard Dean, cast him aside as a candidate who wasn't "first-tier," and thus unworthy of serious consideration.

Howard Dean allowed his supporters to make one of the most important decisions he might confront during the nominating campaign: whether or not he would accept federal campaign matching funds. The fact that a presidential candidate publicly discussed this decision before making it yesterday is shocking in and of itself - and the fact that he submitted himself to a vote is unprecedented. While this "money poll" was dismissed (perhaps rightfully so) as a stunt to give political cover to a decision to withdraw from the public financing system - a decision that Dean and his campaign manager, Joe Trippi, clearly wanted to make - such a dismissal is only blinding people from what is really going on in Burlington, Vt. In any case, he announced yesterday that he would not accept public financing.

On his own terms, President Barack Obama is a failure. During the presidential campaign, he fought hammer and tongs with Hillary Clinton over the best way to govern. Mrs. Clinton, casting herself as a battle-scarred political veteran, argued that diligence, dedicated detail work and working the system were essential for success. Mr. Obama, donning the mantle of a redeemer descending from divine heights, argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than "just words"; it was a way out of the poisonous, partisan gridlock of yesteryear.

Matt George, a park ranger from Westminster, stood outside the Baltimore Brewing Co. and had a smoke. It was 6:30 p.m., Wednesday. He remembered the first Wednesday in February, when eight people showed up to consider, among other pressing questions, who is Howard Dean? That's not the question anymore. The country is learning about the former Vermont governor and the Internet's inaugural presidential candidate. Cast as an anti-war populist, Dean raised more than $800,000 in one day on the Web and last month won the first online presidential primary - which, if nothing else, will make a spiffy political footnote.

NEW YORK - Meetup.com has made headlines as a political tool for presidential candidate Howard Dean and others, but what's less well-known about the year-old New York startup is that it's almost ready to turn a profit. While the 100,000 Dean supporters who have signed up as Meetup.com's biggest individual group grab much of the attention, the Web site boasts a total of 500,000 members who use the site for free for a plethora of other meetings. Meetup.com is a factor in Dean's current status as the leading Democratic presidential candidate in terms of money raised - much of it from the Web traffic and foot traffic generated through Meetup.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Squeals of delight greet Democratic candidate Howard Dean as he enters the crowded hotel ballroom in a blaze of TV lights. A flashback from last year's presidential campaign? Nope. It's a scene out of Dean's newest coast-to-coast quest - his run for the leadership of the Democratic National Committee. "Many of you are probably wondering why I want to be the DNC chair," he tells a boisterous rally here. Others are wondering something else: whether the party that rejected Dean's outsider candidacy is about to put him in charge at national headquarters in Washington.

DOVER, N.H. - As voters crowd around him in a packed Elks lodge on a snowy, frigid night, Wesley K. Clark, the retired four-star general, wants to make something clear. "No one," he says, "is going to accuse me of being unpatriotic or soft, because I'm not. ... I know what fighting is all about, so I can protect this country." Minutes before, Clark drew hoots and applause with one of his favorite digs at President Bush, about Bush's staged appearance in May to declare an end to major combat in Iraq.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - It's anybody's race at this point, the pundits and pollsters are saying, which should have the former front-runner's volunteers here highly anxious. Or at least thinking second thoughts about how they dropped everything back home - in New York, Maryland, California and seemingly all points in between - to come to this frozen expanse of a state, certain that their efforts would propel Howard Dean to his first victory on the road to the presidency. But just try to get any of them to give up, turn around and go home at this point.

HANOVER, N.H. - One by one, Howard Dean read through the placards as they were held behind the camera, stumbling at times, his voice low and scratchy from a bad cold. "Solution No. 10," he intoned, "Switch to decaf. ... No. 8: Marry Rachel on the final episode of Friends. ... No. 6: Show a little more skin." At that point, the production people directing the taping urged Dean to remove his suit jacket, but he protested dryly, "Our guys say no - it's not presidential." Instead, he flipped open the jacket, but it caught on the microphone wire taped to his back.

Michael S. Steele's recent election as Republican National Committee chairman is good news for Republicans desperate to claw their way back from minority status. Though the former Maryland lieutenant governor drew votes for reasons other than his race, his rise to the top of the party hierarchy signals that the Republican Party understands it can no longer squeeze majorities from its predominantly white voter base. In that sense, you might say that Mr. Steele's victory represents the final, if ironic, coattail victory for President Barack Obama.

CHICAGO -- If you listen to the latest soundings on any given day, you might wonder if you had just awakened from a coma that caused you to miss the 2008 presidential election. Plenty of forecasters have been eager to declare a winner before the opening gun. This is particularly true on the Democratic side, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is regularly advised to dispense with campaigning and start looking at fabric swatches for the Oval Office drapes. Said a former aide to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, "If this were a wedding, we'd be at the `speak now or forever hold your peace' part."

If you were wondering about the Democrats' evolving foreign policy, wonder no more. They've made it clear they'll flatter and talk to anyone, even terrorists. They just won't talk to President Bush. Fresh from the diplomatic travesty of her trip to the Mideast, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has let it be known that she, along with Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, might soon journey to Iran to talk to the mullahs and their terror-supporting sheriff, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

WASHINGTON -- For evidence of the struggle among Democrats on the best way forward in Iraq, look no further than Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Steny H. Hoyer, the party's top House leaders, whose personal ties and Maryland roots run deep. Since the debate began, more than three years ago, over whether to go to war, the two have disagreed: He voted for the war, while she argued vehemently against it. Now, as Democrats grapple with the political strategy and the policy questions surrounding how to end the conflict, they are again presiding over different factions of their party.

WASHINGTON - What the Democrats could use now is a leader. At a time the newly re-elected Republican president is being bombarded with woes inside and outside party, his Social Security reform campaign is fizzling and his war in Iraq is dragging on, the voice of the Democratic Party is a low-profile chorus of articulate critics who nevertheless lack star power. The one Democrat who makes many of the faithful wish he was in the White House is the man from Hope. Former President Bill Clinton, barred by the 22nd Amendment from serving more than the two terms he's had, is relegated to the worthwhile if lesser task of comforting the afflicted after the tsunami disaster.

WASHINGTON - A restrained Howard Dean took over as Democratic national chairman yesterday with a pledge to change his party and make it competitive again on the national level. The one-time presidential contender focused his remarks to party leaders on economic issues, attacking the "fiscal recklessness" of President Bush's budget and barely mentioning foreign policy and the Iraq war. Later, Dean told reporters he expects to spend much of his time on the road in the so-called red states, especially the South and parts of the West, where the national Democratic Party is at its lowest ebb in more than 40 years.

WHEN Bill Bradley endorsed Howard Dean last week in the Democratic presidential primary, the reaction was ho-hum - the endorsement had been expected, considering that both men appealed to similar voters. Largely overlooked was one truth of this year's astonishing Democratic primary race: that Bradley gave a big boost to Dean's insurgent bid long before his formal endorsement. By coming much closer than many people realize to pulling off an upset against Al Gore four years ago, Bradley, the former New Jersey senator, might have set the stage for Dean's more successful long-shot campaign this year.

Speakers include: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. On television: MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, C-SPAN, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.; no live coverage on ABC, CBS or NBC.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Squeals of delight greet Democratic candidate Howard Dean as he enters the crowded hotel ballroom in a blaze of TV lights. A flashback from last year's presidential campaign? Nope. It's a scene out of Dean's newest coast-to-coast quest - his run for the leadership of the Democratic National Committee. "Many of you are probably wondering why I want to be the DNC chair," he tells a boisterous rally here. Others are wondering something else: whether the party that rejected Dean's outsider candidacy is about to put him in charge at national headquarters in Washington.

Speakers include: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. On television: MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, C-SPAN, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.; no live coverage on ABC, CBS or NBC.