DES MOINES, Iowa — Democratic presidential frontrunner Howard Dean won the coveted endorsement of Sen. Tom Harkin on Friday amid controversy over past statements by Dean disparaging the Iowa caucuses and polls showing the contest tightening.
Harkin, a four-term senator and perhaps Iowa's most powerful Democrat, announced his endorsement of Dean at a hastily-arranged news conference that capped a day of Dean backtracking from comments he made four years ago dismissing Iowa's caucuses as "a waste of time" because of the dominance of political extremists.
On Friday, while campaigning in New Hampshire, Dean responded to questions about his 2000 comments, saying, "Four years ago, I didn't really understand the Iowa caucuses. I wouldn't be where I am without the Iowa caucuses."
Harkin praised all the candidates seeking the party's nomination, but said Dean was "our best shot to beat George W. Bush and to give Americans the opportunity to take our country back."
Harkin added, "There is a powerful authenticity to Howard Dean. With that authentic demeanor, his toughness, his progressive beliefs and his plain-speaking, he is the Harry Truman of our time."
Harkin's endorsement brings with it the backing of much of his statewide political organization, which helped him win the Iowa caucuses as a presidential aspirant in 1992 and which could prove critical in getting Dean's voters to the caucuses Jan. 19.
The Associated Press reported today that while governor of Vermont, Dean accepted personal pay from special interests at least five times for speeches and also received more than $60,000 in checks and pledges for his charity fund from insurers who benefited from a state tax break, according to documents and interviews.
Dean's fees and charitable donations were legal and did not have to be disclosed under Vermont law but were detailed in correspondence and tax records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The lion's share of Dean's $13,633 in personal speaking fees as governor came from a drug company that was embroiled in one of the nation's most high profile sexual harassment cases, which ultimately ended with a nearly $10 million federal penalty.
The checks and pledges totaling at least $62,500 to Dean's Vermont Computer Project, an initiative the governor created to donate equipment to Vermont schools, came from captive insurance and reinsurance companies, nontraditional insurers which provide health care coverage to companies in tax-friendly ways.
Dean's campaign said Friday any suggestion the payments or donations influenced his actions as governor was "laughable."<
The Harkin news overshadowed Sen. John Kerry's announcement that he picked up the backing of Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, the only other statewide elected official to make an endorsement in the race.
The timing of Harkin's endorsement, which wasn't expected until later in the weekend, also helped Dean's efforts to contain lasting damage to his campaign from the kind of plain-speaking that Harkin praised.
The campaign is at a crucial stage because polls show that as many as 18 percent of the Democratic caucus-goers are still undecided about which of the seven candidates competing in Iowa to support at the Jan. 19 caucuses.
The Iowa caucuses have been an important starting point for White House hopefuls in both parties since 1976. But four years ago, Dean disparaged them in one of his frequent appearances on a Canadian television program, "The Editors", a portion of which was broadcast Thursday night by NBC News.
On the Canadian program, Dean said: "If you look at the caucuses system, they are dominated by the special interests, in both sides, in both parties. The special interests don't represent the centrist tendencies of the American people. They represent the extremes."
Dean also was forced to clarify his 1998 comments on the Canadian show that there would "probably be good and bad" if the militant organization Hamas took control of the Palestinian leadership.
On Friday, he denounced the group as "an unrepentant terrorist organization" and said if he won the Nov. 2 election the United States would "remain committed to its special, long-standing" relationship with Israel.
And later Friday, during an interview with CNN's "Politics Today" program, Dean acknowledged his earlier comments about the Iowa caucuses but also complained about the "gotcha" brand of politics he said led to the controversy.
"I don't think this election can be about who said what four years ago," Dean said. "People know that I speak my mind. People know that I say what I think, and I'm not a scripted candidate. But if you think that a Washington candidate who is careful about every poll and every focus group is going to be able to beat George Bush, I don't think that's true."
The latest poll of Iowans, by Research 2000 for KCCI-TV, has Dean at 29 percent, Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt at 25 percent, Kerry of Massachusetts at 18 percent, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at 8 percent, 13 percent undecided and 7 percent scattered among the candidates with minimum or no campaigns in Iowa: retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, 3 percent; Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, 2 percent; and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, 2 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 5 percent. The Rev. Al Sharpton of New York and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois did not garner enough support to register in the poll.
Gephardt, who won the Iowa caucuses in his 1988 White House bid, seized on Dean's comments to praise Iowa and profess admiration for the caucus system and its participants.
"To me, it's a cynical attempt to participate in the Iowa caucuses if that's the way he feels about it," Gephardt said. "I don't find that people are extreme in any way. They're very moderate, they're very sensible, very central."
Edwards, who appears to be making in-roads with undecided Democrats, also criticized Dean, saying "it's wrong for outsiders to come in and make disparaging remarks about things they don't understand."
Meanwhile, a complaint by the Kerry campaign about the conduct of two Dean campaign volunteers led Dean officials to terminate the volunteers' involvement in the former governor's organization.
In a letter late Thursday to the Kerry campaign, Iowans for Dean State Director Jeani Murray said the two staffers "however earnest, misrepresented themselves and the campaign" and "can no longer work for our campaign in any capacity."
She added, "Our field organizers' guide clearly states that people who work for Howard Dean shall abide by ethical standards and a code of conduct that subscribes to high standards."
Murray declined to provide additional details.
Kerry's Iowa state campaign director, John Norris, said two Dean campaign workers had presented themselves as Kerry supporters at a campaign office in Creston, Iowa, and had immediately aroused suspicions.
Norris said one of the Dean workers eventually acknowledged his ties to the Dean campaign and identified himself as Mitch Lawson from Georgia.
Dean's campaign in Georgia has a field organizer named Mitch Lawson. But Lawson, a resident of Rome, Ga., did not return telephone calls Friday.
In New Hampshire, meanwhile, the American Research Group, which is conducting tracking polls for the state's Jan. 27 primary, posted a notice on its Web site that prompted the Clark campaign to warn its supporters of "dirty phone tricks."
ARG said some elderly voters who are undecided in the primary have received calls saying they had missed the deadline to register for the Democratic primary, but that one respondent who expressed interest in Dean was then told they were eligible.
Dean spokeswoman Karen Hicks said it was "ludicrous" to think that the Dean campaign was involved.