Gore urges all Democrats to join Dean bandwagon

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 community -- 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 the former vice president three years ago by a 2-to-1 margin.

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 the former vice president'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.

Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000 but conceded to Republican Bush after a tumultuous 36-day recount in Florida and a 5-4 Supreme Court vote against him. The election still rankles Democratic activists, many of whom tell pollsters they prefer Gore to the nine candidates.

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.

"Excuse me, he was the only major candidate who made the correct judgment on the Iraq war," Gore said.

A beaming Dean thanked Gore for his leadership and his endorsement. He hopes the former vice president, still popular among minorities, draws blacks and Hispanics to a campaign fueled by upscale, white backers. In 2000, blacks supported Gore by a 9-1 margin over Bush.

"We lost of lot of races in 2002 because we decided to go to swing voters and the base would come along later," Dean said, vowing to "recognize those people who are with us all the time."

But he told reporters that only voters will determine whether the endorsement cements his grip on the front-runner's position. "It doesn't solidify anything," he said.

Dean's advisers, with a high-fiving sense of triumph, cast the endorsement as the biggest step yet toward persuading Democratic activists that it's time to jump aboard the Dean bandwagon -- despite the fact that voters have yet to weigh in.

"I think it's important to have as little bloodletting in this nominating process as possible," campaign manager Joe Trippi said, adding that Gore's backing may push 15 to 20 members of Congress into Dean's camp. He added one Tuesday -- California Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

But New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, pressed about a primary endorsement, declined to back any of the nine candidates, saying she considers it "more important to coalesce around a nominee" than an early front-runner, and adding, "I want to see how the process plays out."

The race has not taken shape beyond New Hampshire, where Dean leads in polls by double digits, and Iowa, where Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt are locked in a tight fight. Dean's support is weakest in the seven states holding Feb. 3 contests, particularly those in the South and West. Democratic strategists say that while the endorsement makes Dean the overwhelming favorite, it does not erase doubts about the former Vermont governor.

"This hands the nomination to Dean and probably dooms the Democratic Party's efforts to unseat George Bush," former New York City Mayor Ed Koch told WROW-AM radio in Albany, N.Y. Koch, who backed Gore in 1988 and Democrat Bill Bradley in 2000, supports Bush's re-election.

The endorsement left Dean's rivals stunned and disheartened.

"I was surprised. I'm not going to talk about Gore's sense of loyalty," a jilted Lieberman told NBC. The Connecticut senator had vowed not to run this year if Gore had decided to do so.

An official close to Gore, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the former vice president tried repeatedly Monday to contact Lieberman but did not hear back.

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Associated Press Writers Sara Kugler in New York and Marc Humbert in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.