Echoes of Dean in '08

Feb. 2, 2007 — -- As members of the Democratic National Committee gather to hear pitches from the party's presidential contenders, one speech from the same party gathering four years ago is casting a longer shadow than any other.

"People were going crazy," committee Chairman Howard Dean said to ABC News of the February 2003 speech in which he ignited his presidential campaign by forcefully identifying himself as representing the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

"By about the fifth sentence," Dean said, "when I gave that line about the Democratic Party, I realized that it was pretty powerful."

Dean, who will host this year's Democratic presidential candidates' forum, still has his detractors in the party.

They take issue with his policy of spreading party resources across 50 states rather than concentrating them in places that are perceived to represent the party's best electoral chances.

On issues ranging from Iraq to health care to the use of the Internet, however, the party's new crop of presidential candidates have taken significant steps in his direction.

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In the first month of the 2008 campaign cycle, the campaigns of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. have each, in their own way, paid homage to the anti-Iraq War, pro-universal health care, Internet-friendly campaign Dean ran four years ago.

"What I want to know," Dean asked four years ago, "is why in the world the Democratic Party's leadership is supporting the president's unilateral attack on Iraq."

Same War, Different Election

Back then, Dean's question about Iraq sharply differentiated him from his top rivals.

This year, by contrast, anti-Iraq War passion is not the exclusive province of any one candidate.

In her maiden trip to Iowa as a presidential candidate, Clinton demanded that President Bush "extricate our country" from Iraq before he leaves office. She is also pushing legislation that would cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the same level that was present in the country on Jan. 1, 2007.