Foundering Dean Cancels Plan to Sabotage Rivals

The four-way race in Iowa is so close that Howard Dean's campaign has dropped plans to "help" his less popular rivals with a little sabotage.

"Just two weeks ago, some Dean advisers were hoping for a blowout and considering throwing some of his supporters to other campaigns in a bid to reshape the race. That was wishful thinking, a senior Dean official said," the Associated Press reported today.

"Even the strongest campaign will miss the threshold in some precincts. They will try to divide and steer their supporters to other camps that are not a threat to their overall victory plan. But the strategy is difficult to negotiate with four top-tier candidates and, besides, Iowans won't necessarily listen to advice from headquarters."

Referring to Dean's campaign confines in Vermont, Rep. Dick Gephardt's strategist David Plouffe said: "This notion that Iowans will take instructions from Burlington is fanciful. Our goal is for our people to be ready Monday night, self-sufficient and talking Iowan-to-Iowan."

With Dean's disapproval ratings rising, thanks in part to astonishly nasty attacks from Gephardt, strategists for John Kerry, John Edwards and Gephardt "hope to pick up each others' voters in an anti-Dean rush," AP reported.

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