CARROLL, Iowa — Has success spoiled Howard Dean?
Once a scrappy outsider, Dean has won a succession of endorsements from big-name Democrats -- a trend that continued Thursday when former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois dropped out of the race and backed him.
But as the endorsements have piled up, Dean's standing in the polls has fallen, both in Iowa and New Hampshire. And strategists for his rivals believe Dean's decision to surround himself with well-known politicians has muddled his message -- leaving him to condemn "the Washington establishment" while joined on stage by some of its members.
"One of the things that has happened to Dean is he has taken on the trappings of an establishment candidate," said David Axelrod, an advisor to Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. "There is a tinny quality to his message right now."
No advisor for any other Democratic contender believes voters are deserting Dean specifically because prominent Democrats such as former Vice President Al Gore, former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa have endorsed him.
But privately, even some Dean advisors agree that his backing from Gore and the others has blurred his appeal to supporters -- one reason that Dean this week, in both his television advertising and stump speeches, has recharged his attacks on "Washington Democrats."
Yet his campaign also is eager to tout his acceptance by party leaders -- a desire underscored by the decision to leave Iowa the day before Monday's caucuses to visit former President Carter in Georgia.
The mixed message reflects a basic tension in Dean's strategy for the nomination. He wants to stoke the fervor of his grass-roots base by defining himself as a reform-minded outsider, but he hopes to use endorsements from insiders to create the impression that the party is consolidating around him. In effect, Dean is trying to simultaneously pursue a strategy of insurgency and inevitability.
Appearing with Harkin and Braun on Thursday, Dean denied any contradiction between his anti-Washington rhetoric and the endorsements from politicians. "I believe I can bring in the people who have been inside the Beltway," he said. "They're all good Democrats; they're going to want to win.
"They just need to be retrained," he added jokingly.
