DES MOINES — A pugnacious, raspy-voiced Howard Dean bounded onto a ballroom stage Monday night and delivered perhaps the most frenzied speech yet in his run for the Democratic nomination, a performance that belied his disappointing third-place finish here.
With hundreds of supporters waving American flags and chanting his name, the former Vermont governor gave Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin a hard high-five.
Pumping his fists into the air and pacing the stage with unbottled energy, Dean tore off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves and pulled an orange toboggan cap from his pocket, tossing it into the crowd.
"We will not give up!" he declared, his gravelly voice barely audible over the din of applause inside the '70s-style disco hall. "We will not quit, now or ever! We want our country back!"
He then declared that the best of his campaign was yet to come, encouraging volunteers to move on -- not just to New Hampshire and South Carolina, but to half a dozen other primary states whose names he shouted to supporters.
Dean vowed to campaign in every state and thanked his Iowa staff, acknowledging, "I would have liked to come in first."
But the third-place finish will be enough to power the campaign forward, he insisted. "You worked hard, you got our ticket punched to New Hampshire!" Dean shouted.
Advisors said after Dean's bellowing speech that the candidate almost felt liberated by not finishing first, realizing that the dynamics of the race would now shift and that he would be able to return to his challenger position.
"It's kind of like we're back [to the position] where we're the best, where he's the insurgent," said campaign manager Joe Trippi.
Added communications director Tricia Enright: "I think he's at his best when he is the underdog. This campaign has been a real assault on him for the last three months. It's almost as if he feels free."
But some who watched the speech thought he came across as shrill.
"Tonight he looked like a prairie dog on speed," said former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) on CNN.
An hour before Dean's 10 p.m. speech, glum supporters, many of them college age, nursed Corona beers and milled quietly about the subdued, half-filled ballroom. With no TVs to watch the returns, many asked for news of the candidate.
As the faithful began to fill the room, Trippi told reporters that his candidate was badly damaged in Iowa as Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri desperately tried to save his candidacy by attacking Dean.
