Richard A Gephardt

Richard Gephardt, the former congressional leader and two-time presidential candidate, recently dropped by California's Capitol to chat with a fellow Democrat, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. The subject was not politics but private toll roads, according to people familiar with the meeting. Gephardt works for Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that is making millions advising Chicago and Indiana on how to sell toll roads to private companies.

With Iowa's Jan. 19 caucuses approaching, Democrats chasing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean relentlessly attacked his policies, temperament and credibility in a pointed debate Sunday. The focus was squarely on the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race throughout the two-hour session, as Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts accused him of flip-flopping on issues, Rep. Dick Gephardt charged that Dean supported Republican plans to cut Medicare in the mid-1990s and Sen.

When Dick Gephardt stopped in South Carolina Wednesday for a short vote-hunting dash along the Atlantic Coast, the first event was a staple of his Democratic presidential campaign: a labor union rally. Standing on a flag-draped stage next to a shuttered steel mill in this small town, Gephardt told a crowd of about 150 that he was the only candidate they could rely on to fight international trade deals that threaten U.S. jobs.

On a cold March evening in 1988, Dick Gephardt settled into his Dallas hotel room after a long day of campaigning for president, turned on the television and saw trouble. Big trouble. A crucial clutch of Southern primaries was just days away, yet everywhere he looked there were ads from fellow Democrats attacking him as a political opportunist and a tool of special interests. His campaign, despite strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, was nearly penniless, too poor to respond.

Every day, the borders that separate America from the rest of the world continue to dissolve. The last few weeks' headlines have been an extended testimonial to this interdependence. Our stake in the world economy was dramatized early last week when industry analysts reported that in 2003, foreign auto manufacturers captured a larger share of the American market than ever.

With exactly one week until the Iowa caucuses, Rep. Dick Gephardt popped up in Manhattan, of all places, on Monday night. He was in town to raise money and make a speech this morning on foreign policy. But he also dropped into the Ed Sullivan Theater at Broadway and 53rd Street to deliver the nightly Top Ten list for the "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS. Before the event, the show's joke writers e-mailed the list to the Gephardt campaign for clearance.

Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt on Tuesday defended his central role in rounding up congressional support for the war in Iraq, tackling the issue head-on less than a week before the Iowa caucuses. As House minority leader, the Missouri congressman broke with many in his party in the fall of 2002 to help write and pass the resolution that authorized President Bush to use force against Iraq.

In the fight of his political life, the congressman had wowed them half an hour ago at Steam'n Koffee in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He got wound up about health care, trade, Medicare, global poverty, wind power, ethanol, Dean and "W." The crowd responded; one woman even fainted. All the polls and his own gut tell him the race in the nation's leadoff caucus state is almost a dead heat.

At 8:30 a.m., the public library in this hamlet resembled many other venues Dick Gephardt had seen in a blur over the past fortnight. About 60 earnest Iowans were seated quietly, sipping coffee and ready for his pitch. But Saturday there was a difference. In the front row, to the candidate's left, sat Jane.

Joe Trippi makes a confession: If Howard Dean's national campaign chief could team up with just one battle-tested political insider in the war to unseat George W. Bush, it would be the guy in the red tie sitting next to him in this midtown coffee shop -- Trippi's old friend, Steve Murphy. It's a strange choice, because Murphy is national campaign manager for Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, who's in a tense, take-no-prisoners struggle to defeat Dean and Sens. John F.