"Perfect Storm" may rain on Gephardt's parade [View All]

DES MOINES, Iowa - In the hubbub of Howard Dean's presidential quest, tow trucks arrived last week to haul away illegally parked cars of volunteers showing up for the former Vermont governor's "Perfect Storm" campaign.

Down the street, Chuck Rocha, the burly steelworker running Rep. Richard Gephardt's labor organization in Iowa, predicted that hundreds of labor union operatives will trump the 3,500 rookies who have pledged to knock on doors for Dean.

"The labor piece of Gephardt's campaign will be a finely tuned machine," vowed Rocha, national political director for the United Steelworkers of America.

Then Rocha rubbed his shaved head and explained why that machine must work. "We know that if we don't stop Howard Dean in Iowa, he won't be stopped," he said.
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And it continues with the rumor that Senator Harken will endorse Dean (no attribution), has some good background on Gep's run in 88 and covers some of Kerry's recent campaign activity-

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At a campaign rally in the central Iowa town of Jefferson, Michael Thompson, 15, told Kerry that he has three brothers serving in the military. Then he asked if Kerry knew then what we know now - that weapons of mass destruction would not be found and that the aftermath of the war would go badly - would Kerry still vote for the war resolution?

In his six-minute, 33-second response, Kerry blamed the president for misleading Congress and Dean for playing politics with the issue. It was not the clear cut answer the boy wanted.

"He weaseled out of it," he said when Kerry had gone

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