Conor O'Clery
in New York
Deeply in debt and trailing miserably in the polls, a former Illinois senator, Ms Carol Moseley Braun, dropped out of the Democratic race for president yesterday.
As the only African-American woman candidate departed the scene, she endorsed Mr Howard Dean, thus staking a claim to a role in any future Dean administation.
However the prospect of Mr Dean winning the Democratic nomination, much less the presidency, narrowed yesterday with a new tracking poll showing that he has slipped into second place behind Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who has surged into the lead from third place.
In the latest Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby tracking poll, Mr Kerry got 21.6 per cent support, with Mr Dean and Congressman Dick Gephardt at 20.9 per cent. North Carolina Senator John Edwards rose two points to 17.1 per cent, making it a four-way statistical tie.
Mr Dean may still hold the upper hand, however, because of a better and more enthusiastic organisation in Iowa, where voters have to be committed enough to come out on a typically cold winter evening and spend hours discussing the candidates at caucuses around the state. Eleven per cent of likely caucus-goers are undecided, making the contest more difficult to decide.
The poll was taken before Ms Moseley Braun announced her backing for Mr Dean who, she said at a joint appearance yesterday, "has the energy to inspire the American people, to break the cocoon of fear that envelops us and empowers President Bush and his entourage from the extreme right wing."
Mr Dean has good reasons to feel indebted to Ms Braun, who came to his defence in a recent debate when Mr Dean was accused of trivialising the race issue. The support of an African-American could make a big difference in primaries next month in several southern states.
The outcome of the Iowa caucus could see more of the eight remaining candidates fall by the wayside. Mr Gephardt, who took Iowa in his first presidential bid in 1988, is likely to quit if he does not come first. Yesterday he launched negative television advertisements against Mr Dean which ask voters how much they really know about the former Vermont governor.
In the ads an announcer says : "Did you know Howard Dean . . . supported the Republican plan to cut Medicare by $270 billion . . . and supported cutting Social Security retirement benefits to balance the budget?"
Senator Kerry criticised President Bush over his new space programme. Mr Bush should consider how to bring Americans back from Iraq rather than how to send them to the moon or Mars, he said to loud applause.