US: In New Hampshire it is all over bar the shouting. The endorsement of Mr Howard Dean yesterday by Mr Al Gore means that the former Vermont governor is now unbeatable in this snowbound state where the first Democratic Party primary takes place next month.
"Howard Dean is the only candidate who has been able to inspire at the grass roots level all over the country," the former vice president said as he gave his blessing to Mr Dean at a rally in Harlem yesterday morning.
The announcement by Mr Gore before a cheering crowd of mostly African-Americans stunned the Democratic establishment, which had treated Mr Dean as an outsider with little prospect of beating President George Bush in 2004.
The former vice president campaigned in 2000 as a moderate directing his appeal to the centre, rather than to the more liberal "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" which has propelled Mr Dean to the front of a nine-candidate race for the nomination.
However, in his three years in the wilderness Mr Gore has become more anti-establishment, especially in his opposition to the war, the issue that has defined Mr Dean's campaign.
"He is the only major candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war," said Mr Gore. "Our country has been weakened in its ability to fight the war against terror because of the catastrophic mistake the Bush administration made in taking us into war in Iraq."
Senator Joe Lieberman, who was Mr Gore's running mate in 2000 and who is running against Mr Dean, backed President Bush on the war.
"I was caught completely off-guard," by Mr Gore's decision, said a clearly embittered Senator Lieberman after hearing the news late on Monday evening from reporters who called.
"What really bothers me is that Al is supporting a candidate who is so fundamentally opposed to the basic transformation that Bill Clinton brought to this party in 1992," moving it to a more middle-of-the-road stance on economic policy and other areas.
Asked on ABC News if he felt betrayed, Mr Lieberman said, "I'm not going to talk about Al Gore's sense of loyalty this morning."
Mr Paul Begala, a Democratic Party strategist, said the endorsement was an act of disloyalty by Mr Gore, "who told us three years ago Joe Lieberman was the very best person to run the country if Al Gore couldn't do it."
Mr Gore's backing will help ease concerns about Mr Dean's lack of foreign policy experience, his short-temper, and the limits of his Internet-driven appeal to mostly young, white upscale voters.
It will also help Mr Dean win over African-Americans who were offended by his recent appeal to racist whites in the deep South to see that their economic interests lay with the Democratic Party. By his action, the former vice president has upstaged the de facto leaders of the Democratic Party, Mr Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who quietly encouraged former General Wesley Clark to run against Mr Dean as more likely to beat Mr Bush.
"The most interesting thing about this primary is the phenomenon of this guy Dean and how he has shot so far ahead," said Joe McQuaid, publisher of the Union Leader, New Hampshire's largest circulation newspaper.
"I think this is because the field is very mediocre. He is the outsider.
"He is the McCain guy from four years ago," the conservative publisher said in an interview in his office outside Manchester, New Hampshire, referring to Senator John McCain's victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary over Mr Bush four years ago.
"He shoots from the hip, he is candid in his answers. The other guys are all 'inside Washington'.
"One of my editors has a theory that Democrats think, 'What the hell, we're going to get beat by Bush with any of these guys, Dean is a long shot, at least he's going to really mix it up and it will be interesting'."
Retired Gen Wesley Clark was "abysmal", he stated.
"In a campaign which started pretty much the day after the last general election with a lot of people lining up, he's a real Johnny-come-lately to it.
"If you are going to be a Johnny-come-lately you have got to land with both feet on the ground and come running with a good campaign apparatus. And I don't think he has any kind of coherent message.
"He fumbled the ball relevant to his position on the war," he added, referring to Gen Clarke's statements that he opposed military action against Iraq but would have voted for the war resolution in Congress. Senator John Kerry, once seen as the front-runner, "has not done well in New Hampshire because he has absolutely no personality and he looks like the Boston Brahmin that he is," said Mr McQuaid, whose newspaper has in the past helped shape the primary race in the state.
"He has a sort of patrician air about him and unless you are Franklin Delaware Roosevelt that doesn't work any more." The trouble for Mr Kerry, who comes from Boston in neighbouring Massachusetts, is he is too well known.
"Southern New Hampshire is dominated by Boston television. And I don't think a lot of people have been very impressed by him at all."
Senator Lieberman was doing badly in New Hampshire he said because "his position is too mainstream for the Democratic activist wing of the party, and he's not all that exciting either." Congressman Dick Gephardt - a third-time candidate who is running neck and neck with Mr Dean in the Iowa caucus to be held in mid-January - had little hope of winning the nomination either, he believed.
"The third time is either a charm or you are toast.
"He's looked upon as someone who screwed up as House Majority leader by losing the Democratic majority. His problem is also that he's too well known." The Union Leader may endorse Mr Lieberman, who is coming to speak to the publisher on December 23rd, but this is unlikely to affect the outcome. Mr McQuaid has also invited Mr Dean to visit, but "I don't expect he will now given my editorial this morning", he said.
Mr McQuaid yesterday published a signed front page editorial criticising Mr Dean for the "smear" against Mr Bush in a radio interview in which he insinuated that the president had been forewarned about 9/11 by the Saudis. Mr Gore yesterday flew with Mr Dean from New York to Iowa where the front-runner is in a close contest with Mr Gephardt in the Iowa caucus, to be held a week before the New Hampshire primary.
After the January 27th New Hampshire vote, six states will hold primaries, including South Carolina where rank outsider Senator John Edwards, whom Mr McQuaid dismissed as "in over his head", hopes to do well.