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Howard Dean's strategy aims at winning the votes of non-voters

No matter how slick other US Democratic party presidential candidates are, though, none can match the fervor of front runner Howard Dean's campaign. This is nowhere more visible than in the most intimate of New Hampshire traditions: the house party. This is when candidates hold court in a supporter's front room. Polly and Edward Schumaker live in the village of Bow, deep in the woods. It was lunchtime, with the smell of freshly cooked muffins wafting, and 150 people crammed inside the house. "Is this the first time you've heard him speak?" Nora Sanders, a medical student, asked a group of girls. They nodded. "He's amazing," Sanders assured them.

When Dean arrived, he inched his way through the crowd, taking five minutes to negotiate a 3m passageway. He stood on a box in the middle of the dining room and, diverting from his script, asked who had seen him speak before. Half put up their hands. Dean grinned: "It's like going to a Grateful Dead concert. Some new songs are OK, but if I don't do a few of the old favorites you people will be cross."

He segued effortlessly into his usual monologue. His voice rose in anger to make a point, triggering applause, before falling back again. The audience nodded and clapped, responding to questions and prompts like a congregation to their priest. Even some journalists, caught up in the atmosphere, found themselves clapping at the end.

Little of Dean's charisma comes across on television. He appears wooden and curt. But in the Schumakers' living room he is at the top of his game. He needs to be, too. Ed Schumaker is no ordinary voter. He is a former ambassador and an important local figure. He is also "undecided." Holding the party at his house was a calculated move.

Dean uses the same repetitions to great effect. "I am tired of being divided by race. I am tired of being divided by gender. I am tired of being divided by sexual preference. I am tired of being divided by income. I am tired of being divided by religion. I want a country where we are all in it together," he chanted.

He attacked Bush relentlessly but reserved his greatest anger for his rivals. He accused them of peddling "Bush lite," of trying to beat Republicans by trying to be like them. That is not his plan. Dean does not want the middle ground. He ended with a simple appeal. "At the end of the day the power is with you," he said, triggering cheers.

After he'd gone, the four girls filed past Nora Sanders, smiling and squeezing her arm. "That was good stuff," one said breathlessly.

Every serious candidate has a plan. Sharpton, Moseley Braun and Kucinich can be written off. They look for a higher profile, not victory. The others hope to exploit the fractures in the American political landscape. Edwards wants to carry the south. No Democrat can win without it, the southerner says. Lieberman wants to carry the centre. He hopes moderation will win swing voters. For Kerry the plan is to be a traditional liberal. For Gephardt, a union man from Missouri, it is to sweep the midwest. He aims to win Iowa and use that as a launchpad for the battleground states of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. With all his time being spent in Iowa, Gephardt has sent his daughter, Chrissy, to fight for him in New Hampshire. "The Midwest is probably going to decide the elections. My dad is the only candidate from the Midwest," she said.

But Dean has a plan, too. His plan is to win new voters. In an age when only half of eligible Americans vote, his staff believe he can attract four million non-voters to his cause. That is why he does not believe in fighting for the middle.

Could Dean beat Bush? The answer, of course, is that no one knows. No one has attempted to win an election by appealing to non-voters in such huge numbers. But, then again, no one had ever tried to raise money through the internet like that. Conventional wisdom says that the Republicans will play a safe and steady game, ushering in victory. All the national polls so far have Bush crushing any of his Democrat opponents. But it is early days yet. Democrat attentions are focused on each other. With Bush's record in Iraq, on the environment and corporate corruption, there will be plenty of material for any opponent to land some serious blows. Dean's campaign has energized enough people to give his daring plan a try. No one can say it is destined to fail.

One thing is sure: a Bush-Dean fight would be nasty. Rarely in modern America would voters have been faced with such a stark choice -- one of the most radical Republican administrations in history would face off against an unapologetic liberal who has renounced the middle ground. America, and therefore the rest of the world, would face a historic crossroads.

The battle would be vicious. Bush is on course to amass a war chest of US$200m, doubling the previous record, which he set in 2000. Dean believes he can match it. He wants two million Americans to contribute US$100 each. With his new campaign style, it is just about possible.

With all this money sloshing around, brutal tactics are certain. Already Republican strategists are crawling over every aspect of Dean's career. He could be vulnerable. Dean avoided the Vietnam draft with a medical note on a back problem -- and then took a skiing job in Aspen. He has ordered files from his Vermont years sealed for a decade, prompting many to ask what he is hiding. He is known to have a short fuse. Under the glare of the arc lights, Dean could be one televised gaffe away from disaster. Every Democrat remembers the experience of Mike Dukakis in 1988. He was destroyed by an attack ad that used the case of a released black prisoner called Willie Horton to shatter Dukakis's image as tough on crime.

Republican strategist Karl Rove saw Dean campaigning at a Fourth of July parade last summer. Officials close by saw him punch the air and mutter in glee when he saw the doctor walk by. "That's the one we want," Rove said.

It was dark and cold, and evening had long since drawn in. Dean was pulling up to the last stop of his long day: Laconia High School in southern New Hampshire. Inside, the biggest crowd of the day was crammed into the sports hall. The sound was deafening. This time it was not like a church. It was like a football game: all chants and the thunderous banging of chairs.

When Dean entered he was genuinely taken aback. "My God," he muttered. "I had no idea we got these kind of crowds in Laconia." For the fifth time that day, Dean gave his speech. This was the most passionate of them all. He pointed his fingers, his cheeks flushed and he seemed to quiver with emotion. The first standing ovation came on the subject of Iraq. "My job, as commander-in-chief, will never be to send our brothers and sisters, our children and grandchildren, to fight in a foreign country without first telling them the truth about why they are fighting," he told the crowd.

Six more standing ovations followed. This crowd wanted to believe. It wanted to believe that America could be changed, that George Bush could be beaten. But most of all, it wanted to believe that this man -- this angry, rosy-cheeked doctor -- was going to be the next US president.

Dean vowed it was all possible. At the climax of his speech, he swore: "You have the power to take back the Democratic Party. You have the power so that the American flag belongs to every single one of us. You have the power to take back the White House in 2004, and that is exactly what we are going to do.'

It took half an hour for him to leave, finally heading off on the long drive home to Vermont. He left behind a crowd convinced that it had seen a different future. And that future was President Dean.

This story is the second part of Doctor in the house published yesterday.
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