Democratic candidate hopeful Howard Dean sent an e-mail to his supporters Wednesday night alerting them that without a Wisconsin primary win, he will pull out of the race.
“The entire race has come down to this: we must win Wisconsin.” Dean said in the e-mail.
He asked his campaign base to quickly donate money and raise $700,000 by Sunday to begin launching his television advertisements in Wisconsin by Monday of next week.
According to Dean’s campaign manager Roy Neel, the e-mail was meant as a fundraising tool for the Wisconsin campaign.
“The appeal was we need our donors to fund an aggressive campaign in Wisconsin, and they responded,” Neel said.
Between 10 and 11 a.m. Thursday morning, Dean supporters raised nearly $54,000, one of the most lucrative hours of fundraising in the campaign’s history.
Although perceived by many to signify desperation in the Dean campaign, Dean has kept a confident public face about his chances in Wisconsin. When asked during a Dean for America conference call if a win in Wisconsin is do or die, Dean answered, “It’s do.”
“We think we will win Wisconsin and that’s all I’m going to say on that topic,” Dean said. “I never predict wins, I just say I think we can win.”
After a long string of losses on the primary trail and low funds, Dean’s campaign revised its strategy to put a large focus on winning Wisconsin. Dean has spent enormous amounts of time and energy here in recent days, visiting Madison’s Club Majestic Wednesday night and passing through Milwaukee to visit local leaders there on Sunday.
Without much notice, Dean canceled plans to visit Michigan Thursday to campaign in Wisconsin instead.
Dean, however, will not be the only democrat circling the state in the coming days. Sen. John Edwards (NC) and Gen. Wesley Clark also intended to stop in Wisconsin over the weekend to campaign. Both candidates have won a primary in one state thus far, trailing the democratic frontrunner Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) who has taken victories in seven states to date.
Co-Chair of Students for Kerry, Don Eggert, said Dean’s e-mail reveals the difficult position the former Vermont governor finds himself in as he continues week after week without a win.
“There is just no way he can go through 13 or 14 states without a victory and become the nominee,” Eggert said.
Although Dean formerly promised to run a 50-state campaign, many of his campaign supporters say that Wisconsin deserves more focus because it has emerged as the primary’s key contest.
“Wisconsin is the brick wall,” Shira Roza, Chair of Students for Dean, said. But not only are we the brick wall, we are the springboard to the rest of the states.”
Roza stated that the e-mail does not signal a floundering campaign but rather serves as a tool to notify supporters of Wisconsin’s importance and mobilize to win the state.
“It is a way to say ‘bring it to Wisconsin’,” Roza said.
