With only two contests left to go before the Wisconsin primary Feb. 17, Howard Dean asked Wisconsinites at the Concourse Hotel Monday to vote for him so he can stay in the race and “keep this debate alive.”

“Wisconsin knows that what is on the line in this primary is the very heart and soul of the Democratic Party and the very heart and soul of America,” Dean said.

Dean pointed an accusatory finger at his Democratic rivals, claiming they used popularity polls to dictate their stance on the war in Iraq, Medicare reform and the No Child Left Behind Act.

“Democrats who watch popularity polls are not the right leaders to stand up to George Bush,” Dean said, claiming Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., are guilty of playing an insider game with a White House he described as “a wholly owned subsidiary of special interests.”

The majority of Dean’s condemnations were reserved for President Bush, whom he blamed for the loss of manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin and the state’s unemployment rate. Dean lamented that future generations would pay for a deficit produced by a “borrow and spend” government.

“College students and college students’ children are going to be paying that debt,” Dean said.

Dean also unleashed a barrage of criticisms regarding the “wrong” war in Iraq, claiming the Bush administration lost all credibility by misleading Americans about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. When the crowd leapt to their feet in applause, the former Vermont governor lightheartedly joked, “This is Madison, right?”

Dean has made Madison a regular campaign stop in recent days, speaking at Club Majestic last week for the one-year anniversary of the Dean campaign’s meet-ups. Dean issued an e-mail to his supporters recently, notifying them that he would pull out of the race if he lost here.

“The entire race has come down to this: we must win Wisconsin,” Dean said in the e-mail.

Dean, who led in the polls leading up to primary season, has yet to recover from his third-place finish in the Iowa caucus nearly a month ago. As a win anywhere continues to evade him, Dean has revised his campaign strategy to focus on Wisconsin in order to secure momentum into the March 2 Super Tuesday contests.

But after Kerry won all three contests over the weekend in Maine, Michigan and Washington, many believe Dean’s chance of surpassing the Massachusetts senator’s lead seems increasingly slim.

“It would be extremely unusual for a candidate to do this well and then suddenly collapse,” University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin said of Sen. Kerry.

Kerry is not Dean’s only competition, however. Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who have both won a state each, campaigned in Wisconsin over the weekend.

Although a win in hotly contested Wisconsin will be difficult to come by for the Dean camp, many believe it is the governor’s only option.

“It would be a long shot, of course. But if he doesn’t win here, he won’t get the nomination,” Franklin said. “Whether he is likely to win or not, focusing here is the best strategy available to him.”