The American Spectator

“It was pandering pure and simple,” says a Dean staffer. “We knew when we had Kerry playing the race card that we had him beat.”

Dean was desperate for the union backing, in part because it will almost certainly ensure that his fundraising stays on track — at least through the early primary season. Internal Dean numbers show his online fundraising has dropped by almost a third in recent weeks. Just recently, he hired Mike Ford as a senior adviser. Ford is a grassroots campaign organizer, who has worked with AFSCME on political campaigns in the past. He is expected to play an integral role in organizing AFSCME members on the ground in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

But slower cash flow won’t be the story on Dean for quite a few days. It will be about how Dean and his team managed to end run the bigger — theoretically more powerful and influential — campaigns to steal labor’s support.

p> STAR LUST br> Since Sen. Bob Graham ‘s recent announcement that he would not seek re-election in Florida, Republicans in Washington again have been putting on the heat to higher profile candidates to run in the state primary. Currently, former congressman Bill McCollum , who was defeated in the 2000 Senate campaign by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson , state speaker of the House Johnnie Byrd , state Sen. Daniel Webster