The American Spectator

p> PLAYING DOCTOR br> The Kerry campaign in Iowa is looking into the events that transpired on Saturday in Des Moines, when former Vermont Gov. Howie Dean , a licensed physician, helped a man who appeared to suffer a seizure on a street. It turns out the man was a Dean volunteer, and Dean just happened to be passing by when he noticed a crowd and wondered what had happened. According to eyewitness accounts reported by numerous press outlets, Dean pushed his way into the crowd (apparently certain that a doctor was needed for whatever was occurring), cradled the man’s head in his lap and administered a brief examination by taking his pulse and asking him a few questions about his medical history. /p>

Surprisingly, this is the fourth time that Dean has been in the right place at the right time during his campaigning, and has played a role in helping an ill supporter.

“It’s just way too coincidental,” says a John Kerry volunteer in Des Moines. “And it was one of his people that was sick. It just looks like a setup. Most doctors goes a lifetime without being on the scene of a something like this, and it happens to him four times in four months? Maybe he is making people sick.”

This volunteer said the campaign is now looking into each of the times Dean assisted fallen supporters, and is looking back to Dean’s time as Vermont governor to establish a pattern, which all sounds just a bit desperate and petty on the part of the Kerry campaign.

“You know what they say about desperate times,” says the volunteer. “This is going to get nasty real fast. It’s the only way we can stay in it.”

Kerry is rolling out a new, get-tough image that he tested out in Jefferson-Jackson remarks on Saturday. The press spotlighted the speech, and initial reviews were good, thought internally, some Kerry supporters say it is too little too late.

p> OPEN BORDERS br> Now we know it wasn’t party loyalty or presidential ambitions that brought Hillary Rodham Clinton