The American Spectator

Instead of immediately heading down to South Carolina or to Missouri from News Hampshire, Dean gathered his braintrust in Burlington Wednesday for a strategy session. Early in the day, according to sources, he told Trippi that Neel was coming on board as chief executive officer of the campaign. He asked Trippi to stay on. Trippi declined.

“It wasn’t said explicitly, but there is a sense here that Neel could do for our guy what [former Gore adviser] Bob Shrum did for John Kerry,” says a Dean adviser. “It may be too late, though. This thing has the feel of a slowly leaking lifeboat.”

On the Wednesday afternoon conference call, Dean told his congressional supporters that he intended to fight for his political life in every state holding a primary or caucus on February 3. This appeared to counter the strategy that Trippi had been discussing with reporters in New Hampshire on Tuesday night. There, the campaign manager was insisting that Dean, in need of wins, would focus on states that were battleground and winnable states. States discussed as viable for Dean included New Mexico, which uses a caucus format, and Arizona on February 3, Michigan and Washington on February 7 and Wisconsin on February 17 as viable for Dean. Now that strategy would appear to be dead.

Neel had been serving as an adviser to Dean after the Vermonter received the endorsement of Neel’s old boss Gore. Prior to yesterday’s announcement, there was little to indicate that Neel was seeking any larger role in the campaign.

p> LABOR UNEASE br> It should be noted as well that Roy Neel was also suggested to Howard Dean by leaders of the AFSCME and SEIU unions, who were demanding winning results from Dean … or else. While no one in the Dean camp called the conversations ultimatums, sources inside the Dean campaign said that both AFSCME president Gerald McEntee and SEIU president Andrew Stern made it clear to Dean senior advisers that the candidate must win in next week’s races or face the prospect that both unions will publicly announce that they are reconsidering their endorsements and support.