Dean Tries to Beat the Odds Against Outsiders [View All]

[Freddie Stubbs]

Latest insurgent bid for the presidency shakes up Democrats. Rules favor insiders.

WASHINGTON — Obscurity. Electricity. Momentum. Opportunity. Disappointment.

For more than a quarter of a century, that has been the life cycle for the sort of insurgent presidential candidacy that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has fashioned in the race for the 2004 Democratic nomination.

From Democrats Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown and Bill Bradley to Republican John McCain, candidates who have run as outsiders — criticizing their party's direction — have stunned the political world by generating more excitement and amassing more support than appeared possible when they entered the race, as Dean has done in recent weeks.

But since Jimmy Carter rode the post-Watergate demand for reform to the White House in 1976, every subsequent insurgent candidate has failed to win his party's nomination. Each lost to a candidate who had greater support among the party establishment.