Early stand costs Dean fan, but Kerry backer rides high

There was a time Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry didn't have a single endorsement from his D.C. colleagues. And then there was one. More than two years ago, Washington's Adam Smith became the first member of Congress to endorse Kerry's presidential campaign.

As the earliest adopter of the Kerry message, Smith had to suffer slings and arrows from members of Congress watching from safe, neutral ground as Kerry's campaign seemed to collapse under the weight of Howard Dean's insurgency.

"They just dismissed him. Out and out dismissed him," Smith said of what Kerry folks refer to as "the dark days."

"They'd say, 'It's over,' and maybe a few clever people tried to come up with jokes about it," Smith said.

At the same time, in Seattle, state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt was basking in the Dean glow. He was the first state-party chairman in the country to publicly back Dean. Today, Kerry is the solid front-runner and Smith looks like the guy who bought Microsoft in 1986. Or, absent the capital gains, at least he looks like the guy who listened to OutKast before the double album: in the know, connected, a player.

Today, Dean is the also-ran, and Berendt has lost a run for a national party office and the good graces and cash of a generous party donor. He's not sorry about his early move, though he said some Democrats grumble behind his back. Some county party chairs said they wish Berendt had stayed out of the race.

The early moves by Smith and Berendt meant far more than the scores of endorsements presidential candidates rack up later.

"You remember your early supporters with special fondness," said Will Marshall, president and co-founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank.

"It shows Adam Smith is a very astute political analyst," Marshall said. "Obviously, it was a bit of a gamble, one that didn't look like it was paying dividends in the dark days before Iowa."

Berendt said Smith will reap benefits.

"I think Adam's support of Kerry will carry a lot of weight with John Kerry — and (Kerry is) either going to be a nominee or he's going to be a U.S. senator," Berendt said.

Or maybe president. And that's all Smith said he wants.

"I haven't ever had a guy in power that I said, 'I want to follow that person,' " Smith said. "If Kerry gets elected, I've got a guy in the White House who I believe in."

Smith was elected to Congress in 1996 from the 9th Congressional District, which covers parts of Tacoma, east Pierce County and pieces of King and Thurston counties.

A moderate and a bit of an iconoclast, Smith got to know Kerry when they worked together on energy, environmental and veterans issues.

In summer 2001, Smith escorted Kerry around the district on one of the early, low-profile trips essential for potential presidential candidates.

Kerry was the feature for a Smith fund-raiser. And Smith organized a meeting in his Tacoma home for 35 or so Democrats from the Puget Sound area.

There is also a family tie of sorts. Smith's chief of staff, Ali Wade, is married to Kerry campaign aide David Wade. Ali Wade is on leave from Smith's office to run Kerry's caucus campaign in Washington.

After his decision to endorse Kerry, Smith began to lobby other Democrats in Washington's delegation and the 70 or so House Democrats who consider themselves part of the New Democrat movement of party centrists.

In the early days, Smith said, it was "a spectacularly unsuccessful effort."

The typical reaction from colleagues: "Ahh, there's a lot of people in the race. I don't want to get into it. Yadda, yadda, yadda."

There was also a fear of offending House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, whose own campaign was in full swing.

"I've never encountered so many people who said, 'The guy did a lot for me, I've got to be with him,' " Smith said. "It was always quid pro quo."

Since Gephardt's departure from the race after a poor showing in Iowa, Kerry has seen a surge of endorsements, including from most of the Washington Democrats in Congress. In October, when the Kerry campaign was in trouble, Smith wrote a column for the D.C. newspaper Roll Call excoriating Dean, who he said "has melded wedge politics with shameless opportunism" in attacking congressional Democrats.

"He calls them cockroaches that will scurry away from the bright light he, our conquering hero, will shine upon them once he ascends to the White House," Smith wrote.

The early backing means a lot to Kerry. "Adam took a risk in the earliest days of this campaign by signing on first and made a statement by holding that first meeting in his living room with his friends and neighbors," Kerry said. "It was the best kind of grass-roots politics."

That's what Berendt said he was aiming for, too, in endorsing Dean. Dean was a good ideological fit, he said, and had the party's rank and file behind him.

Berendt said this week he also liked that Dean was taking on the party. "The thing I really passionately agree with Howard Dean about is that there is a Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and its voice hasn't been distinct enough, and he's given us a voice," Berendt said.

Last year, Berendt's run to be a vice chairman of the national party was scuttled, he said, by party officials who supported Sen. Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign.

In December, Vashon Island attorney Matthew Bergman, one of the state's most generous Democratic donors, said he wouldn't give any more money to the state party because Berendt and other party leaders were helping Dean.

Berendt has no regrets. Even Democrats unhappy with him will benefit from the thousands of new people attracted to the party by the high profile Dean has had in the state, he said.

"They can be critical of me, but on the other hand, they'd much rather have a little controversy and thousands of new people in the party than have had me sit on the sidelines," Berendt said.

"I am really having the time of my life right now."

David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com