Free Republic

<p>Howard Dean said Monday that he is closing fast on front-runner John Kerry on the eve of the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary while he accused his rivals of playing "dirty tricks" in the final hours.</p> <p>Dean trailed Kerry in most polls one day before the nation's first primary. He continued to criticize the Massachusetts senator for voting for the congressional resolution that authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002 but standing with the opposition to the 1991 Persian Gulf War.</p>

Howard Dean spent part of the morning today explaining what one network television interviewer called his "explosive" speech Monday night telling supporters he would not give up...... Dean referred to his frenetic, shouting appearance before supporters in Iowa after the caucus results became known, a performance that led NBC's Katie Couric to tell him this morning, "Some people watching feared you might implode." "Do you think things got a little out of control and you got a little over the top?" she asked Dean on the Today Show. "Can you explain that?" Dean replied, "Thirty-five hundred young people showed up...