Howie threatens to take his ball and go home

Dean says his supporters won't easily back another

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont said yesterday that the people drawn to politics by his campaign might stay home if he doesn't win his party's presidential nomination, thereby dooming Democrats in the fall campaign against President Bush.

"If I don't win the nomination, where do you think those million and a half people, half a million on the Internet, where do you think they're going to go?" he said during a meeting with reporters.

"I don't know where they're going to go. They're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician," Mr. Dean said.

It just gets better.