Braun to Give Dean Camp a New Voice in Key States

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa —  Former Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, who dropped her long-shot presidential bid Thursday and endorsed Howard Dean, will campaign extensively for the former Vermont governor in the coming month.

The Dean campaign plans to spend about $20,000 a month for the travel expenses of Braun and her staff, Dean spokesman Jay Carson said.

Braun will campaign in New Hampshire and South Carolina, which hold crucial Democratic primaries in the coming month. The campaign has not yet determined what other places she might visit.

“She’s going to be very helpful to us,” Dean told reporters as he spoke to reporters aboard his press bus Friday afternoon. “She’s very strong with women.... What she’s done is pretty extraordinary, put herself forward in a very difficult situation, and she’s definitely moved the cause of having a woman in the White House one step closer.”

Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said that after Braun withdrew from the race and endorsed Dean on Thursday, she met with his campaign staff and told them she could keep up her schedule of campaigning three to four days a week. Trippi said she was spending about $16,000 a month on travel.

Braun, a former U.S. senator from Illinois, is expected to have particular resonance with women and African American voters.

“Someone’s got to buy the airline tickets to South Carolina, to Iowa, to Michigan for someone to campaign for us,” Trippi said Friday on CNN’s “Inside Politics.” “She needs at least one staffer.”

Dean’s campaign did not agree to cover the $300,000 debt Braun’s campaign incurred over the last year. However, Trippi said she would be able to recover that money once the Democratic nominee is selected.

At that point, he said, the Party’s presidential nominee would host a unity fundraiser to pay off the debt of all the Democratic candidates. “We all take on Bush and everybody’s debt’s retired,” he said.

Associated Press and Times staff researcher Susannah Rosenblatt contributed to this report.