Dr. Dean's New Hampshire state director, Karen Hicks, sent an e-mail statement on Sunday criticizing what she said were various forms of harassing or misleading phone calls aimed at hurting his campaign.
Mr. Ferrer disappeared from the campaign trail in the final days before the election, and the Rev. Al Sharpton declined to support Mr. Green, citing the efforts by some Green aides to use mailings and phone calls aimed at Jewish voters to highlight Mr. Sharpton's backing of Mr. Ferrer.
Vice President Al Gore has the support of virtually the entire elected establishment, and Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, the head of the local steering committee, said there were plans for minimal direct mailings and phone calls aimed at getting out the vote.
Ground squirrels for example, will make shrill alarm calls aimed at deterring bird and mammal predators (who can hear) but when faced with a snake (which doesn't hear), they don't call, but rather puff up and shake their tails.
The cyber-brown-shirts will spew hate, the union guys will flood talk shows with switchboard-collapsing swarms of complaint calls aimed at those hosts who "go beyond the pale" in their criticisms of Obama.
The speech, which aides rewrote on the fly Tuesday, was designed as the keynote of a week of meetings, briefings, speeches and phone calls aimed at lawmakers whose support Obama needs in his pursuit of congressional authorization for a punitive strike against Syria.
