Apparently John Kerry doesn't feel that Al Gore's endorsement is important; this sure won't increase his chances of getting it:

Caucus Notebook: Must-see Democratic TV

Kerry 'Gores' Dean

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts took another swing at Howard Dean last week, a week after accusing the former Vermont governor of supporting policy unbecoming of "real Democrats."...

During a campaign stop in Des Moines Monday, Kerry was asked whether the Internet petition drive he was announcing in protest of President Bush's proposed overtime pay standards was in response to a similar effort Dean had also launched.

"The Dean campaign is saying you're kind of stealing their thunder on this on-line petition," Dave Price, a reporter for Des Moines-based WHO-TV 13, to which Kerry responded with a smirk: "Well, the last person I heard who claimed he had invented the Internet didn't do so well."

The response earned restrained yucks from the gaggle of reporters. But Dean's staff hadn't said they invented on-line petition drives, and Kerry didn't refute that Dean's started at the same time.

First of all: from what I recall, the Dean campaign didn't put their overtime petition up until after Kerry pre-announced that his would go up on Monday. But Dean's still went up on Saturday (two days before Kerry's), demonstrating again to me that they are more technically nimble than the Kerry campaign.

But the larger point is that Kerry is recycling a right-wing talking point about Gore that is based on a deliberate misinterpretation of Gore's statements. This makes it hard to get excited about him.

The most perverse part of it all is that surely his campaign managers are on board with this strategy, and one of them (Chris Lehane) was in Gore's campaign. Resorting to the arguments of the guy who beat your candidate last time smells of desperation to me.

I thought the conventional wisdom was that Dean was the 'bitter, angry' candidate (though he's looked pretty relaxed and upbeat the last few forums I saw him in). Kerry's making a strong bid for the title.