Dean's speech will likely haunt him for rest of the campaign, experts say

Dean risks being labeled as too angry and unstable to be president.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The sound rumbled up from deep within former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean at his Iowa campaign headquarters Monday night, a guttural howl that sounded like a wounded cougar.
Two days later, his yowl continued to reverberate in the Democratic presidential race. Comedian Jay Leno has joked about it for two nights running, Boston talk-radio hosts use Dean's primal scream as a soundtrack and mocking remixes of it are available on the Internet.
"Yeaaaahhhhhhghhhh!" Dean shouted near the end of his roaring speech Monday to supporters absorbing news of his crushing Iowa defeat. As he tried to rally his troops at the Val Air ballroom, a '70s-era disco palace just outside Des Moines, he peeled off his suit coat, rolled up his sleeves, punched the air, bared his teeth and shouted a litany of the states where he'd continue to fight. TV footage of the moment is riveting.
'Muskie Moment'
Dean faces the risk that his performance will form an indelible image of him as too angry and unstable to be president, political analysts said Wednesday. Some called it a potential defining "Muskie Moment," a reference to a devastating image of former Democratic Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine apparently crying over an insult to his wife, which helped kill his once front-running 1972 presidential campaign.
Dean "looked like a prairie dog on speed," former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, a Republican, said on CNN.
"I'm not an expert in politics," Leno said Monday night. "But I think it's a bad sign when your speech ends with your aides shooting you with a tranquilizer gun."
Leno came back for more Tuesday: "Did you seen Howard Dean's speech last night? Oh, my God! Now I hear the cows in Iowa are afraid of getting mad-Dean disease."
For two solid days, clips of Dean's rant have aired nationally, a danger for a candidate unknown to many voters. Added to earlier incidents such as the dressing-down he gave a heckler last week in Iowa, it could feed the perception that he has serious anger issues.
Taking a hit
He's already taking a hit in New Hampshire.
Tuesday night's tracking poll by the American Research Group showed his favorable rating down dramatically: 39 percent favorable, 30 percent unfavorable and 31 percent undecided, compared with 57 percent favorable, 19 percent unfavorable and 24 percent undecided for the three nights ending Monday.
"Anger was the rap on him anyway, and this is extremely damaging," said pollster Dick Bennett. "It was the worst thing he could have done. It just fits with the perception. If it gets burned in, he's done."
Bennett compared Dean's fiery speech to the famous incident when Muskie appeared to cry as he stood outside in the snow and denounced the Manchester Union Leader newspaper, which had attacked his wife in an editorial. Most historians now think the apparent tears were only melting snow, but the image proved devastating. During the Cold War, people wanted tough presidents.