For the moment, the dean of his class

Dean's campaign empowers supporters to an unusual degree, encouraging them to organize themselves in gatherings like the Internet-driven "meetups." This bottom-up operating principle can lend a chaotic feel even to his official events. At one Dean rally, the sole spotlight blows out, sending aides scrambling for a replacement. At another, they forget to turn the lights on. For the "J-J" dinner, the campaign rents 47 school buses to transport supporters - but miscalculates the number of riders, so some buses wind up empty. But what's striking about these mishaps is how little they seem to matter. In some ways, they simply amplify one of Dean's strongest selling points: his ability to convey authenticity.

On the stump, Dean can seem uneven. Bristling with energy, his mind sometimes seems to race ahead of his mouth, and he can switch topics abruptly. Yet when he hits punch lines, he connects with visceral emotion. When Melissa Etheridge misses a rally due to a flight delay, the crowd hardly cares. The rock star is Dean.

Still, to some, the passionate idealism Dean inspires seems uncomfortably vague. Waiting for Dean to arrive at the University of Northern Iowa, sophomore Lee Bower glances skeptically at a young man with a homemade sign that reads, "I Want My Country Back." "Who took the country in the first place?" Mr. Bower scoffs. "I don't know what that means."

Dean represents different things to different people. Many students cite his signing of Vermont's civil-unions bill. "I like the gay thing," says Trina Hebblethwaite, a student at Graceland University. "That's my favorite thing." Some project onto Dean positions he has not taken. "It seems like he wants to call it a marriage," says Michael Bowser, a sophomore at the University of Northern Iowa. (Dean has said he personally is opposed to gay marriage.)

Among older people here, the top reason for backing Dean is his opposition to the war. "This war is a Republican war," says Roger Ostby, a retired Sears salesman who's come to hear Dean in Cedar Falls. "We have no business being there." Mr. Ostby, who says Dean has his vote, likes Congressman Gephardt, too, but doesn't think he's a "winner." And while he does view Sen. John Kerry as a winner, he says: "It's just too bad he voted for the war." A World War II veteran himself, Ostby scornfully refers to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as "draft dodgers." Yet when asked about Dean's lack of military service, he pauses. "I don't know anything about it," he admits.

In many ways, Dean is one of blurriest figures in the race when it comes to personal details - despite his front-runner status. In speeches, he typically refrains from talking about his background or his family. His wife, Judith Steinberg, almost never joins him on the trail. A full-time physician, she has indicated that she'd like to continue practicing medicine if her husband were elected president. His two children are in high school and college.

In an interview, Dean dismisses the lack of personal stories as "New England reticence." But politically, it's also true that many of the details wouldn't help him much. Unlike Gephardt and Sen. John Edwards, who routinely stress their humble roots, Howard Brush Dean III grew up on Park Avenue in New York City, the scion of a line of Wall Street bankers. Unlike Senator Kerry and General Clark, who point to service in Vietnam, Dean got a medical deferment for an unfused vertebra in his back, then spent a year skiing in Aspen.

But some details are getting new scrutiny. Recently, Dean garnered national headlines over disclosures that the Pentagon had located remains thought to belong to his brother, Charles Dean, who was killed in Laos in 1974 by communists accusing him of being a spy. Dean traveled to Hawaii this week for a repatriation ceremony for his brother.

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