I was just skimming part of Trippi's book, and it reminded me of all the ways that Kerry owes Dean. Trippi mentions Kerry's hammer, an obvious borrowing from Dean's bat. Trippi also notes that Dean gave Kerry the political cover to make the vital decision to opt out of the spending limits, and that Kerry wouldn't have gone to mass internet fundraising were it not for Dean's example.
Others have pointed out that Kerry voted against the $87 billion Iraq appropriation b/c of the Dean surge. Kerry's now playing the good cop while letting Dean be the bad cop pointing out the political implications of the latest terror alerts. Kerry is also benefitting from the energy and the enthusiasm of the people Dean brought into the political process.
Most political giants are great borrowers. As Bill Veeck once noted, FDR took almost the entire New Deal from Norman Thomas' Socialist Party platform. Kerry is proving to be a great borrower as well. His attack on W's 7 minutes w/ My Pet Goat is straight from F9/11. I'm pulling for Kerry w/o equivocation, but I'll always realize that he's standing on the shoulders of others.