MADISON, WIS. ? Once again, there was nothing to celebrate.

Once again, subdued supporters milled around a sparsely populated ballroom, trying to ignore the results on the television screens as Howard Dean suffered his 17th consecutive loss at the polls Tuesday night, running a distant third behind Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

The finish all but ensured the end of his insurgent presidential bid, his aides agreed. But it remains to be seen if Dean shares that opinion.

The candidate was scheduled to fly home to Burlington, Vt., late Tuesday night and to reassess his candidacy today with advisers, who hope to persuade him that continuing his presidential bid is futile. Aides say he has mused about running a stripped-down campaign until at least March 2, when large states such as California and New York vote.

But Dean in recent days began speaking of his campaign in the past tense. And on Tuesday night he thanked two unions for sticking with him “till the end.”

The reflective tone of his 20-minute concession speech to supporters at a local hotel indicated that the candidate had begun looking for a positive legacy to take away from a campaign that analysts agreed had run out of steam.

“I know that some of you are disappointed because we didn’t do as well as we had hoped we would do in Wisconsin, but I also want you to think for a moment about how far we have come,” he said.

“The truth is, change is tough,” he added. “You have already started to change the Democratic Party, and we will not stop.”

Dean’s speech not long after the polls closed here was neither defiant nor manic, like the Iowa concession speech that was replayed for days on national television. Instead, the candidate delivered what aides and others agreed was one of his finest speeches, combining fond reminisces of his two years on the campaign trail with a determined call for the Democratic Party not to abandon the issues he brought to the fore.

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean addresses a crowd of supporters at the Concourse Hotel in Madison, Wis. Dean finished a distant third in Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, and he will decide shortly whether to stay in the race, campaign aides say.

“We together have only begun our work,” he said, gazing out at the crowd. “People have said that we have begun to transform the Democratic Party. … But the transformation that we have wrought is a transformation of convenience and not of conviction, and we have to fight and fight and fight.”

His poor performance in Wisconsin came after the former Vermont governor virtually camped out in the state for 10 days, pleading with voters to reignite his faltering candidacy.

At one point, he lashed out at Kerry, accusing him of supporting corrupt fund-raising tactics and denouncing him as little better than President Bush.

But despite the attention Dean showered on the state, crowds at his events dwindled and his aides grew grim.

Soon, it became evident that Wisconsin voters were in the same pragmatic mood as voters in other states.

“I probably agree more with Dean than anyone else, but he seems to be fizzling, and I want a winner,” said Jim Weiland, 49, a photo studio owner who brought his 18-year-old son to a town hall meeting with Dean in Oshkosh last week. “Kerry is a war hero, and I think that will help him against Bush.”

Dean’s indecision about the import of the Wisconsin primary began nearly two weeks ago, when he e-mailed supporters to say his candidacy would end if he did not win in the state. Days later, he reversed that position and said he would fight on, regardless of the outcome.