respect to the dead white males

"Did we brave all then, to falter now -- now -- when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent?"

BTW: vote Dean in '04.

Which, naturally, has pissed off and freaked out everyone else:

Jim Jordan, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager said, "Look, he's tapped into an angry, motivated constituency who, for one quarter at least, pulled out their checkbooks." Mr. Jordan added: "The question about Dean has never been about the intensity of his support. It's about the breadth of it.
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A number of Democrats argued that well financed or not he might prove to be vulnerable, given his relatively scant record in national politics and some positions that could prove problematic in various primaries — including his strong opposition to the war in Iraq and strong support for domestic partnerships for gay couples and his opposition to many forms of gun control.
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"I think most Democrats would prefer not to have Howard Dean as the nominee," Mr. Gephardt's campaign manager, Steve Murphy, said. "I'll leave it at that." (oh, that explains why he's the top fund-raiser...)
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An aide to Mr. Lieberman said: "Everyone wants a race against Dean. Everyone has looked at the research, and he looks easiest to bring down. He's positioned himself as a liberal, and liberals don't win here."

Sheesh. I don't even love Dean, but the more I hear these other guys talk about him, the more I like him.

Then again that's the climate we're in, I suppose, and that's the nature of history. I wish the best for Dean, but he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell.

WHERE THE FUCK IS BOB WOODWARD?

and no I am not a nader voter or nader liker or e'en nader tolerator. but since there's no way that lieberman could win over bush (disillusioned half of Dem party votership goes 3rd party or just doesn't vote) and no way that even if he did that his policies would be all that much better (he'd skew so far to the right to make everyone happy that he'd accomplish more long-term Dem harm than good), it really wouldn't matter either way.

but thanks for calling me on my shit. you're right. i'd probably vote for Warren G. Harding over Bush. (setting someone up for inevitable 'regulate' joke)

So don't use it under penalty of imprisonment. Gotcha.

But the great myth of the current cycle is the misguided notion that the hopes and dreams of activists represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Real Democrats are real people, not activist elites. The mission of the Democratic Party, as Bill Clinton pledged in 1992, is to provide "real answers to the real problems of real people." Real Democrats who champion the mainstream values, national pride, and economic aspirations of middle-class and working people are the real soul of the Democratic Party, not activists and interest groups with narrow agendas."

Dean, whether or not he really represents the interests of the "activists" (which is like, what? most of the damn base of the party?) is at least validating (co-opting?) their concerns, whereas I think the DLC just want to shut them out entirely. Somewhere online there's an early DLC memo that practically comes right out and says this.

DLC website
This is the definitive article on the DLC

The Lieberman thing is a losing strategy because they're forfeiting the only thing they had going for them, which was giving priority to southern conservative Democrats. And when you put forth a southern Dem, you can expect four or eight years of harassment from Klan, Klan sympathizers and a bunch of right-wing opportunists upstairs if he gets elected, ending up with an ascendant right-wing opposition and Republican "moderates" nowhere in sight.

I think whether the Democrats win or not is going to depend on a lot of circumstances other than just who the nominee is -- so they oughta at least nominate a guy who can people interested. And Dean's fundraising shows he can get people interested (as opposed to Edwards, say, whose money came in large part from other lawyers).

"This summer, when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn't want to pay their taxes."