You know, I know this has been said before, but it just struck me again. In Howard Dean the Democrats have someone with a rock-solid pragmatic, "centrist" record of balanced budgets, bipartisanship when necessary, and even actual progress on the health care mess. They also have someone who managed to find a way to bring a bunch of Naderites and Independents (and even some Republicans) towards the Democratic party. And what do they do? Instead of wondering how he did it - they assume that because some Nader-fans and anti-war folks like him, that Howard Dean must have become such himself.

It's so stupid. And it makes no sense. And it completely reinforces for me the idea that establishment Democrats are not interested in serving the country, in upholding the Constitution, or in serving the people. They are interested in maintaining their own precious place on the proper party invitation lists in Washington. Either they're lying about Dean or they're too stupid to have figured out what he's actually doing. Either way, they are not acting in the interests of the country and they need to go. Chris at Interesting Times has a bit more on this, wondering if any of the Democratic elite have ever actually attended a Dean MeetUp, what with all the stereotyping and nonsense they continue to spew.

I have seen the Dean movement from its beginnings, at its highest and at its lowest, and I can say without a moments hesitation that Dean's constituency DOES NOT "consist largely of antiwar liberals". Yes, the anti-war crowd gravitated to Dean during the election, but anti-war has never been the defining issue of the Dean movement. The defining issue, at least as I see it, is that Democrats have been allowing themselves to get rolled repeatedly by the Republicans and we are SICK AND TIRED OF IT!

Dean demonstrated that the Democrats could act like an opposition candidate and actually achieve some measure of success. Dean may not have won the nomination, but he went from being a vanity candidate to a real "threat" to win the nomination, shattered previous Democratic fundraising and volunteer records, and managed to come the closest to defining a viable alternative course for the Democratic project.

Have they become like the Republicans? Afraid to let a few actual facts get in the way of their pre-conceived notions of how the world is? Once again, I will wander through my day wondering wtf is wrong with these people.