I agree. But I blame the AP more than I blame Dean. I don't lend much creedence to quotes to reporters. It's the quotes to voters that matter to me. Kerry and Gephardt have been dogging Dean by name from the stump. They've set up websites and put out wack commercials. Dean's just observing that he's really leading a movement and the other guys are just running (poorly) for president. I don't take much visciousness or underhandedness on Dean's part out of that. Once he wins the thing I'm sure he'll be the niciest nice guy you've ever seen.

I really expect him to be more of a uniter at this point.

This smacks of political naivete and/or artificial positioning on your part.

This is the primary battle.  "Uniting" by a "Uniter" comes afterward, by the presumptive nominee in conjunction with the DNC and other organisations.

I think many people miss the movement aspect of the Dean campaign. Many people of varying age have latched on to this movement as their virgin experience in politics...so yeah, many of them will be turned off by the system if Howard Dean is not the nominee; however I think they'll vote Demo....They (okay we, I'm one too) will have to be wooed by the nominee if Dean is on the sidelines. And if he's not the nominee, I'll eat my hat.

You're overreacting a lot.

Still, this has finally allowed me to figure it out what so many people don't get about Dean: he talks about things he can't control without disclaimers that he can't control them.

On several occasions, Dean's said something along the lines of "If Thing X happens, I think Bad Consequence Y might happen." And altogether too many people somehow manage to hear this as "If Thing X happens, I will actively try and bring about Bad Consequence Y."

I guess it must be a doctor thing. "Your diet is mostly fatty foods. If you keep that up, you risk obesity," is a noncontroversial diagnosis. Similarly, "Many of my supporters are people who were brought back into the process because of what I had to say. If the eventual nominee is someone who rejects what I had to say, they may not stay in the process," also should be a noncontroversial diagnosis. And (follow the pretty little logic chain) since we know that Dean believes the only way to win this election is to bring in people who didn't vote last time, "If the people who aren't in the process stay out of the process, we can't win this election," is also a noncontroversial diagnosis. The difference between my version and Dean's is that my version is the one calibrated for the infamous eleven-year-old's attention span, while Dean's is the one aimed at a thinking adult.

On an entirely unrelated note (and this is not specifically directed at you, mickey, but I want to limit my participation in this particular iteration of Dean Flamewar #217 to one comment):

ANYBODY WHO HAS EVER CALLED DEAN "UNELECTABLE", OR ENDORSED ANOTHER CANDIDATE'S CHARGES THAT DEAN IS "UNELECTABLE", HAS NO STANDING WHATSOEVER TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS QUOTE.

...unless, that is, you don't mind looking like a rank hypocrite.