Perry Bacon's fine piece in today's Washington Post says basically everything we've all be saying about Howard Dean. He is the most important Democratic Party figure to emerge in this decade.
Dean has been hammered lately about his role in the 2008 primary battle, but anyone who watched him on his media blitz today saw a man of integrity, principles and strength.
Back to the article , some choice quotes:
But Democrats have some good reasons to stop kicking Dean around. You don't hear the word "prescient" used very often to describe the much-maligned chairman, but one can make a pretty plausible case that his six years on the national Democratic scene have had a significant impact on his party -- on machinery, message and methods. If the Democrats win in 2008, they may come to thank Dr. Dean for providing the medicine that cured some of the party's ills.
Take this DLC'ers:
Dean was making an even larger point when he declared in 2003-04 that he represented "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Whatever success President Bill Clinton's brand of triangulation had met with in the 1990s, Dean argued, the time for split-the-difference politics was over. George W. Bush's Washington was being run by a highly partisan group of Republicans, Dean said, and he wanted the Democrats to "function as an opposition party." He struck a populist note, appealing directly to the party's base, and openly mocked Clinton-era centrists such as the Democratic Leadership Council (which replied that his candidacy was for Democrats who wanted to vent, not govern).
Even Obama, with his message of national unity, has taken some pains not to be portrayed as a classic Democratic centrist; in 2003, after the DLC listed Obama on its Web site as an up-and-coming state legislator, he publicly noted that he had not been a member of the group.
The son has learned from the father:
It's no accident that Obama, not Dean, is benefiting most from some of Dean's insights. The DNC chief's checkered track record makes it hard for some Democrats to laud him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
It's a great article and should be read in toto. Thanks Perry Bacon. And thanks Howard Dean for making
2006 and 2008 possible. Carville, and Emmanuel et al. will never give you your due , but we will and so will hsitory!