Josh Marshall in
his piece in The Hill has it right. We need to run at the RNC and ChimpCo. and towards "winning" not play defense and run away from "losing"
The basic thrust is in the last two snippets:
The Democrats can play defense and complain that the president is questioning their patriotism, or they can take the offense and show that he has failed by the very standards he sets for himself.
A Democrat who can do the latter will be a formidable challenger.
As many have no doubt noticed, I get very vociferous in calling out the DNC, DLC and several of the "major candidates" for not running at Bush, and trying to play the moderate MOR track which has been a losing proposition to the GOP for decades now.
Marshall has this one right, though I think he is seriously off track in his past assessments of the a certain Vermont candidate for the Dem nomination in his capacity to fulfill this role. While Marshall may not be a Dean critic, he does seem in the past to be a doubter.
I think Dean has the creds as a fiscal conservative (in the paleo-traditional sense of fiscal responsibility mold) and for standing toe to toe with political opponents.
This combined with the strength of his grassroots support and seismic shift in funding which the DFA campaign has demonstrated time and again, despite the early dismissals of most of the "establishment punditry" makes Dean uniquely qualified to take this very fight Marshall describes to ChimpCo.
I am also heartened by Clark seeming to get more in a groove with justified outrage at the faux patriotism and fraud that ChimpCo. represents to the people and institutions Clark has faithfully served most of his adult life.
At this point, I see Dean and/or Clark to be the real emerging power centers of the party which is in desperate straits in finding a solid direction and voice.
The death of the Clinton regime within the party cannot happen to soon, since the thinking of triangulation only works within limited positions of power-bases which the Dems, as being out of power of all three Federal branches simply are not position to leverage as they were (uniquely) under Clintons time in the executive branch.
I see Dean (and to what extent we can gauge Clark's positions) as reaching back to the core positions of economic issues, and staunch advocacy of such (i.e. willingness to take the fight to his opponents) within the framework of the party as a real and viable revitalization of the party from a grass-roots level. This is borne out by the recognition of some of the major union endorsements as a realignment of the party back onto party principles, but with a neo-pragmatism which has been a false crutch for the old line party standard bearers such as Kerry, and particularly Gephardt.