Remember Begala mocking Dean's 50-state strategy?

Remember this, from 5/11/2006?

BLITZER: Very quickly, is Howard Dean in trouble?

BEGALA: No. I think Candy's report was spot on.

He -- yes, he's in trouble, in that campaign managers, candidates, are really angry with him. He has raised $74 million and spent $64 million. He says it's a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose. That's not how you build a party. You win elections. That's how you build a party.

Funny, guess what happened in Mississippi yesterday?

No one could've ever predicted that investing in a state's infrastructure would make it easier to win elections in the future.

p.s. Begala apologized for these comments, but the larger point remains. Begala was reflecting the CW in establishment DC, which has always been against spending money in supposedly "hopeless" states like Mississippi.

Update: Ahh, I'd forgotten that Tim Tagaris, then at the DNC, quickly put up videos of two of those Mississippi nosepickers after Begalas comments.