Outsider looking in -LAT

[Rose Siding]

Plenty of rehashing of media views in here, but some fresh items...

snip>
But enough people have demonstrated enough support of late that even skeptics have started coming around to the idea of Dean as Democratic Party chairman, grudgingly if not altogether enthusiastically. (One sure sign of his perceived strength is the refusal of most Dean critics to voice their doubts on the record, mindful they may need to curry favor sometime in the future.)

"What hurt him is what's now helping him," said one Beltway Democratic strategist, who just a few weeks ago spoke contemptuously of Dean's candidacy. "People imagined a caricature and now they're actually meeting the person and, in meeting Dean, there's a recognition he's a man of national stature who can speak well on issues and also, through force of personality, generate a lot of excitement at the grass roots.
...
What, a young man wants to know, is preventing the Bush administration from faking an attack with weapons of mass destruction so as to suspend the Constitution and establish a totalitarian Republican regime? "You are!" Dean brightly exclaims. The crowd cheers, but the moment recalls the sort of reckless aside that hurt Dean during the presidential campaign, when he alluded on National Public Radio to a "theory" that Bush had advance warning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
...
But stepping into a white van as he leaves Sacramento, Dean defends the unscripted outspokenness that "makes people in Washington nervous" about him: "That's also what draws people to the party. I mean, Americans are tired of politics where everybody says something that's poll driven. The Democratic Party could benefit by a kind of freshness in approach, because it really does attract new people."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-dean28jan28,0,3818332.story?coll=la-home-politics

[Cheswick2.0]

1. I went and read the whole thing

It was worth the read, thanks.

I love this part:

What, a young man wants to know, is preventing the Bush administration from faking an attack with weapons of mass destruction so as to suspend the Constitution and establish a totalitarian Republican regime? "You are!" Dean brightly exclaims.

[Larkspur]

2. Yes, I liked that part too, but I found this telling about Dean's chances

"Howard Dean galvanized the party, awakened the party, got the party going at the grass roots. He showed how we could raise tens of millions of dollars over the Internet," Maslin said. "For all our faults, that was a historic campaign."

Maslin doesn't say it but, privately, plenty of others do: The Democrats are in such a sorry state, they need to do something dramatic, even if it is a gamble.

That's the same sentiment that my DTC members who supported my motion to endorse Howard Dean as DNC chair said. The Dem Party is like an alcoholic or drug addict when the source of their addiction has run out and they can't get another fix. The withdrawal pains show them the reality of the mess they are in.

[elshiva]

3. Howard Dean is the man with the most

impressive "YOU." He has confidence in us young people to be leaders. I love you, too, Dean.