Every time I hear the Republicans laugh at Dean, it amuses me. He's not exactly our secret weapon, but darn close.

There is a lot of stuff going on with the Democratic Party, which I will not discuss here, that will place the Democrats in a very good position for the 2006 Congressional races, and in an even better place for the 2008 Congressional/Presidential races. And it is all due to Dean having a good relationship with the "grass roots". We in the "grass roots" have never been listened to as well as we have been of late.

Let the corrupt money loving Republicans (e.g. those in Washington versus my neighbors) be surprised when the people take back their Country!

Run Dean, Run.

Every time Howard Dean opens his mouth on T.V., he pushes another 10,000 moderates into the conservative's corner.

The Republicans giggle at each soundbite. They LOVE Howard Dean!

Alice, are you a GOP plant or do you really know "moderates" who become Republicans due to Dean?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010402058.html?nav=hcmodule

Thursday, January 5, 2006; Page A04

A day after former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's first guilty plea, the former House speaker was in the Hotel Washington yesterday, telling a group of Rotarians how rotten the capital has become -- and warning that the Republican Revolution is being betrayed.

Dean's book YOU HAVE THE POWER is the counterpoint to the Abramoff plea bargain and all the other scandals going on right now. It was reported that at one point Abramoff was billing $750 per hour as a lobbyist. Lots of ordinary Oregonians would love to have a full time job at $7.50 or $8 an hour but have a hard time finding full time work. And you think hearing Dean on TV turns "moderates" into "conservatives"?

Go ahead and giggle all you want. But I submit to you that what Gingrich is saying about the Republican majority in DC gone wrong will have a lot more influence on the political climate than Republicans giggling about a Dean remark.

Georgia's Newt and Maple Powered Howard may disagree on many things. But they ain't stupid and they know what wins elections. As Gingrich said "the base doesn't go out and vote because you got some pork into the highway bill".

But if Republicans are giggling at Dean, go ahead. At this point in 1994 there were Democrats who thought Gingrich couldn't possibly take over Congress.

LT - I'm one of those moderat Democrats who's thinking of leaving the party. I registered as a senior in highschool. I voted for Jimmy Carter, I voted for Bill Clinton the first time around and used to take pride in being a member of a party that I thought stood for the every day person, or at least for treating all people fairly. But what I've seen of the party over the last 20 years, and especially over the last 6 years is causing me to seriously reconsider my party affiliation. What I see now is a lot of big money Democrats hollering at Republicans for doing the same things they are doing.

• I see Dems screaming at Reps and especially George Bush for being rich when there are a lot of rich Dems - Terresa Hines-Kerry comes to mind - taking advantage of the same tax shelters they are critisizing the Reps for using.

• I see the Dems ripping a Rep - Newt Gingrich - for having an affair, while their own boy in office at the time - Bill Clinton - was having affairs in the Oval Office, but that's OK....

• I see Dems saying that the reason that they lost in 2000 wasn't because people didn't agree with their agenda, but because we were too stupid to understand it. I'm sorry, but don't come to me asking for a job in one breath and then start sneering at me in the next. Any of you going on a job interview in the near future try that out and see how far it gets you.

• You might disagree with the plan that Republicans, Independants, or Libertarians may have, but at least they are willing to tell you what the plan is. All I see of the Democrats is criticism, which is a good thing, but I see no alternative plan.

• I see a party that lambastes the Republicans for bringing religion into politics - the sepperation of church and state issues - but yet has no problem with letting Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson not only run as candidates for the Democrat nomination for President of this country, but welcome them as Reverends. Can you imaginge the catterwalling if the Republicans ran Jerry Fallwell, whether they let him run as a reverend or not?

These and many other reasons are why I'm thinking about leaving the Democtat party. When I vote, I vote for the person who I think is best qualified for the job. I pay attention to the person's party affiliation, but it's not really a determining factor. I pay much more attention to the walk than the talk. I'm just ashamed to be affiliated with what I have come to see as a party of whiners, instead of a party of people who are prepared to get out there and actually solve some of the problems we have both here and abroad.

Joanne R,

Many of your criticisms are muddled and misinformed.

• Democrats don't criticize anyone for being rich. Hell, I'd like to be rich myself. I also don't see much criticism for using legal tax shelters. The valid criticism is the one I hear Democrats making: Republicans propose and vote for tax policy that favors the rich. Wealthy Democrats, like Ed Kennedy, oppose such policy.

• I haven't heard many Democrats say that Clinton's affair with Lewinsky was "alright." Gingrich was criticized for leaving his wife when she was fighting cancer. Also, since Republicans put so much emphasis on sexual morality, they should be held to a higher standard on those matters. Dante didn't put hypocrites in the lowest level of hell for naught.

• Which Democrats who asked you for a job in 2000 sneered at you afterwards? As I remember, Democrats blamed election theft and lackluster campaigning, not stupid voters, for losing the 2000 presidential election.

• Democrats have plenty of plans. The media don't cover them, except to deride them.

• You think Democrats should bar ministers from the party? You think they should not be able to mention that they are ministers? The problem is not religious people in politics, the problem is people who want religious government. These are two very different things.

Democrats are far from perfect. If they seem weak on supporting "the everyday person", you might want to get involved in campaign finance reform. As it is now, Democrats get their money from many of the same wealthy interests as Republicans do. This makes it very difficult for any candidate of any party to stand up for the little guy and also get elected.

Look to the alternative media for pro-people critique of both parties. Check out The Nation, Democracy Now, and commondreams.org.

Joanne, You seem to believe in a lot of stereotypes. In my lifetime, I have supported Republicans of the McCall variety, independents (John B. Anderson 1980 Pres., B. Thompson, 1996 US Senate) and Democrats. Perhaps you do not realize that Teresa is the widow of Republican Senator Heinz, one of my heroes. That her husband's party so viciously attacked her in 2004 is one reason I distrust the current GOP leadership.

But things may be changing. A friend of mine (yes, there are people who have friends outside the party where they are registered) keeps sending me emails from a group called gopusa.com, a Texas group calling itself "conservative".

Usually they are attack emails, I fact check them and send what I find back to the friend who sent me the fwd.

But the one today was amazing. This is part of it.

Will Republicans be America's Choice in 2006?

The year has barely begun, and already the media and left-leaning pundits are looking toward November as a chance for Democrats to make electoral gains and even take back control of the House of Representatives. The Republican Party is at a crossroads and in need of some serious soul-searching and house-cleaning. What started out as the party which captivated the nation a decade ago with a reformist message is now being labeled as embodying a "culture of corruption." It's time for Republicans to get back to their roots or risk being shut out of the majority for the next generation.

If you are so offended by your vision of Democrats as nasty people that you don't see why Gingrich and others are offended by the Abramoff scandals, you have the right to your opinion. Just don't say that a group you never met ("moderates believe" ?) agree with you and don't think for themselves. Diff. people define terms like "moderate" differently.

HOWARD DEAN IS AN ANCHOR AROUND THE NECK OF THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT.

Sorry for the caps....but Howey and Hillary will be our demise if we don't move them aside soon.

BUT JENNI.....doesn't matter if we win enough to govern?

We can't win with just the votes from the progressives....we need the centrist liberals and the moderates.....and Howey scares them.

When Howard Dean took office as DNC chair, I heard someone on the radio (maybe Randi Rhodes) say "Bye Terry, and don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you". This attitude came as a shock to those pundits and others who thought that schmoozing with the rich and famous and raising tons of money was what party chairs do, organizing wasn't part of the job.

I agree with Pat--what is going on with Abramoff and the Republicans was going on to a lesser degree with McAuliffe as DNC chair. He was beloved by the rich and famous in the centers of power, but bought into/ created the "money is all that matters and only professionals know how the game is played" mentality where the only job of DNC chair was fundraising, not organization.

Capitol Steps have a great song (although I am glad I taped the original version because the version on the New Year program wasn't as good). Sung to the tune of "Impossible Dream" it has lines like

"I'm Dean, the impossible Dean" and "there are those who say I am without a full deck, and it is weird but it sometimes appears that I don't have a neck" and "I never drink decaf, and I'm an MD although there are some who say our party needs a mortician instead" and "and the world will be better OR ELSE, I might get a little extreme, and now here is what you're expecting, I'll scream the impossible SCREAM".

Can they write a similar song about Melman the RNC chair, or is he too vanilla for that? Will a vanilla RNC chair raising lots of money be able to re-elect DeWine and Ney in Ohio because the voters there are "turned off" by Dean and thus will excuse the Abramoff and other scandals?

I have read Dean's book YOU HAVE THE POWER and I think that is the difference--he doesn't say "money is speech and if you have to budget a $25 contribution they you are not important to the political process". He is plain spoken--I consider that a virtue. Who was it who said "a gaffe in Washington is telling an uncomfortable truth"?

Think about the world of Jan. 2006: some Katrina and other disaster victims still have no permanent home, mine safety has emerged as a big issue after the disaster, military families all over the country are living with the reality of loved ones deployed, or wounded, or dead. And yet voters are not going to choose the party with the outspoken party chair? And how many people these days vote straight party rather than indiv. candidates?

I have more faith in voters than that. And my guess is that if you are in a line in a grocery store or some other everyday place like that, the people in front of you and behind you in line prob. couldn't name the 2 national party chairs--there are more important things in their lives.

Paul, I understand the concept of "in God we trust, all others must provide data".

But in dealing with human beings, that is not always possible. It doesn't explain the progressive neighbor who voted for a Republican state rep. who is an old friend over a Dem. candidate who had run many times before.

It doesn't explain (back when Kevin Mannix's pieces of Measure 40 were on the ballot)the campaigns having all the "vote yes on all" and "vote no on all" TV ads but the voters in their wisdom voted basically 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. Voters not doing what TV ads told them to do--what a concept! But I was working in retail at the time and based on what I overheard in the lunchroom etc. I was not as surprised at that outcome as were some politicians and pundits. Nor does it explain the people who once supported a politician but were unhappy with something the politician had done and no longer will give their support (a problem Mannix, Saxton, and Kulongoski struggle with).

To the best of my knowledge there are no statistics about activist volunteer Democrats (I mean the folks who were national convention delegates, state and cong. district central comm. members, current/ former county chairs or local campaign activists) who had dribbled away from politics in the last decade or so after being told "money is all that matters and only professionals know how the game is played"---but had their faith in grass roots politics restored by Howard Dean.

Anyone will tell you that motivated voters ("Darned right I am voting for Joe, and spend my spare time on his campaign") are more powerful than bored voters ("yeah, I guess I will vote for Kevin, but it isn't worth getting excited over and I wish there was a better competition").

It is my understanding that polls are no use on the subject of motivated voters unless the "how likely are you to vote" question is asked immediately after "qualifying" questions like whether someone is registered to vote and in some cases "I need to speak to the man of the house for this survey" sorts of questions. At least that is what one of the best campaign managers I have ever known (went on to work for a Congresswoman from California and taught at the EMILY's List campaign school) told me.

Back about 15 years ago there was a very bright young man working for a state rep. (always wonder what happened to him) who admired people of both parties to the degree it startled those who expected him to be a rabid partisan. He said he looked for 2 things: "what have they done with their lives?" "where is the evidence that they have inspired people?".

Whether anyone loves or hates Maple Powered Howard (and he is so outspoken he is as easy to skewer as Ronnie Reagan or Newt Gingrich), one has to admit that a doctor who became a New England Governor, then ran for president in a way that reminded some old timers of the power of Eugene McCarthy's "children's crusade" of 1968, then became DNC chair, would probably qualify for "what they have done with their lives" and "evidence they have inspired people".

That is unless they are hard core true believer ideologues. But it would surprise me if there are 20% hard core "conservatives" (and what that means when Gingrich and Peggy Noonan are rethinking whether it has been good for "small government conservatives" to have such power they got involved in the Abramoff scandal) and 20% hard core liberal/ progressive voters (however one defines that in 2006).

Having been a registered Indep/NAV for a 6 year period out of the last 10 years, maybe I see that more clearly than some. I know there are poli sci texts which fail to understand that Independent means "I think for myself, thank you very much" and while there are "leaning independents" (those who lean towards a party) there are people who don't like being stereotyped ("independents belive..." indeed!) and also those fed up with the 2 party system. There are those who vote for the indiv. candidate regardless of their registration. I know lots of Bush/ Hooley voters, for instance.

I still think the fastest growing party is no party at all, but Dean is holding that tide back better than Melman and the RNC.

The fact is that outside of "blue" bastions like New York and San Francisco, most voters see Howard Dean as something of a whackjob. He has alienated independents, insulted moderates, and certainly hurt the party's image far more than he has helped it. If the Democrats make any real gains this year (which is somewhat doubtful), it will be in spite of Dean, not because of him.

Jim, I must protest your lack of evidence. I know that during the 6 years I was an Indep/NAV, I got really angry when people told me what I believed--because after all, that is "what independents believe so therefore I believed it". NOT! The I in Independent stands for "I think for myself, thank you very much".

He has alienated independents, insulted moderates, and certainly hurt the party's image far more than he has helped it.

Now, if you personally know 10 people who consider themselves moderate/ independent and they are personally offended by Howard Dean, you should say so. But don't generalize to all Oregonians or Americans (esp. the ones you have never met) and claim you know what they think of Dean or for that matter if they would even recognize the name.

More elections have been lost by assuming that blocs all think alike ("moderates want...", "independents believe...") than by Howard Dean or K. Melman or Ed Gillespie or Terry McAuliffe, or for that matter Charles Manatt, Paul Kirk, Haley Barbour, Frank Farenkopf, or any other RNC or DNC chair you could name and some of the cracks they have made over the years.

Maybe you know people who vote straight party ticket, but that is not my experience. Here in Salem there are lots of people who know the candidates on a first name basis and vote on their impression of the person before they filed for office, or if they think a candidate has done something exemplary or stupid (esp. long time public figures like Mannix--or any other politician who may have lived in their neighborhood or gone to their church, or the person running who is a neighbor or former officer in the neighborhood assoc. or someone they met on a school board campaign, or their son's coach or daughter's Sunday School teacher, etc.)

The notion of Dean being a wild-eyed liberal is a bit misleading, unless you think of all Democrats to the left of Zell Miller as wide-eyed liberals. He was a somewhat progressive governor, but by no means a Kucinich or even a DeFazio.

He is a populist, in the best sense of the word. He's doing an end-run around the old establishment of the Democratic Party and they don't like it. I suspect negative portrait of Dean one sees in the MSM has been painted by these same people who are afraid their days as power brokers and kingpins are numbered. Some of these people are insider politicians and others are the pundits who make their living quoting these politicians.

I would love to set up a little taste test for the people on this blog who are sniping at Dean. Spend five minutes with Dean, another five minutes with McAuliffe and another five minutes with Ken Melman. Afterward, tell me who gives you some hope for this country.

OK OK OK...I give up...at least until the next time. smirk

My point was....no matter how fine a job Dean is doing in his DNC role, his pubic utternaces, beginning with the scream and augmented almost monthly now with some inflammatory statement that makes even most of you cringe....he is an alienating factor across the country.

Maybe I need to just relax, be happy, and not really get to worked up over whether we actually are in a position to govern.

In anycase, this has been a great string of posts. I enjoy all of you.

Paul, in November we will have the ultimate test of whether Dean is good for Democrats. But don't try to tell political activists that personal interactions don't matter if not backed up by statistics.

Do you believe statistics are destiny? Take the legislative districts I live in: Sen. Dist. 10 and House Dist. 20. Because there are 5386 more Republicans in the Senate district than Democrats, and 2142 more Republicans in the House district, does that mean both legislators will be re-elected?

In the House district, there are 8761 voters not registered with a major party. The incumbent won by 6195 votes. Does "50 years of public opinion research" claim that the incumbent will win regardless of whether a highly qualified candidate files to challenge the incumbent?

In the Senate district, the incumbent is an icon in local politics (esp. being a Republican who stood up to the attacks by anti-taxers). There are 16377 voters in the district not registered to amajor party. But if a popular candidate of a younger generation who has been a local elected official runs in that Senate election, will the registration numbers guarantee the Senator is re-elected?

In the last 50 years there were not the registered Indep. there are now. Aren't there about 1/4 of the voting population not registered to a major party? Do either the Republicans or Democrats have more than 40% of the voters? How many young people born in the late 1970s or later see parties as relevant? Historic polling research can't answer that, can it? As I recall, Maine, Conn. and Minn. have had Independent governors. Unless someone can show me polling results predicting those victories, I will not believe in polls predicting the future.

If someone wants to do statistical analysis, perhaps they should look at how many candidates in this new century have not only won but had a margin larger than the number not registered to a major party.

And on the subject of Dean, he is a New Englander--an area known for independent thought.

My background is in history, not statistics. But I see a resurgence of New England in ways that the "Sunbelt realignment" proponents couldn't have predicted in the late 1990s. Politicians in both parties are bucking the "establishment" on certain issues. I think that is good.

Sen. Sununu (R-NH) was, as I recall, one of the Republicans opposing Bush on Patriot Act renewal. Sens. Snowe and Collins (R-Maine) are swing votes on Alito and other issues. Club for Growth hates Snowe for voting the interests of her constituents, not the C for G party line on taxes and other issues. Sen. Jeffords got disgusted with the hardline Southern Republican control of the Senate and switched to Indep. making Tom Daschle the Majority Leader for awhile. Just read today that Russ Feingold is in Vt. campaigning for Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to replace the retiring Jeffords.

THAT is what I define as moderate/ independent, not people who follow the party line of DLC or any other group. Dean fits into that New England independence by speaking his mind.

Before asking this question

"How much has Dean inspired rank and file Democrats (and those who may have strayed from the party), based less on his issue positions and more on his empathy and trust?"

perhaps you should ask how many rank and file Republicans agree with Ken Mellman's issue positions, how many trust him, how many even know where he stands or who he is.

Dean is an outspoken independent New Englander who has written a book you might want to read if you haven't already, YOU HAVE THE POWER.

Is there any way to measure how many rank and file Democrats are thrilled that finally, someone at the national level says that "if you are looking for political leadership, look in the mirror" instead of party leaders telling volunteers to just shut up and take orders from consultants? Even book sales are not a perfect measure of how many have read the book--my copy came from a friend who read it, gave it to me and told me I had to read it. There are no statistics I know of measuring such personal conversations. But word of mouth has long been an effective form of advertising.

In that sense (not statistical, I grant) Dean is an inspirational figure along with other New Englanders who are turning the tide against the "you must all agree with what those in the S and SW tell you because what people in the rest of the country care about doesn't matter" attitude which had infected politics across the spectrum and from the local to national level. Disagree with him all you want. But in saying "I believe Dean is wrong because..." you will be contributing to debates which were not taking place in politics before we first heard of Maple Powered Howard.

Besides that, some issues are not partisan. There was just a report on the radio that an investigation found the FBI did not follow its own procedures in the way it handled the Brandon Mayfield case. Whether the DNC and / or RNC chairs speak publicly about that report or not, the investigation still issued a report. People will make their own decisions on the supervision of the FBI. Do you really believe that registered Republicans will all have one opinion on that report, and all registered Dems. will have another view?