Howard Dean: The Dems, Now Dancing to His Tune

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Sun Apr-06-08 06:29 PM
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Howard Dean: The Dems, Now Dancing to His Tune

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403227.html

The Dems, Now Dancing to His Tune
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Sunday, April 6, 2008; Page B04

As the Democratic presidential race turns into the political equivalent of the Battle of the Somme, lots of Democrats are glaring at the party's nominal leader, Howard Dean. The Democratic National Committee chairman (and 2004 White House hopeful) has not been able to force the race to a close or to fix a mess he helped create by tossing out the results of primaries in Michigan and Florida after their state parties violated DNC rules by jumping toward the front of the line in the campaign season. In 2004, Dean famously screamed at Democrats; in 2008, plenty of Democrats are screaming right back.

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.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has been groundbreaking on many levels, but its widely hailed use of the Internet to create a large base of small donors largely recycles the breakthrough that powered Dean's 2004 campaign. Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, hired and ran the online fundraising team, but Dean himself had the foresight to embrace the Web revolution. Some 2008 candidates seem not to have followed suit: Despite having had more time to plan for her presidential run, Clinton has often found herself outmaneuvered at creative online fundraising by Obama, and unless Sen. John McCain builds a truly imposing Web-based money machine, he may find himself at a sizable fundraising disadvantage to either Democrat.

But it's not just Dean's tactics that have been widely influential in the Democratic Party; it's his words, too. Take education. In 2002, congressional Democrats overwhelmingly backed President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, which mandated annual testing in earlier grades. The legislation's merits are still hotly debated, but its politics are not: Experts say the law has flopped with parents, teachers, students and most others involved with education, who often describe its testing regime as unworkable. In 2003, Dean was among the first Democrats to start hammering No Child Left Behind for its testing system, but that criticism is everywhere now. Clinton lambastes it almost daily on the campaign trail; her husband, himself back on the stump, has called attacking No Child Left Behind the easiest way for a politician to get applause.

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But those shortcomings don't tarnish the underlying point: Howard Dean has been a man ahead of his time. When he leaves Washington for good next year, the improved fortunes he has helped bring to his party may be enough to make him want to scream.