Dean is not my perfect candidate. He is a little conservative for my taste in many things, not all. But he is the one with the resources and willingness to fight that winning this election is going to take. Dean for President!

Some random thoughts about the Democratic primary race.

I had lunch today with someone who is not a politician but a fairly prominent Washington Democrat -- certainly not someone from the party's liberal wing. And in the course of answering a question, I said "If it [i.e. the nominee] ends up being Dean ..." At which point, with the rest of my sentence still on deck down in my throat, my friend shot back : "It's Dean."
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HOWARD DEAN FOR PRESIDENT
by Ted Rall

I'm a charter member of the 2004 ABB (Anybody But Bush) society. Whether the nominee turns out to be a right-winger (Clark, Lieberman) or a colorless bore (Edwards, Kerry, Gephardt), I'll vote for him over Bush, in the same spirit with which the late Afghan warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud reportedly toasted a meeting of anti-Soviet factions during the '80s occupation: "First we kill the Russians. Then we kill each other." But I have a preferance:

Howard Dean has the best chance to beat Bush.
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Why I'm for Dean
by William Greider

All that helps explain why the party establishment had a hard time understanding the man and is so upset by the thought that he might be the nominee. Corny as it sounds, he might actually bring voters back into the story. Washington's smugness was shattered in the past few weeks as Dean picked up pathbreaking endorsements from Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and SEIU and AFSCME, the two largest unions and heads-up, aggressive organizations. Dean continues to up the ante for his rivals--calling for reregulation of key industries and confronting the concentrated power of corporations and wealth. These are solid liberal ideas others are afraid to express so directly. The guy is a better politician than the insiders imagined, indeed better attuned to this season than they are.
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Molly Ivins: Picking a winner

No one has been waiting with bated breath for me to make up my mind about the Democratic presidential candidates, but I have, and you might be interested in how I got there. I'm for Howard Dean -- because he's going to win.
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  thanks to BookNotes

Randolph T. Holhut: 'Howard Dean isn't the politician you think he is'

However, those of us who have lived in Vermont do know - and lived through - much of it. It is a good thing that now the rest the nation will soon know what we do: that Howard Dean is not the second coming of George McGovern, Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis. He is an entirely different politician who didn't get to where he is in the presidential race by accident.
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Howard Dean for America