The Losers’ Club

Arianna Huffington says all the talk of Howard Dean being unelectable is “nothing short of idiotic.” If she hears it one more time, she’s going to “do something crazy,” like, say, run for governor of California.

Consider the source. The folks besmirching the good doctor’s Election Day viability are the very people who have driven the Democratic Party into irrelevance; who spearheaded the party’s resounding 2002 mid-term defeats; and who kinda, sorta, but not really disagreed with President Bush as he led us down the path of preemptive war with Iraq, irresponsible tax cuts and an unprecedented deficit.

We can see here that Huffington has taken her cue from Dean’s stump speeches: It seems to make a whole lot of sense, and then you think about it.

The only Democrats who have criticized Dean are the ones vying for the same job. In fact, not only has the party been tame in the face of the coming electoral train wreck, but most party insiders are actually supporting the candidate by a wide margin. For someone who built his candidacy on bashing the Washington establishment, Dean sure is trying hard to get into the club.

So if Dean’s critics are the inept leaders, who’s endorsing him? Why, it’s Al Gore and Bill Bradley, the two losers from the 2000 election. And word is it that Jimmy Carter will soon add his voice to the chorus of support as well.

If Dean does go to Georgia to meet Carter, he should take Gore and Bradley with him. That way, flanked by ghosts of the Democratic Party’s past, his message will ring clear and true: “Hi, I’m Howard Dean, and I want to take the Democratic Party back.”

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