OK, so Howard Dean was a little over the top for some. And a little too flip-lipped. But the way he changed the Democratic Party cannot be underestimated. If it wasn’t for his candidacy, you wouldn’t see polls showing either Kerry or Edwards handily beating Bush in November. Dean wrote their campaign speeches, or at least gave them the outline. Otherwise, we might have ended up with Bush-lite Joe Lieberman as the Democratic candidate.
Let’s hope Dean, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelogsi, Edwards, the Center for American Progress, journalists Eric Alterman, Paul Krugman, Howard Meyerson and a few others can keep the pressure on the Dems to at least attempt to be an opposition party.