USA Today runs an edited conversation between Matthew Dowd and Joe Lockhart (moderated by Susan Page) on Iraq, Social Security and who they think the nominees might be in 2008. Dowd only mentions McCain and Guilliani, while Lockhart mentions Kerry, Edwards, and Hillary Clinton. Russ Feingold is testing the waters, as are Wesley Clark and Evan Bayh. I’m sorry to report that Hillary Clinton collapsed during a speech this afternoon in Buffalo. She has the flu and seems to be OK. And Donnie Fowler has been endorsed by the Association of State Democratic Chairs, perhaps the first sign that Dean’s candidacy is not a given. Their recommendation will have to be endorsed by the entire association next Monday.
Honestly, I don’t see anyone having a shot at the DNC Chairmanship except for Dean. Such a move may create more organization and confidence within the party, but it will certainly not swing the independents and moderate Republicans to the left. If anything, it will scare them away. Fowler wouldn’t be my choice either. He won’t even get the base excited (like Dean could). He’ll just make the paperwork pretty . . . but whatever. I swear, I keep calling the National Democratic Party and telling them that they need to put me on the ballot, but no one listens . . . *sigh* . . .
Despair not, young Mr. Mingus. In late 2003/early 2004, I was dead certain that nobody could stop Dean and that he would win the presidential nomination in a walk. But the Dems had a sanity fit and proved me wrong. In the end, it turned out they were just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: They nominated the stiff instead of the psycho, and still lost, but Kerry made a respectable showing and the national party avoided the total Mondale-esque presidential blowout over which Governor Ho-Ho surely would have presided. But who knows? Maybe the Dems will have a sanity seizure again and send the former "Scanners" extra back to the land of maple syrup, ski resorts, and gay marriage under the pines. Stranger things have happened, surely.