Deanic depressive

After last year, it may seem as though giving money to the DNC is, as me ole gran'mum would say, "a bit like shoveling shit against the tide." But if you're into that sort of thing, Howard Dean is passing through DC next week on his fundraising circuit, and you can get in on the action for as little as $50.

Maybe Dean will be the guy who turns it all around, after all. I would not consider his presidential nomination campaign a failure. It's simply that his phenomenal, history-making grassroots fundraising success and pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool were not enough to overcome his fundamental freakiness as a candidate. The question is whether the DNC will curl its deadly fingers of moral murkiness around Dean, or whether Dean's leadership will spur the party toward renewal.