Howard Dean would have better enunciated a progressive vision on the economic issues that bind together biracial coalitions that work in favor of those Democrats who manage to be elected in the South. This is the direction in which the Democratic party should be moving.
The question is whether or not Dean could have ever separated himself from the question of gay civil unions and the anti-war crowd sufficiently to allow the economy to be his message.
For a lot of people who voted for Bush but didn't particularly like a lot of his policies, they felt that at least his heart was in the right place, that he was fundamentally a moral person who tried to do what was right. Countless Bush apologists have blamed those around him rather than the man at the top for anything that goes wrong.
Dean is quite similar to Bush in this regard. I have Republican friends who didn't like Dean's stances, but who felt a certain respect for his forthrightness to the point that, if they had to vote for a Democrat, they would vote Dean. And these are pro-war Republicans, I am generally talking about.
The lesson here is that you don't try to figure out what coalition will best defeat the opposition and find the candidate who best appeals to that particular coaltion of interests; you find a leader who forges the coaltion and who other groups are forced to join because they have no other vehicle.
(11:57 PM)
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