*sigh* Well, Howard Dean has announced that he's no longer campaigning for president. I got a little misty-eyed reading and hearing snippets of the speech he gave to his supporters today. I'm overstating here, but I feel like he was the lamb who was sacrificed in order to breathe life back into the Democratic Party. His early fury and bluster about Bush's failures, and the support he gained from doing so, led the way for other candidates to safely coopt his message in more media-friendly soundbites. And even with all of his fuckups, he was the only candidate, other than Kucinich, who convinced me (and had the history to support) that he was really passionate about reversing the Bush administration's agenda, bringing power back to the people rather than kowtowing to corporate interests, and discussing openly the motivation for the war in Iraq. Kerry and Edwards talk a good game, but they still strike me as rather shady. Especially Kerry. Yes, he was a war hero, and yes, he valiantly protested the Vietnam War after his return. But he voted for the PATRIOT act, he voted for the war in Iraq, he voted for No Child Left Behind. A significant portion of his funding comes from special interest groups. His voting history indicates that he's very much centrist. He's ugly as sin, he's a wooden speaker (not as wooden as Gore, but definitely without the fire of Dean, or the charm of Edwards), and he has a strange family including his gazillionaire ketchup heiress wife who babbles nonsensically at campaign events. Oh, but he's "electable," whatever that means. It does seem that Republicans view Kerry as much more of a threat than Dean to Bush's bid for reelection, but I still feel like Kerry lacks something, and still feel uneasy about his chances of winning the presidency.

I still haven't figured out how Dean's presidential bid flopped so spectacularly. I do know that I'm not one of those who "dated Dean, married Kerry." In fact, I suspect that if Kerry does gain the nomination, those who voted for him in the primaries might eventually wish for a divorce. But then again, anyone but Bush, right? *sigh*