He's a Deaniac, Deaniac on the floor...

I'm totally dating myself with that headline.

Anyway, Salon informs me that Howard Dean will make a major speech tomorrow in which he will lay out his agenda for the future of the Democratic Party. Here's what's expected to be the sum of gist:

He'll argue that the Democratic Party should be rebuilt from the grass roots up, that it should be driven by millions of Americans who make small contributions rather than by a handful of moneyed interests, and that the party should focus not just on presidential politics in swing states like Ohio and Florida but also on down-ballot races even in the reddest of states. On matters of substance, Dean may not resurrect his borrowed line about representing the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," but you can count on him to make it clear he isn't joining the "go along to get along" wing of the party, either.

Sounds good to me. Democrats are the right party to side with these days, what with the other party staffing itself exclusively with bigoted, insane assholes, but that doesn't mean they're actually right about most things. Though Nader obviously made a huge mistake by running for President in '04, most of his message still rings true: Democrats are beholden to massive corporations in the same way Republicans are, and only by freeing themselves of the need to serve corporate masters instead of the people can they transform into a party most people would actually want to support.

It's not surprising to me that Dean is rising as a new leader for the New Democrats. I firmly believe that if America were filled with reasonable people who made reasonable electoral decisions, Dean would be president right now. Unfortunately, America is filled with people who don't bother to pay attention to what's going on around them, so a minor gaffe (like getting caught up in the excitement of a moment and yelling something goofy out to a group of supporters) is enough to completely derail a candidate. No, I don't think Dean would have won a general election in image-conscious, media-saturated America, but I sort of wish I lived in a country where he could have.