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You're going wacky.
And to look at most of the replies to this thread, it seems no one has a clue what the technical definition of "hysterical" is. Because the Freepers are having a lot of fun watching you folks act it out.
Short answer: you can subscribe to Triumph of The Will approaches (see under "Bush"; see under "Dean and other Imitations of Bush") or study the reality we live in and accept it for what it is.
Triumph of The Will approach: drink the Dean Koolaid, ignore that funny almond smell to it. Lose in the primaries. Or, if that doesn't work, fail in a record landslide in the general where Republicans will paint Dean as Bush lite (oh, the irony!).
Reality: One-party states don't work; an honest 55-45 split makes things work for the People. Republicans win in the South because they can still point to the remaining, now dysfunctional, Old Democrats and make the case for knocking them out of office. The next generation of Democratic politicians is only beginning to form at the moment. The Northeast has achieved most of this purging already, to the point of replacing Republicans with a new generation of Democrats. In California and the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes they're in the middle of it. It's cultural evolution in action, visible as its political face.
Reality, Part II: Democrats are fighting out among themselves, purging from their collective the things for which they got removed from power. Despite limited victories, the truth is that the other side is in decline and what we are watching is their ever greater desperation to bring new people to their side and keep the ones they've had for a long time. Democrats are actually emerging out of the gray zone where the Parties can compensate for small differences in strength with structural advantages with a majority- if we can unify it. The gray zone is about 3% of voters, and our side- which was the minority- finally reached it around the end of the Clinton impeachment. Four years later we've gained the 3% and are emerging out of the gray zone. In most of the Blue States we're on the other side, in most of the Red States we're not. In another year, we'll be about 0.7% further. If Gore could get almost the whole available electorate to vote for him, the next nominee (with one or two exceptions among the top five at present) will do as well or better.
Reality, Part III: Republicans are doing everything they can think of to maximize their structural advantages and sway people. They overreach and are aggressive- it's what you do when you have power and are probably soon to lose it. A nearly Bolshevik insurgency inside their opponents' coalition is the best thing they can hope for, and that's why you see them attacking the serious candidates other than Dean.
Reality, Part IV: The Republican hold on much of the South and parts of the Midwest is pretty thin. Ohio and Florida is where they are most painfully vulnerable, and places like Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri are slipping away from them in the next two or three election cycles.
So let Mississippi and Kentucky go. They weren't within reach- Musgrove had nothing to show for four years as governor, and Patton's foibles plus Chandler's unwillingness to run on local issues were taken as reason enough to believe there, as in Mississippi, that local Democrats had not reformed sufficiently, come with better answers and people than Republicans, just yet. Of course, that's not how people tell the story or the media report it. But it's there between the lines in every attempt at an explanation.
I personally think that the Dean campaign is not going to make it. In January or so Dean will be running worst against Bush and the whole "electibility" can of worms will dog him. Maybe the primary voters won't warm to whoever emerges as the best choice, but by the fall most of the Dean supporters will have gotten over their miscalculations and it will be a winnable, fairly close, contest. And our side will have unity again, and not as fragile a kind as in the fall of '00.
You too will be able to believe again. Sure, you may be burnt out at the moment. Take some time off, let the 30-some million primary voters make the choice of nominee for you if you must- get on with your life and come back to politics in the summer. Under 1% real shift in the electorate per year is very frustrating to deal with unless you find a pattern in the storyline that makes it much easier to anticipate the swings in fortunes. (I watch the present develop in what seem to me strong parallels to events and power dynamic of a late portion of the Civil War. It seems to have predictive power, or has at least made me aware of how many interlinked theaters the present conflict is being played out in and how.)
Good luck and good cheer.
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