Great Endorsement for Dean on the front page

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/01/16_dean.html

This is by Mike Schiller. I don't know if he posts here but he writes some great articles.
*************************************************

Before Howard Dean announced his candidacy, I sent out an email to fellow Democratic activists explaining why I felt Howard Dean would be the best candidate to take on the Bush Administration. Rather than reiterate the points made in that letter, I will paraphrase them and then move on to an explanation of why my support for him has only solidified over the past year.

The main thing which initially caught my attention was his defense of civil unions in the face of immeasurable adversity at a time when supporting gay rights was unpopular. I saw the Democrats in the Senate split on issues like that all throughout 2001 and 2002, with the Boxer-Corzine wing vigorously defending human and labor rights, and the Lieberman-Miller wing waffling on the most critical issues. I saw the so-called "moderates" of the party cast indefensible votes for political reasons, rather than reasons of conscience. Interestingly enough, many of these votes saw Jim Jeffords, a true moderate and former republican, siding with the Boxer-Corzine wing of the party. That fact made it clear that the DLC's Senate standard-bearers had moved too far to the right to call themselves moderate. I knew that the Democratic Party needed real leadership, and that void had to be filled by someone with the experience of staring down critics while pursuing some noble, just, cause that was initially unpopular with their own constituents- and succeeding in achieving the goal of justice in that situation (rather than easily conceding defeat and blaming the opposition for their failure, which is what so many in the Senate had been doing over the past year).

Howard Dean fit the exact description of what I felt the Democratic Party needed, and he has since proven himself to be an even better candidate than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. He has done, on the campaign trail with our political system, what he did in Vermont with gay rights. Changed the rules, faced down his critics, and told the American people the truth about things nobody else was willing to talk about - even when doing so appeared to create controversy that could "backfire".
<more>

Very professional. I don't support Dean, but some good things were said. I will definitely have to rethinkhow I feel about him, especially with some of the information I've been finding here on DU.

:)

It's par for the course--so why were you pleased?

There is no bias and the DU administration took the time to make certain nobody would claim that the site endorsed any one of the candidates.

It makes me feel more comfortable being here.

Welcome

If you haven't read the articles on the front page you should. The top ten conservative idiots is worth checking out.

I'm slogging through a lot of stuff I was pointed to on another thread. I had no idea how uninformed I really am until I came here.