This Feb. 12, Howard Dean will likely be elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Upon being elected, Dean will immediately tear off his everyday clothes to reveal his true identity: liberal superhero sent to save the Democratic Party from becoming the embodiment of the spineless centrists who currently run it.
When Democrats voted for the well-intentioned safe bet, John Kerry, last primary season, they were unknowingly taking the first steps toward putting George W. Bush back in the White House for four more years of theatrics, lies and squinty-eyed, radical conservatism.
Kerry appeared to have a decent chance at winning. Looking back it is clear he lacked what Dean had-a clearly laid out liberal ideology to combat Bush's black-and-white conservatism.
Bush won last November because he appealed to the deep-seated values of the far right conservatives and Bible-thumpers who make up much of his base. According to a post-election poll, 96 percent of evangelical Christians and 98 percent of born-again Christians voted Bush.
Kerry did not win 98 percent of any voting block, turn-out was lower than expected and he lost the election. Kerry's loss showed that in American politics, idealism beats strategy every time. An idealistically appealing candidate will always beat the safe bet.
By contrast, Dean was idealistically appealing. When he appeared in Madison for the first time, nearly 10,000 people came out to see him. He railed against the unjust war in Iraq, said he would leave medical decisions like abortion safety to the FDA, proposed a sensible national healthcare program and promised huge new grants to fund college education.
If Democrats had only stuck with Dean, his brand of idealistic liberal politics could have won the White House for them by raising voter turnout and appealing to real liberal ideals.
This formula has proven successful. True idealism won back Russ Feingold his supposedly vulnerable Senate seat with a comfortable margin and won unapologetic Illinois liberal Barak Obama a seat in the Senate with over 70 percent support.
Even after the obvious failures of last November's safe-bet election strategy, Democrats like John Edwards are arguing that the party needs to get back to \values,"" and want to guide party strategy in that direction. This would be a horrible mistake.
A new ""faith"" or ""value""-based Democratic Party would be useless to most liberals because of the irreconcilable differences between liberal values and faith issues like abortion, gay rights and the death crusades in the Middle East.
Liberals come in all different styles-religious, atheist and unaligned-but they generally agree their faith does not belong in national and international politics. They should not be forced to concede that belief in order to allow a few lousy Democrats to cling to power by copying the Republican politics-and-faith formula.
Furthermore, a new down-home, faith-and-values Democratic Party would lose even worse than the safe-bet version did in November. The down-home folks already have a party and will not be easily convinced to switch to a new one.
The Democrats need to take the party in its own direction, instead of trying to catch one of the few remaining seats on the God, guns and gays bandwagon the Republicans have ridden to power. They need deviation from, not emulation of, the Republican way.
Howard Dean knew this last spring and he knows it now. Lucky for Democrats, he will soon be the new chairman of the DNC, and will once again have a chance to get the party headed back in the liberal direction. Never fear, Democrats, Super-Howard is back.
