Shout It Out, Howard!

Oregon Democratic Party Chairman Jim Edmunds has an LA Times guest column homage to one of my personal political heros, Howard Dean:

Howard Dean's election as Democratic National Committee chairman was a shot across the bow of Washington's power clique, so it does not surprise us at the state-party level in Oregon that he is making our kin inside the Beltway nervous.

In fact, it delights us.

Dean speaks loudly about things our folks in Washington tip-toe to avoid. He condemns the Iraq war as misguided. He wonders why we don't worry more about nuclear weapons in North Korea.

Republicans preach morality, he says, but ignore poverty in the United States. Where is the respect for privacy when Republicans want to legislate end-of-life decisions for a brain-dead woman?

And Dean, the white Christian, acerbically grumbles that our nation is not stronger if we are viewed only as Caucasian mono-religious.

Are those comments misguided, or are they timely? The way we see it from this end of the country, the former presidential candidate is catching the wave.

Oregon isn't middle-America. When I hear the pundit class talking about Howard Dean not having appeal in the Heartland as if its some sort of negative--I cheer. The Heartland brought us the likes Joe McCarthy and has consistently voted disastrous politicos.

The well educated, tuned-in Oregonian knows better than that.

Yes..I said "well educated". Going to school and learning from educated people IS NOT A BAD THING, as much as the right would have us think so. Dean appeals to the well educated, engaged individuals who find the direction our nation is heading to be nothing short of catastrophic.

Moreover, Dean has a reliable way of being right. Something as Edmunds notes, drives a shot across the bow of the Washington power clique elites.

So keep on shouting, Howard. Give em hell.