Well, there's triangulation, and then there's straddling. I doubt Hillary can simultaneously keep her left happy while appearing centrist, any more than Kerry could.

Why is Ickes surprised he twisted in the wind??

That's their MO.

"Bill was too sick, sad, physically weakened and unfocuse — and that Hillary, an ingénue without his guidance and leadership, didn't dare to try on her own for fear of publicly failing."

Bill is a pumphead. Hillary may be in real trouble.

Sometimes it's better to just stand aside and let the other guys rush off the cliff; easier to say "I told you so" than "Stop!"

Also more fun.

Hillary's picture on page 1 of USA Today this morning cannot have done her any good, even if her fainting spell is inconsequential.

You can't triangulate to make a scalene triangle - in politics, it has to be equilateral or isoceles. Robert is probably right. And there are plenty of Democrats who will not be able to resist the temptation to attack the Clintons.

There will be an anybody but Hillary candidate. I don't know who it will be.

Dick Morris knows better than this though. There is nobody to the Left of Harold Ickes in the Democratic party. He has been the attack dog of the Far Left in NY since grandpa was a pup. He has been an ideological gangster along the lines of Valery Suslov in the Brezhnev years, and with pretty much the same line of warmed-over Stalinism.

The notion that the Democrats were going to march off a cliff behind a far left loonball of limited interpersonal skills like Ickes was always inconceivable.

Scream if you want to but of the available candidates, Dean was by far the wisest choice.

The GOP will get no mileage out of Dean as DNC chair. How many voters know what a party chair does much less have it influence them on their vote?

Although Dean has liberal social views and attracted the crackpots because of his anti-war stance, he generally governed as a centrist. I predict his tenure will not as the crazed leftist loon the conservatives are craving for.

Dean's presence will pacify the moonbats, energize the liberals, and provide cover for the centrists in the primaries. Dean wants to win, and his attraction outside the moonbats is that he's seen as a fighter. This is probably the best move the Dems could make.

Bart:

Doesn't matter who it is--she'll crush him.

Mikhail Suslov, not Valery.

Isn't Sid Blumenthal lefter than Ickes?

oj,

You are probably right. But she will not get the nomination without some kind of serious opposition. The Kennedy wing cannot let her march in unscathed.

Jim,

Thanks. Blumenthal is a columnist not a professional political operative. Ickes' job was to make NYC Democrats pay a price for straying off the Bolshevik reservation. I don't think Ed Koch can speak his name without using at least one obscenity.

Ickes was Jesse Jackson's campaign manager in Hymietown, excuse me, NYC.

Bart:

It won't be serious. Gore had none either.

Gore was a sitting VP who didn't obviously drool.(at least not until Naomi Wolf got a hold of him) Hillary is a sitting senator. The last sitting senator who won the Presidency was JFK and the last one before him was Harding in 1920.

She won't win the presidency, but she'll be virtually unopposed for the nomination.

The fact that nobody other than perhaps Hillary herself thinks she can win the Presidency will necessitate a challenge from someone. The GOP won in 2000, gained seats in both houses in 2002, won in 2004, gained seats in 2004 in both houses, and will gain even more seats in 2006. If the Democrats do not wish to go the way of the Whigs, they will not want to be in a situation where they will lose seats in 2008.

A 400 EV stomping in a Presidential race, and that is what will happen to Hillary, would lose them seats.

No one challenged Mondale, Dole, Gore or Kerry.

Gary Hart at least forced Mondale to announce (with all solemnity) to the press: "I am the nominee."

And had Hart won NJ, Mondale would have had a tough time saying even that much.

Gore was a sitting VP and all the others ran against incumbents, when it is always an uphill fight even if the sitting President is a blithering idiot. The Presidency is open in 2008, and there will be a long list of Dems running.

None of stature.

When Dole got the nomination gratis three of the last four incumbents had been beaten.

jim:

Hart reflected Mondale's weakness, not Hart's seriousness as a candidate.

Agreed on Mondale.

I also think the "open" path to the presidency in '08 will make it more restrictive for the candidates, not less.

There will only be 2 serious GOP contenders (like 1980 or 2000), no matter who enters the ring.

And the Democrats will be hell-bent on either picking HRC or on stopping her, so there will be only 1 or 2 possible alternatives. Even this year, there were only 2 Democrats who did anything. No matter how many run in 2008, all but a couple will evaporate after about Feb. 20.

Remember, a Chairman Dean gets to order the primaries.